Release Schedule for SmartCAM V12 Announced

September 17, 2004 - Eugene Oregon - SmartCAMcnc has announced the release schedule for the SmartCAM Version 12 product suite.

In November 2004, the company will begin releasing to maintenance customers those products that primarily rely on wireframe design data. Those products are: SmartCAM Production Milling, SmartCAM Production Turning, SmartCAM Fabrication, SmartCAM Wire EDM and SmartCAM Advanced Turning. Following those releases, SmartCAM Advanced Milling will be released in December 2004, with SmartCAM FreeForm Machining due out in January 2005.

Version 12 represents the SmartCAMcnc’s first release of its industry- pioneering software since the company was founded in December, 2003. Prior to that time, the software sat idle while it was owned but not developed by a series of companies. This new release is the first by any company since 1998.

“We’re a new company, but we are also extremely experienced at developing and marketing SmartCAM,” said Gregg Olson, president of SmartCAMcnc, “Our senior level staff all came out of the original SmartCAM development offices in Eugene, Oregon. Our challenge is to take the existing code base, modernize it and deliver a release that the customer base finds valuable. I am enormously confident we can and will do that with Version 12.”

Doug Leopold, Director of Software Development, believes SmartCAM users will find the first release to be a very beneficial one.

“Our mission is two-fold,” Leopold said, “first, to begin the process of redesigning the software architecture which will allow us to include substantial product enhancements in future versions; and second, to deliver current data translators so our customers can read in files from contemporary design systems. We have heard loud-and-clear from our customer base that they need updated data translators and they need them as soon as we can possibly deliver them. Version 12 will accomplish both of these missions.”

Olson further stressed the importance of the recent addition of Patrick Engel to head the company’s architecture development team, “There may be no greater authority on the strengths of the current SmartCAM construction; and there is no one I would prefer to see lead our efforts to build on those strengths with the forthcoming releases of SmartCAM.”

SmartCAM’s History
SmartCAM was originally developed in the 1980’s by early CAM-industry leader Point Control Company. In the late 1990’s SmartCAM was the casualty of four corporate acquisitions and reacquisitions. “As early leaders of the development team, we saw tremendous success with SmartCAM. But with each new acquisition we found it increasingly difficult to obtain corporate-level support for a stand-alone CAM system. Eventually corporate management moved our entire development staff to various integrated CAD/CAM products,” Olson explained. “Unfortunately for our large and faithful user base, SmartCAM was mothballed.”

"With this release, SmartCAM is back, as strong as ever, and it will not be going anywhere for a long, long time."