By Jean-Michel Koch, European Marketing Manager, Geomagic
The Steigenberger Graf Zeppelin hotel downtown Stuttgart was poised and ready to welcome the European Geomagic resellers and OEMs for the presentation of the new 2012 versions of Geomagic Studio, Geomagic Qualify, Geomagic Qualify Probe and Geomagic Wrap.
An amazing number of attendees were expected, 60 people, including 44 partners from 14 countries. Public transportation is on strike today in Germany, hopefully that's not gonna hurt. The event is expected to start at 11.00am for registration and a quick coffee reception .
DAY 1
11.00 Perfectly on time the registration started around a nice buffet and strong coffee, perfect timing as the autumn season was apparent outside and kind of freezy.
11.45 Public transportation strike? No way, they all made it. Hooray! Gerd opened the meeting with a welcome to all partners, presenting them 1:1, that s cool! and an overview of the schedule
12.30 Porsche (image left) gave us a presentation as a taste of the great content we can expect during the next couple of days. Great presentation, showing us that Porsche cars are more than just a product
13.00 Lunch, around 70 people walked over to the Graf Zeppelin restaurant for lunch, all people mixed up from 14 different countries, no language barrier, perfect networking
14.00 The show must go on. One of the most exciting parts is ready to be presented:- Geomagic Qualify Probe. Steve Fletcher from Geomagic UK took the lead and brought us through the whole new functionalities of this metrology software. Amazing, Nice, that's what people were saying to themselves. The atmosphere was about"give me more", very interesting times in front of us J
15.00 Time for some automation. James Preiss and Marco Albrecht presented the new functionalities of scripting and the flexibility for future applications. Exciting, very exciting.
15.30 Time for a break around a good coffee, a few people were staying in the presentation room to offer feedback of what they saw during the last 2 hours. The expression on their faces was pretty clear; it's good to be here,
15.45 Time for Geomagic Studio and Geomagic Wrap: Eric Wind was presenting the new functionalities with a focus on the anticipated Sketching functions in the 2012 products. Another step in the right direction, well done. CAD is getting closer and my job is now even easier. Cool Stuff!
17.00 Meyer Werft (image right) is presenting their shipyards; How can this huge peace of metal stay over water? A great presentation from Ralph Zimmermann about the production of the floating palace. Thanks to Geomagic these monsters can float J.
18.00 End of Day 1, we were all invited for a special event in downtown Stuttgart in a restaurant called La Commedia, a popular location for Stuttgart locals.
20.00 Perfectly on time, we were all welcome at Luigi s La Commedia, a beautiful Italian restaurant with a lounge bar just for the Geomagic community. Networking and relationship become the words of the day, with all the partners from all the countries mixing around a fantastic meal with an excellent wine. Good choice, I will come back!
02.30 We left the restaurant with the very last partner, another great day in front
DAY 2
After a short night and an early wake up, its time to talk business. Gerd opened the session with Information about the company, the market and the future. It resulted in a lot of interaction between the partners and a very good feedback about the positioning of Geomagic Qualify Probe in the market.
Marketing followed with a presentation (by Jean-Michel) presenting the website and the launch of the 2012 products. Good interaction between partners asking about branding, how Geomagic will announce the 2012 products and how Geomagic can help them to promote. There are a lot more tools and resources available today and they were excited to start using them.
Competitive analyses, presented by William Momenceau, were interesting to better understand how Geomagic understands its place on the market. With the new versions coming that's gonna change, way up!
After these 2 days, I left the meeting with a very positive feeling for the future. It was a very good meeting, very good information, strong networking and a clear message about the future direction. People I talked to during the meeting felt the same: I was told several times that it was the best meeting Geomagic ever held.
