PTC Buisness practices

[spark4]

We are a small engineering firm, we used do have 4 seats of Proe we currently have 3 seats of Proe and 2 seat of Solidworks. When we loaded wildfire we discoverd that advanced surfacing was included in th liscence pack with foundations. But one of our seats of foundations was purchased a year before the other, and it did not include surfacing. They are telling us that the earlier foundations is not the current foundations and it would cost $3,000 to upgrade.

If there current basse product includes surfacing then we should have advanced surfacing capability on all seats. This is what we pay maintenence for, is it not?

It would have cost us less to never pay our maintenence and just buy a new seat every 3 to 4 years.

When Solidworks adds functionality to the product they do not ask us for more money to upgrade (BECAUSE WE PAY MAINTENENCE).

Proe is quickly becoming an endagered species in our firm. They treat there current customer base like @#&#. We have been screwed by them for the last time!!!

 

[gggggggggg]

our company too has run into the EXACT same situation. i, too, felt screwed when I first discovered this. i say discovered this because PTC sure as shit doens't disclose this info.



i talked with our reseller about 6 months ago to try to get this resolved, & they just never got back to me.

 

[ViZ]

I had the Foundation II package and when I ran it through the PTC Auto Wildfire License update The Foundation II became the Foundation Advantage License for Wildfire and it included de advanced surface and advanced assembly extensions...



Try it it may work...



best regards,

 

[miked]

PTC is not the only company that screws people, I have had just as much if not more fun trying to deal with EDS (UG and Ideas).

I havent found a software company yet that I enjoy dealing with and that includes Solidworks.

Mike

 

[spark4]

I also have dealt with IDEAS, and Soldworks. The way PTC screws there customers is by far the worst. We have had Proe since release 17. that seat cost $23,000 and maintenece fee was based on that price. The current base product has everthing and some of our original liscence. We no longer pay maintence on that. Why would we?

 

[bhayden]

PTC is between a rock and a hard place. They were the low cost alternative to packages like Catia. Then SolidWorks did to PTC what ProE did to Desault Systems. Turn about's fair play I guess. Now PTC is faced with the choice of giving back revenue to customers that bought expensive packages several years back vs losing market share to the new kids in town (i.e SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, Think3, etc.). Short term they are in a finacial bind and need to return to profitability. Long term the situation is even diceyer. There are more players in a market that is not growing nearly as fast as it was. Losing existing users while attracting an ever shrinking percentage of new MCAD seats is certain disaster.



I'm sure PTC sees PLM as it's savior. That is the only segment that is growing. The inclusion of Intralink with ProE I believe sets ProE apart from any other MCAD solution. Leveraging the ProE user base to get PLM products in the door is a great stratagy. Hopefully PTC will see fit to stop milking it's Cash Cow of overpriced maintenance and upgrade fees and concentrate on returning ProE to the position it once held as the dominant 3D solids package.



-Bernie-

 

[spark4]

I agree with Bernie's assesment.



The way they are doing buisness gives me no insetive to keep up on maintenence. We will pay for one seat of maintenence, and for the other seats we will wait 2-3 years, and buy new liscences for them, by then they may bundle intralink within there base packedge.



Case in point.



We purchesed Foundations in 99. for 5,995 plus 1,500/yr maint. now they want us to pay 2,000 to upgrade to the current base packadge that is a grand total of 15,495 to date to get our seat to a level that they now sell for 4,000.

 

[swcalvert]

Sounds like we at Dresser/Wayne got screwed too. Corporate got some great deal, but after listening to you guys, it doesn't seem so great. We sure spend a lot on maintenance. For what, I'm not sure.



Steve C

 

[biff]

It's no good people trying to condone PTC's attitude towards it's client base.



The fact of the matter is that PTC are screwing companies over the maintenance deals in the UK.



My maintenance package is close to

 

[Brian_Adkins]

Last time I was 'buying', I think PTC's maintenance price was around 13% for most stuff, but 25% for Foundation... I'm not sure how that compares to today (I haven't dealt

with them in about 4 years).



Here's an interesting article on maintenance contracts in general...



Software maintenance agreements:

http://www.nwfusion.com/careers/2002/0218man.html

Although the program and pricing vary by vendor and type of application,

some reports indicate the cost for software maintenance is anywhere between

7% and 89% of the software's list price. Most IT executives consider 10% to

12% a reasonable annual fee. To get the most bang for your buck, use these

tips for negotiating software maintenance agreements:...



(I uploaded a PDF version for posterity... I hate when these links get stale and don't work any more)



-Brian Adkins

 

[bhayden]

Yeah, our CFO gets really torqued by the high, percentage wise cost of PTC maintenance. I keep trying to sell him on the idea we just got a great deal on the initial purchase price of the software but he's not buying it :+)



That aside I've been reasonably happy with the level of technical support. Hopefully my last run in was an aberration, we'll see. The other part of the equation is that I expect the software to improve year to year and over time recieve functionality that was previously included in higher cost packages. This is where PTC runs afoul of their high end users that are shelling out more in maintenance each year than we spent on the initial software package. It'll only fly if the high end users get some really powerful upgrades thrown in for free.



I can't believe anyone paying more than the cost of foundation maintenance doesn't recieve a single site license for ProIntralink. Say it ain't so Joe! This isn't only a crime it's piss poor marketing to boot.



-Bernie-

 

[Heathbn]

True true and true.

One fact you all are leaving out is that from the low and software

 

[bhayden]

>Hell lets just look at the CNC side of Pro-E. I looked at >all of them Gibbs, Cimitron, all of them. ... most of >them can