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Maintenance Contract

V

vandewinckel

New member
Hello,


Has anyone dropped there PTC maintenance contract for a year or two and then renewed it. We are thinking of dropping maintenance for a couple years. I wanted to know the ramification of the lapse in maintenance. We rarely use the support line, and we are not planningto upgradesoftware for 2 years. Any comment would be helpful.


Thanks


Steve
 
Be carefull. You will be on your own if you get
problems/bugs.
PTC can demand that you have to pay backmaintenence for all
the time you have not pay to be able to get licenses back
on maintenence. Or you must purchase new licenses.
 
Hi Steve,


Our company is doing the same thing. From what I understand we will have full use of all our current modules for the next 2 years without renewing. We also rarely use the support line and wf2 files that are sent to vendors and/or customers will still be compatible and if they upgrade. PTC will ask for back maintenance from what we understand when we renew down the road. If there will be any flexibility available in standard policies regarding reinstatement of lapsed licenses for old customers in the future I am not sure. Management is trying to save money now to look better with upper managementand would rather pay more later which I think will end up being 10's of thousands more for our 100 or more seats by not renewing now. But on the other hand the economy may be better too. If we choose to go to wf4 later I am wondering if Intralink 3.3 will work with wf4 or will there be another cost for switching to Windchill?


ed
 
jnoval said:
PTC can demand that you have to pay backmaintenence for all

the time you have not pay to be able to get licenses back
on maintenence. Or you must purchase new licenses.
Click to expand...

Not true. I was told that PTC's policy is that you may a maximum of 9 months back maintenance to get your licenses current. Don't let them or a VAR tell you otherwise.

I think PTC has to review their maintenance costs. It's a lot of money for very little benefit. Back in the day where we got a new software release every 6 months, the value in staying on maintenance was higher. Now, new releases are every 18 months so one year's maintenance may not even get you the next release of the software.

The tech support is too slow to be of value. Usually, when I need help, by the time I get an answer from tech support, I've found a work around, completed the project and delivered it.

For us, PTC maintenance is one of the highest expenses for the company, third only to salaries and rent. And it's 2.5 times what our SW seats cost each year. What do we get for that?
 
nfalter said:
From what I understand we will have full use of all our current modules for the next 2 years without renewing. ... If we choose to go to wf4 later I am wondering if Intralink 3.3 will work with wf4 or will there be another cost for switching to Windchill?
Click to expand...

Your current software will continue to work indefinitely. Also, if you are currently on maintenance, go get your licenses upgraded now to WF5 and download WF3, WF4, WF5 and the appropriate versions of Windchill or Intralink before your contract expires. Make sure you get the matching date codes of Pro|E that go with your versions of Windchill/Intralink. You will then be able to install and use any of them, also indefinitely.

If you've been happy with WF2 to this point, having WF5 available should keep your company set for several years to come, even without maintenance. In the end, it won't cost your company more in the future to renew maintenance. In fact, if you go longer than 9 months it'll cost less.
 
If we do this we will go for about 3 years & just buy new licenses. They sell it much cheaper & therefore lower maintenance now than when we originally bought plus we don't have a lot of the functionality that they bundle in for free now. PTC's licensing & pricing policies practically force you off maintenance.
 
We are also looking at dropping Maintenance support on WF5.0.

So what I am getting is - If we end up dropping support, we should still have the licenses and should be able to use what we have indefinitely.

One question - will we be stuck with the license configuration we have at the end of our maintenance period? We currently have 2 floating licenses on a license server and one node-locked license on a laptop. If our maintenance contract ends, I am guessing we wont be able to move any of these licenses around?
 
historically, renewing maintenance after going off would
require 1 year forward and 9 months back.

You can still move licenses if you lapse, you just have to
call in the move rather than using the online tool.
 
Be causious as you move forward with this decision. We dropped maintenance about two years ago. About 6 months ago the windchill software had a major issue and we were left without support. I called around for resources to help and costs exceeded what the two years of maintenance would have been.


We managed to work through it with some help from a third party var, but just keep in mind, the savings sounds good until something goes wrong.
 
I have dropped my maintenance a couple of times when things
are slow. Towards the end of the year PTC offers deals to
get people to renew and boost their year end numbers.
 
You should consider attending the CDT (Customer Driven Technology) webcast titled "Update on PTC Technical Support Process". I seem to get e-mails on it daily.


It might shed some light (or fluff) on the future of PTC's maintenance.
 
I recently got a quote for going back on to maintence after a lapse and it certainly was more than 1 year forward + 9 months back - extortion or what??


I didn't renew, but have recently bought 2 more licences that I have put on maintenance so have access anyway.
 
I've been told by several PTC VARs that the official PTC policy is no more than 9 months back maintenance. Will they try to charge you more? Perhaps, but they shouldn't.
 
The company I previously worked for let theirs lapse. When they decided to renew it so they could get Wildfire, they had to pay the 3 years that had lapsed. Whether that is their policy or not, it is what was paid...
smiley11.gif
 
How long ago? I'm not sur how long the 9 months policy has been in place, I think it used to be all back maintenance had to be paid.
 
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