Applications for SOLIDWORKS on a stick

This year at SOLIDWORKS World, SOLIDWORKS announced to a select number of people they are piloting a project where they installed SOLIDWORKS on a USB jump drive! I, like nearly everyone else in the room were pretty impressed and looked forward to playing with it….but really had a hard time coming up with practical applications for it. I figured if nothing else, once the trial period timed out I was getting a free 2GB jump drive.

I played with it on two of my machines, it did quite well! Seemed a little slow starting up, but once it was running, it seemed nearly as fast as a normal installation.

But what can I do with it?

1. It could be a poor man’s network installation. Say you have a computer in the back that you use only occasionally, -don’t want to consume a full SOLIDWORKS license -don’t want to pony up for a network license either
2. If you have several customers, each demanding you provide them with SOLIDWORKS data in a different version. Today you can duel-install, or even tri-install but several SOLIDWORKS installations on the same machine takes up a lot of disk space.
3. Hate doing SOLIDWORKS upgrades? Imagine just walking to everyone’s cubical and handing them a new USB key. “Here use this one instead”
4. How much time do you spend evaluating a new service pack before you roll it out to your users? This time could be cut drastically, if a service pack turns out to be a dud, just tell everyone to use the old drive instead!

Doesn’t take much to then imagine CAD managers walking around with a key chain full of SOLIDWORKS installations. -Probably makes the SOLIDWORKS licensing department’s heads spin! Will SOLIDWORKS on a stick ever become a reality? I hope so; I suppose it is up to the lawyers.