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Which one is better for venturing in? 2001 or Wildfire?

anandel

New member
In my company (Sheetmetal-Die mfg) we are trying to upgrade ourselves to Pro/E from AutoCAD. The recent release of Wildfire has put us in two minds to choose between the version 2001 & WF. (To make matters worse, as you all know, there is WF 2.0 waiting in the wings to be released)

Considering that major of our clients use 2001, is it advisable to implement 2001 first? Or to think ahead and map us with the latest, expecting the clients also would do the same in the near future? Ofcourse it's a huge management decision, but then, I'd like a hands on professional's view point on this.



I understand that there are so many MCAD veterans participating on these forums, and I believe they could throw some light.



Thanks in advance people.

-Andy
 
You will probably want to do a survey of your customers, if you want to use a direct data transfer you may have to maintain multiple versions of pro! versions are not backward compatable 2000,2000I2,2001& now wildfier1.0/2.0. there is no save as R13 in Pro-E.



The purchase of 2001 with maintenance is what I would sugest.
 
WF is easier to learn and use than 2001.



But if your clients are 2001, I think that's what will drive your decision. Of course, you can be mostly 2001 seats, with a few seats of WF for those customers who have already upgraded.



Either way, I think you can expect to have to do a lot of training to get your engineers up to speed. If you go the PTC training classes route, I think the 2001 classes are much superior to the WF classes.
 
I'm in the process of teaching 4 people (2 who have never used a solid modeler & 2 that never used CAD) Pro/Engineer 2001. I trained the 2 that never used cad for about 2 months and the process was very slow. Once I started training them on Wildfire they came up to speed in two weeks.

Wildfire is the way the to go if your looking to start fresh.



I would do what the others are saying but I would probably implement Wildfire to be the primary and have 2001 as the secondary.

40% of all Pro/E users are on Wildfire. Wildfire been in production since Feb 2003.
 
Andy,



We had the same situation like you. We had to shift from Automechanical Desktop 6.0 to Pro/Engineer. After looking at both 2001 and Wildfire we finally decided to go for Wildfire. The main reason was the quickest switch-over as Moroso mentions.

So my advice would be to go for Wildfire. And as far as WF 1.0 and WF 2.0 are concerned, there is no difference; just more enhancements in WF 2.0. The interface is same.



Israr
 
Jason, can you back up Moroso's claim about 40% of Pro/E users are on Wildfire by showing us some of your past polls/data? I can't believe that is true. If there is not any polls, how about starting one, please.



Steve C
 
Having read your replies it looks to me that its easy to train on Wildfire, which really was a concern for us too. We also happened to see a demo on wildfire and I figured that the common inclination among our people was towards WF. I dont know whether its basically the fear of going out of date or whatever, looks like Wildfire is the way to go. Also, like Steve said if someone can put down some numbers it really would be useful [So that I can stake my claim here ;) ].
 
> 40% of all Pro/E users are on Wildfire.



Highest figure I've ever seen was <25% with 2001 still out numbering WF.



If you only have to recieve data from customers then reading in 2001 data to WF isn't an issue. If you have to return models that require the parametric features to remain then you're going to have to use 2001.



You get to learn them both either way since much of the old interface is still in WF. Especially since you're doing Sheetmetal. That's why I can't buy into the it's easier to learn arguement. Easier to get started on maybe.



-Bernie-
 
Note: The 40% Wildfire claim was included in recent PTC publicity.



As people have said, Wildfire is much easier to learn than 2001. It's worth checking with the companies you work with when they plan to upgrade...



In theory our company has upgraded to Wildfire. However, in practice quite a few people are still using 2001 to finish off old projects, and because they're reluctant to move.
 

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