I haven't heard anything but some rhetoric from some of the Autodesk resellers on the HSM forum about what the future is for HSMWorks and Solidworks...  I am a Solidworks user who unfortuneatly chose HSMWorks 3 axis milling about 1.5 years ago.  I believe that Autodesk is going to phase out its integration into the Solidworks platform.

Is there any reaction from Solidworks about this?  I know they dropped HSM's gold partner status, but I would like to see what Solidworks has to say about this.

There has to be some contractual agreement between Solidworks and its gold partners to have some type of fiduciary responsibility to their customer base?  How could they be allowed to develop a software package in the s/w environment for years, then be purchased by s/w's biggest competitor?  Someone must have found a loop hole, or maybe it states that they have to keep the integration active for x-amount of time??

I think answers are needed.  How long will HSMWorks be compatible with s/w?  End of 2013?  No more bug fixes, or development?  I'd like to hear s/w's side of the story as well - how did they react, and what is being done on their end to either maintain the relationship or end it?

This all makes me very apprehensive about buying another integrated CAM system....as convenient as it is, any one of those partners could do the same thing it seems....would be nice to know the actual rules established by s/w to their gold partners to see if there is any protection for the customer in the end.