See how SW Corp and Var's really care....

Paul,



After July 16th SolidWorks will increase the fee to renew an expired

SolidWorks/Cosmos to $850.00 per year. This fee will increase an

additional $850.00 per year thereafter.



Example:



Seat expired 90 days to 1 year - $850.00 plus Annual Maintenance



Seats expired 366 days to 2 years – 1700.00 plus Annual Maintenance



Seats expired 2 years to 3 years - $2500.00 plus Annual Maintenance



GoEngineer did not want any of our customers to miss the opportunity

to reinstate any expired SolidWorks/Cosmos asset at the existing rate.



Reinstating your expired SolidWorks/Cosmos assets between now and

July 16th 2008 can be done at the existing rate of $500.00 per seat

plus Annual Maintenance.



Please contact your Customer Service Representative.



Tyler Haggin

Customer Service Representative

GoEngineer

1990 S. Milestone Dr. #A

Salt Lake City, UT. 84104



800-688-3234

801-359-6100

Fax 801-359-6169

 

Interesting.

Let's say you renew every 4th year in December or January.

Year 1 -- 2008 (3995)
Year 2 -- 2008
Year 3 -- 2008
Year 4 -- 2011 (2* 850 + 1395) = 3095
Year 5 -- 2012
Year 6 -- 2012
Year 7 -- 2014 (2* 850 + 1395) = 3095
Year 8 -- 2015

Total Cost of Software = $10,185 which is 25% less than staying on
maintenance. In this eight year period you miss 3 new releases and get
all stable releases. Even renewing every third year is about a 22%
saving and fewer missed releases. The big trick is getting the VAR to
sell the initial seat without maintenance which probably isn't a good
idea if you are just starting out. This also won't work if you are in
a growing company that needs new seats every year.

Am I missing something?

TOP

 

"zxys" <> a écrit dans le message de ...
Paul,



After July 16th SolidWorks will increase the fee to renew an expired

SolidWorks/Cosmos to $850.00 per year. This fee will increase an

additional $850.00 per year thereafter.


If it turns that way, next upgrade will be the last. (we upgrade every 3
years)

It will be cheaper to get a good price on new licences every 4 years...

 

Yup, something is missing for me.

I don't mind paying maintenance when I get solid software on the date
of payment.

Since I have been paying maintenance in Dec or January and not using a
new year's release until about summer, I'm losing out paying money
early so I won't have a late fee.

All these schemes to get more money out of users (loyal users) is
being done because SolidWorks CAN NOT release solid nearly bug free
updates on January 1 each year. To try to sucker in users, SolidWorks
releases a beta under SP0 on your existing years' maintenance fee,
hoping you get sucked in and will therefore be willing to pay
maintenance.

I would dearly love to get an SP 0 and have other early users report
online that there are no bugs they can find and thus recommend
everyone load up SP0. It would make paying maintenance fees OK.

 

Hey you guys,... reading this yesterday... it points to a few things
and their true selves,.. the var's and sw corp are GREEDY FUCKING
BASTARDS!!!

and yes, they know people are going off subscription to save money and
they know, we know,.. they put out BETAWARE for the paying custumers
to test and we are TIRED OF IT!!!

..

 

Let's put this in perspective. Even with the policy change,
SolidWorks Corp is still better than competitors.

PTC - you must backpay maintenance to the expiration date AND pay a
25% penalty.

Autodesk - One release behind, pay a $995 Upgrade Fee AND Subscription
Service
Two releases behind, pay a $1495 Upgrade Fee AND
Subscription Service
Three releases behind, buy a new license.
NOTE: Subscription Service does NOT include tech
support

Don't get me wrong, I prefer the $500 reinstallation fee, but the
weeds are still worse on the other side of the fence.

 

Jim, glad you noted the differences. I don't review other CAD
packages.

I am NOT against charging a fee to reinstitute maintenance services
including customer support. That is, well, normal business that is
known upfront going in on a "deal". There is one part of the deal
that is NOT revealed when you buy, though, and not a part of any
"guarantee" or "warranty of fittness"; specifically that the software
will be stable and not have any broken features (if they are broken,
leave them out).

What I would like is a fully functional SP 0 on January 1. I simply
hate paying on January 1, then not loading the application until
August or September when it gets to SP 5.

