Last week I received the first press release from a CAD company that made me laugh out loud, in a good way. Robert McNeel and Associates took the time last week to issue a press release saying they shipped Rhino about two months ago.
“I need to apologize for not telling everyone sooner that we were shipping Rhino 4.0,” explained Bob McNeel, McNeel’s CEO, in the press release. “Our plan was to inform the beta users first, followed by the registered Rhino users, and then the subscribers to our newsletter and the public, all within a few days, but by the time we let the beta and registered users know we were shipping, we were overwhelmed.”
Most CAD companies make a big production out of a product launch. Teams of marketing people, sometimes with the aid of an outside public relations firm, plan every detail. Bob McNeel runs his company a bit differently. Of the 45 or so employees in the Seattle headquarters, only two are dedicated marketing employees. They turn to a PR firm (CAD specialist StrategicReach of Denver) only occasionally. The majority (23) are programmers and related development staff.
I saw Bob McNeel last week at COFES and we talked about this “oh, by the way” launch announcement. He said they had all hands in shipping for weeks, trying to get out the orders that rushed in when they announced Rhino 4.0 to the beta users. “We literally didn’t have time to do anything else,” Bob McNeel said.“We were swamped.”
Now, about the product. McNeel says Rhino 4.0 “is the most significant new version in the history of Rhino.” There are over 800 new features and enhancements. If you want to catch up with it all, check out the video at
www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm. If you plan to buy, there are 700 dealers worldwide with copies in stock. They found time to ship them some before the announcement, too.
McNeel doesn't do everything at the last minute. Rhino 4.0, for example, has been in development for three years. And some members of the press (including me) will be attending a training conference in late May to get a product overview. I’ll report on the product in more detail then.
--RSN