SW2005 to 2007, skipping 2006... Opinions?

I know this is a general question, and the answer might be: "it depends on
what you want to do", but I'm toying with the idea of skipping SW2006.

We are currently using about 20 seats of SW2005 and we are generally
satisfied with it. Before each upgrade, we spend lot of time testing the new
version, then we make a progressive switch. This is time-consuming, and
users have to adapt to each new version.

How do you evaluate the risks with skipping a version? My biggest concern
is with compability. All our "design templates models" use extensive
in-context relations; we also use a certain amount of VBA routines.

Therefore, could skipping SW2006 and jumping from SW2005 to SW2007 (in about
one year) cause major problems? (I'd prefer to correct some minor bugs in
the transition from 2005 to 2006 and the from 2006 to 2007 instead of major
ones between 2005 and 2007.)

Also, what are your feelings about the advantages of SW2006? A few months
ago, our VAR told us that there were major improvements in the lightweight
mode that would make working in large assemblies and drawings much easier
and faster. Is this true?

Thank you for your help!

WaterGuy

 

I have been using SW since 97+ and never missed a version until 2005.
I missed 2005 due to my ex-employer dropped subscription. Going from
2004 to 2005 was not too painful for me as an individual, but I found
the learning curve to the new version was much longer than normal,
because I had to learn what was added and changed in 2005.

There are usually minor issue when switching versions, in my experience
those issues can be much worse if you were to skip. Especially with
assembly mates. (Has happened in the past).

IMHO SW 2006 has been a pretty sucessfull and solid release, although I
did not start using it before SP1. The assemblies do perform much
better, I think they finally got 'Lightweight' right.

In a nutshell personally I would not miss a version again.

Who knows how long it will take to get 20 seats up to speed with 2007.

 

Water Guy,

Great minds think alike. We are still on 2004 and in no rush to get
2006 up. Retraining is a major issue. 2003 to 2004 wasn't too bad, but
2005 had a lot of new interface stuff and poor performance. 2006 had
poor performance in some areas and better performance in others and
more interface issues. Since we do relatively simple stuff a lot of new
functionality just passed us by as would the 2007 stuff they showed at
SWW. There are enough problems (bugs) with 2004 and it is pretty stable
now. I ran the conversion wizard on the 2004 vault and hit a few snags.
So besides retraining you can add reconstructing any assemblies and
drawings that don't work across releases.

Just 'cause I like to make lists:

Costs
1. Retraining expense.
2. Repair expense to any models that break in the transition.
3. Performance hits
4. New hardware to fix #3.
5. Lost time expense during changeover.

Benefits:
1. Some better user collaboration tools.
2. Somewhat faster assembly performance.
3. Somewhat faster drawing performance.

And a final footnote. When asked whether we should implement 2006
because we paid for it I respond that we aren't really using all of
2004 that we could.

 

Personally Paul, I think waiting so long between releases will come
back to bite you, especially skipping more than two.

New interface changes will be just that much harder as there is more of
it to deal with. Also, when you do decide to upgrade computers for
other reasons, 2004 may not like the new hardware and drivers.

 

We already upgraded hardware. We have state of the art as it is today.
No problems, in fact the new machines run SW smoother than the Dells
they replaced. We plan to move to 2006, and will roll two interface
changes into one. As a general rule I don't see either SW or hardware
changing that much. I can run SW 2001+ through SW2006 on the same
hardware.

Your point about interface changes just supports my point. There is a
big cost to upgrading when what we have serves our purpose and has
minimal benefits when the users aren't inclined to use all the snazzy
new stuff.

 

Thank you for your input, sirs... I'll keep thinking about this...

- WaterGuy...

 

We've been upgrading roughly every two years lately. As I recall, we ran
2001+, then 2004, then 2006 (although we haven't completed the move to 2006
yet). It works better for us than trying to fix the parts and assemblies
that break in each new version in the middle of the product development. It
doesn't seem to us to make the conversion any worse to skip a year and we
only have to make half as many conversions. On the other hand, we don't use
any VBA or extensive in-context relations in our design template models, so
you might have problems that we wouldn't see.

For us, 2006 is good because of the improvements in lightweight and the
surfacing. On the other hand, it's still pretty buggy. As you said in the
beginning, it all depends.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"