If a company can't get the software right until August-September, then
it ought to be released as SP0 for the following year.

Bo

 

Hey Bo,

I personally do not see this as NORMAL business. This is a business
charge which has evolved from the OLD VAR and Vertical software
companies and it clearly showed a backlash.

For me, I have absolutely NO need for a VAR,... yet, I have to pay
them a fee,... WHY? They are FUCKING USELESS!!!

Personally I think this is the result of sales people who use to work
for ADe$k, PTC,.. and the FUCKING GREEDY DICK WADS are not GETTING
ENOUGH $$$ so, the want to RAPE the system. Hey, they've done it in
the past.... they will do it again.

WE ALL KNOW THESE PEOPLE ARE USELESS OVERHEAD SCUM SUCKING AMOEBA So,
why do we continue to pay them and why do companies have them????????

Anyway, I have too ask,.. if one of my customers (who I supported for
4 years) decided to go to another consultant for 2 years,.. and they
came back to me after those 2 years,... do I charge them a
reinstatement fee??? Hmm? There is NO FUCKING WAY THAT WILL EVER
HAPPEN!!

..

 

I agree for a "consultant" you can't do a reinstatement fee.

For paying for yearly new "upgrades" for SolidWorks, I don't mind
paying a yearly fee, except I want fully functional non-buggy software
at the time I pay the fee.

I do not like the concept of "forcing" upgrades or reinstatements, if
the customer doesn't want it. In reality, I wonder if most companies
like to upgrade SolidWorks every year, because of the learning and
turmoil. I think major upgrades should be every 2 YEARS, partly
because you barely get a stable release and they are already putting
out the beta for the next year's upgrade.

With both individuals and companies increasingly relying on software,
it becomes a nightmare when needed parts of key software breaks, and
there is no way to recover other than revert everything including data
files to the prior year's release.

 

I learned back in 98+ days that not all SPs or releases are production
ready. What I had to put up with back then pales with today's
experience. I would say that learning to differentiate problems with
the software from problems with the user is what has made us stronger,
more savvy users (as opposed to stronger, more savvy designers and
engineers).

With my scheme and SW current very early release the software should
be stable about the end of the year. Couple that with the usual end of
year software specials and SW could again become cost effective.

We have to bear in mind that SW has not increased the base price ever
so they are in effect getting $2971.24 in 1995 dollars for a seat
today. However, in 1995 they sold just a few thousand seats whereas
now they are selling 100,000s of seats per year. The cost of the
software doesn;t increase with increasing sales, only the cost of
copying and shipping goes up. Even the cost of bugs doesn't go up
because there are (and this is hard to believe) only a finite number
of bugs.

Just hypothetically:

1995
Sell 5,000 seats in 1995 ($19,975,000)
Sell 4,000 maint. aggreements ($5,580,000)
New features weren't released or announced till they were considered
ready inside SW.

2008
Sell 200,000 seats ($594,200,000) in 1995 dollars
Sell 500,000 maint. aggreements ($518,760,000) in 1995 dollars
New features are promised and then never show up (like the ability to
save back a version).

It would be interesting to see what percentage of this gross income
went into development in 1995 versus 2008. And then Dassault got
their hooks into SW. At first they towed the line, but later I think
they really started pushing for returns.

Finally, Jimsym states that SW is still better than the competitors. I
wonder. Working with UG I have found that one thing is certain, when I
call in with a problem it gets solved then and there for me. SW
considers problems solved when an SPR is issued. And UG loads and
runs well on far less hardware than SW does. It may be a pain to use,
but given the number of times I have had to relearn SW, this steeper
learning curve doesn't look as bad as it once did.

TOP

 

Peter Drucker: “To be prepared for change ... work on the most
expensive of resources - TIME ...”

"Looking back": Interesting words, as they illustrate how major
decisions executed from fear can adversely affect products.

1. Windows: 1990s promises by Gates for "Industrial Strength"
operating system. What came out was not Industrial Strength, and
indeed MS was never an expert at operating systems, but just cobbled
things together, and arguably could have done far better given the
demonstrated success of UNIX and other stable OS's on mainframes
(which was needed by SolidWorks users)..

2. Legacy Code: Windows continued to try to be "all things to all
prior OS versions", creating memory, registry, dll, and other issues
causing crap and corruption (not needed by SolidWorks users).

