CAD Company Gripes

[Guest]

There has been plenty of PTC bashing from its customers, much along the lines of customer support, license agreements/maintenance, and the general direction the company is heading. I would like to know if these concerns/gripes are limited to PTC, or is it pretty typical across the CAD/MCAD/CAE/CAM industries? How do other companies compare with PTC in their customer's distrust and disgust? Is PTC the only one with disgruntled customers? How do other customers feel about their CAD company's direction/support/maintenance?

 

[swcalvert]

Since I'm one of the persons B'n & G'n about PTC, let me be the first to tell you and others that my experience with Unigraphics has been mostly positive. And my experience with PTC has been mostly positive. UG has had its share of bugs and when I find what appears to be one, I call it in. Usually it means that I have to send in the model I'm working on so they can try and make it happen again. Maintenance, IMHO, is too much for either one, but I understand we have to have it. Support for UG is usually pretty good, but the on-line help guys make you feel real dumb that you don't know how to do what you're asking help for.



Steve C

 

[bhayden]

Cadkey has had a loyal following. Except for when they initially made the switch to a Windows based GUI. It took them two years to get back to the level of productivity that the software had with the classic interface.



All the AutoCAD users I've know have been absolutely delighted with the software; I don't quite understand why :+) Honestly I haven't been in touch with AutoCAD since about release 13 but back then it was terrible at MCAD. Did real pretty drawings though. As a drafting tool it is pretty slick and I can understand why it's so popular in architecture.



Part of what we see with PTC is what I'll call the Luxury Car Syndrome. There was a study done on customer satisfaction and the upshot was the more people paid for a new car the more likely they were to take it back to the dealer and complain about something being wrong. The theory is that the more people spend on something the higher their expectations are of how it should perform. ProE being still toward the high end of the pay scale it's natural that PTC would recieve more complaints from their customers.



Bernie Hayden

XKL LLC

 

[JHardy]

Bernie,



You described the Luxury Car Syndrome as:



... the more people paid for a new car the more likely they were to take it back to the dealer and complain about something being wrong. The theory is that the more people spend on something the higher their expectations are of how it should perform.



Sounds totally reasonable to me!



If you buy a cheap Malaysian-built car, you almost expect the fenders to fall off - indeed, you probably defend this behaviour as being part of its quirky charm. If you spend 10 times as much to buy a BMW, every little squeak and rattle is totally unacceptable.



In MCAD, if you pay top dollar for a product, and keep shelling out for maintenace, it should work consistently and reliably!

 

[swcalvert]

I think what Bernie's trying to say here, is that when we shell out the monies for Pro/E it ought to work as WE expect it to work (without the fenders falling off when we kick it). I don't mind paying for maintenance, I just want to make sure I get what I'm paying for.



I had a cheap Mitsubishi truck a few years back. I ran it into the ground and it never failed me. A few years later I got a German automobile, it was in for maintenance all the time. Paying more money for something doesn't mean you'll get better performance, you just expect it.



Steve C

 

[bhayden]

>Paying more money for something doesn't mean you'll >get better performance, you just expect it.



Yes, it's all about expectations and as was pointed out, the price paid for ProE and maintenance is much higher than say SolidWorks. Especially if your company bought into ProE before the Foundation package was offered. Prior to that I think to get a functional installation with the Sheetmetal Package was pushing 30k if you factor in maintenance. Hence the reason ProE users seem to gripe a lot and other user groups tend to be more enthusiastic despite bugs and limitations.



-Bernie-

 

[Nose Bleed]

That's exactly why I've been looking into another package to learn... It just may happen that my comapny decides it's not going to spend the cash for Pro, and it will move to another package.



I agree - If the software was cheaper in price - There would more than likely be much less bickering about it! It really is a great software, but the price is just too far out of range for many mom and pop machine shops...



Speaking of - has anyone received the latest questionaire from PTC??? Kinda makes you wonder if drastic changes are coming up!!!

 

[bhayden]

> Speaking of - has anyone received the latest

> questionaire from PTC??? Kinda makes you wonder if

> drastic changes are coming up!!!



Not sure if it's the same one. I got a customer satisfaction survey. Bad timing as they'd just dropped my tech support request. Didn't get any sense of impending change from that survey anyway.



They've got to do something to stop the hemoraging of money that's been going on for the last couple of years. Hopefully they can come up with a stratagy better than the current company line, We will implement significant cost reduction initiatives during the remainder of fiscal 2003,



-Bernie-

 

[swcalvert]

Once the service contracts for some of these companies that have owned PTC for several years comes due for a new contract, the CAD admin for these copmpanies should be telling the people in charge of the money for their company to look at getting a new contract for maintenance at a much lower price. When this happens, and it will, PTC's stock price is going to drop again.



Steve C