[honky_mec]

It also appears that it's based on revenue, not end users of CAM programming software. It also doesn't really elaborate on which products are included in those revenue figures. I suspect a great deal of the revenue is unrelated to the topic at hand.

The evaluation of Cimdata is very important doc. which is sold every year for software authors that they always wait for.
This evaluation is based on many parameters the main one is the number of seats sold and it's fair. As why a customer could pay for minus solution?

Hosni

[MikesMetals]

But, the same Cimdata numbers, when looking at Installed Seats as opposed to Direct Revenue, (like the info you posted) shows a much different picture:

"The most recent analysis of CAM software seats produced by CIMdata, Inc. shows that CNC Software’s Mastercam® is the world’s most widely-used CAM software. With more than 150,000 installed seats, Mastercam has more than twice the installed base of the closest competitor. "

I'm not trying to say that is proof that Mastercam is the best software, just that it wins the popularity contest.

[BurrMan]

"The TOP software" and "the one that does everything" are going to be 2 different things.

The "top" software question needs to have a definition applied to it to get a good answer. "What is meant by top"?

The one that does everything will be the one that's most customizable from head to toe. So like their are factories that are running very complex multi axis robots that are using a multi million dollar custom implementation of NX and the components that go along with it. You could pretty much throw most of the programs on the chart out at that point. I recognize a couple others that have that ability, but then the "best" just becomes the opinion, or application involved.

I think the question needs some qualifications added.

[mountaindew]

A person can gain some information from the cam forum directory here.
Look at the most active, posts and topics as a whole. From that point of view 3 or 4 stand out big time.
Just an observation
md