3. Unsecure "Features": To help their OEM customers & developers
implement their own form of adware on low cost beige box systems.

4. Programming environment: Various coders have made notes about the
lack of top notch tools and consistency.

5. New Revolutionary OS: Longhorn pared down and back and years
late, and not anything like was promised.

As a counterpoint Steve Jobs realized the need for a whole, high
quality networked OS system based on a stable, maintained kernel to
which a user interface could be added along with top notch programming
tools, update system via a network and that core OS was UNIX. Steve
did that decision based on what was already obvious to someone
watching networking in the 80s as networked offices & the Internet was
approaching.

Microsoft could just as easily have picked UNIX, but they didn't want
anyone "copying", like they did starting with the CPM port which
became DOS that MS bought. Microsoft could just as easily pick UNIX
today. Instead we are left with XP Pro or Vista and stripping them
down to work as good as possible for SolidWorks. The counterpoint to
that? Steve Jobs realized that the Unix OS kernel was NOT where all
the proprietary advantages lay, but that the programming systems and
user interface were where all the customer value resided.

Microsoft has missed the boat, thinking they have to "do it all" on
the OS. MS could also easily have picked a Unix kernel and moved
ahead solidly like Apple (& lots of other companies that use Unix).

What does that give SolidWorks Corporation? An unstable programming
environment on somewhat sensitive (unstable?) hardware that runs
Windows.

What does that give SolidWorks users? Software and hardware that is a
bit unstable and not easy to debug or make stable.

Ballmer is strictly a salesman oriented manager, and attempting to
keep the OS & Office & Server monopoly he controls. Can Ballmer turn
Windows into a 21st Century OS. I think he could, but do not think he
will.

So where will SolidWorks go in 5 years? Maybe where Unigraphics and
others already operate, in Unix?

Where will SolidWorks users go in 5 years? If MS fails to deliver, I
personally will probably move to UG. That means I am likely not to be
alone in these thoughts.

Peter Drucker noted that in a knowledge society that the most
important thing you can do is do things which stop wasting time,
picking paths which cease to waste the efforts of your most valuable
people, knowledge workers. He wrote this starting in the 60s, and
followed it up with over 3 dozen books on management and the future of
business.

Peter Drucker (who died last year at about 96) would have no trouble
seeing the problems with computers and software systems that waste
incredible amounts of programmer, user and corporate time, just
because the OS and its programming tools are poorly designed.

SolidWorks is going to face a big challenge, and I don't know if
hanging onto Windows will serve it well. In the end, I care only that
I don't waste my time, as once gone, I can never recover lost time.
SolidWorks must become more efficient for me or I will naturally
migrate to systems that don't waste my time.

All Bo's BS above? Take it as you like it or not. I do think I can
see trends, however, and it is plainly visible.

Bo

 

Looking back at MS's promises to deliver an "Industrial Strength OS"
in the mid 90s, and what has happened since does NOT give me
confidence that the OS SolidWorks runs on will continue to be
efficient. That is particularly true, when you add FEA applications
on top, and as SWks itself becomes heavier.

MS is afraid to run a UNIX kernel, as they can't "control" their OS.
Jobs realized you wanted a solid kernel and that UNIX was maintained
very well. Jobs also realized you had to have a terrific set of
programming tools and accommodated networking (secure networking) in
the User Interface almost seamlessly, and Apple bought into it with
the aquisition of NEXT. MS could do the same, but it is run by
Ballmer, a totally wacky salesman.

If SolidWorks becomes more unmanageable on Windows, it is simple that
I will migrate to Unigraphics. Prior promises over and over If I am
looking at this, I can't be the only one.

Peter Drucker: “To be prepared for change ... work on the most
expensive of resources - TIME ...” Peter noted that a knowledge
company must do what it can to not wast time of its most critical
resources: knowledge workers. Time wasted can never be recovered.
Some companies lose sight of this when confronted with long term
company health. I'm not going to ignore inefficiencies, as I have a
finite amount of time left.

Bo

 

Not many people remember AmigaOS. Way ahead of it's time in '86.
Stable, true multitasking, 1024 colors, an extremely fast graphics
system even by todays standards and everything modular and open.

TOP

 

It's what could be built on the Amiga:



Synchronous technology is more impressive.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA