PTC + Mathsoft = A Fine Marriage

This is about PTC's acquisition of Mathsoft. This is reminiscent of
the merger between Dassault and ABAQUS a while ago.

For those of you who use Excel, I do believe the connectivity will
remain. This merger will allow another avenue to which analysis can be
combined with design.

I happen to use Mathcad. I prefer the functional formulae over
"cryptic" spreadsheets. These can be inserted into documents much
faster than creating them with MS Equation Editor by "reverse
engineering" the spreadsheet.

Some of you may want to take a look at this article,
"Converting Excel to Mathcad: Best Practices" found at the following
link:
http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6330020.html?nid=2328&rid=1142639909
(if the link doesn't work search www.designnews.com for the title).

Greg Albert

 

In general, I guess I'd have to agree. Any infusion of new blood into the
fossilized carcass of PTC can only be a good thing. Of course, there are those
who'd say there are still useful features of Computer Vision, which PTC bought 18
years ago, that they've yet to incorporate into functional software. And what of
InterComm, Harmony, ArboText, Windchill, Dimension III, CADDS5i? PTC
lacksadaisically picks the bones of these, as well, for, yawn, useful artifacts
for Pro/ENGINEER. While, naturally, stringing along thier acquired user base. (How
many times have we heard that CADDS is going away?)

Certainly, the recent acquisition of ArborText gave users some hope that glaring
deficiencies of Pro/e to handle text would be alleviated. Yet, it could be years
before there is any evidence of this. And, it certainly wouldn't have taken the
purchase of a publishing company to get us a decent text editor. Nor, if users
were the focus, would it have taken the purchase of specialized math and analysis
software to get us a decent interface to equations. They just decided to purchase
results instead of making the effort themselves for their user base. They bought
their way into a new market. Kudos!?! For laziness? like the brilliant move of
outsourcing "support" to the "English speaking" marble-mouths of India? Noticeable
improvements!?! Years away, call it software trickle down. User driven? Nada,
nichts, nein, nullo, nyet, no not hardly.

 

Error of fact: PTC bought CV in '97, 9 years ago.

[/QUOTE]

 

If anybody should be upset over outsourcing of tech support to India it
should be me, as PTC gave me a severance check a few years ago and told
me I was replaced with cheap labor in India. However, that being said,
I dont take anything personally.

I dont like the term marble mouth, I've never heard it before, but it
seems disrespectfull. I believe the PTC employees in India that took
my job are honest and hard working. Feel free to criticize PTC and any
of thier employees all day long, I think it can be done respectfully.

I think I'll add a funny a note with this story. The last few weeks I
was working for PTC tech support in Salt Lake City they started
bringing online the India call center. The funny thing was, several
times a day somebody would talk to myself or another person next to me,
then immediately afterwards call management on the feedback line with
the call number and complain that they coudn't understand us cause of
our thick Indian accents. They didn't realize they were talking to the
Salt Lake City office, and were too intent on complaining to wait till
they actually talked to an Indian to complain. I can see that feedback
converstion "so John Doe of our Salt Lake office has a thick Indian
accent eh?"

 

I think the point that David Janes was trying to make was that PTC doesn't
really give a damn about many of its customers (unless you are a big
account). We switched to one of their competitors due to this fact and
haven't regretted it one bit.