Pro E maintenance?

[cncwhiz]

Has anyone been looking at changing to another "3D" cad software as well as a third party cam package. PTC is pricing their way out of the market on maintenance. We have five seats with one floating advanced assembly and pro manufacturing "without" expert machinist. They are giving us a discount price of 17,000.00 for one year. The greed of ptc is making me sick. They move our tech support to India and raise the price of maintenance. WTF are they thinking with this? We are going to look at other options. Suggestions?

 

[mgnt8]

[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24 734&PN=5[/url]


There's something in there (page 2) about how maintenance is priced as a percentage of the cost of software. I might be wrongabout this but for us the cost of maintenance has dropped over the last 5 years. Of course, we chose not to get socked with the extra fee for advanced assembly when they snatched it away. I can see how that can be irritating. I wonder what SW or CATIA charge?

 

[dr_gallup]

Make sure they are not charging you for modules you have declined maintenance on. Every year we get an automatic maintenance quote for $15,840. I have to call PTC up and remind them that we have declines maintenance on several modules and then the quote drops to $7,980! They are incapable of doing this correctly the first time.

What really pisses me off is that they bundle new functionality into new licenses at the same or reduced prices but charge existing, maintenance paying customers extra "upgrades" for the same thing! Just look at what you get in the "advanced foundation package" vs the old foundation package. PTC want existing customers to pay twice!

 

[airion]

Remember when you are dealing with anyone in sales that they are looking out for themselves. Most work on commision and are more concerned with their own bottom line than how the company is perceived as a whole. The only way they might try to save you money is if they think that those savings might help them sell you more licenses so you can pay more maintainence next year. If they really think you might switch to another system or just not renew, they will take a reduced amount rather than nothing.

I also think a lot of these bills are generately automatically and the salesman probably don't scrutize them for accuracy. Defenitely call and complain and it should get reduced a lot.

 

[cncwhiz]

I have recieved a lot of reads but few replies? How many of you are var's or work for ptc? This site was "much" better when it was proecentral. I think that mcadcentral is in bed with ptc and it has changed the type of people who visit this site.

 

[tinag]

We stopped paying maintenance 6 years ago.. We have 5 seats of proe 2001. We have been told that if we wish to begin paying maintenance again.. we will have to back date all the maintenance owed..


Something tells me we'll not be upgrading in the near future

 

[Brian_Adkins]

We stopped paying maintenance 6 years ago.. We have 5 seats of proe 2001. We have been told that if we wish to begin paying maintenance again.. we will have to back date all the maintenance owed..

Probably cheaper at that point to purchase all new licenses...

 

[dr_gallup]

6 years * 15% = 90% of original purchase price, plus a new license will have much greater functionality than your old license. Add the cost to "upgrade" and you are over 100%. So it is definately to your advantage to wait for WF3 and buy the software all over again!

 

[cncwhiz]

Still sounds like ptc is a bunch of crooks. If you did not use their wonderful tech support during that period why should they make you pay for it. From the old post that was listed before ptc charges between 10% to 89% maintenance. And still we have tech support from India. PTC is either covering big losses or just plain getting greedy.

 

[Brian_Adkins]

ptc charges between 10% to 89% maintenance...

Actually, the article I referenced on that other thread deals with enterprise software in general... not PTC, or even CAD software. The 10-89% figure quoted in the article was for a wide range of software applications such as MRP, ERP, Database, etc...


PTC is typically in the 15-25% range from my experience, and I'd consider that to be rather standard for the CAD industry. The last time I looked at Solidworks for example, the annual maintenance was $1500 for their $5000 basic package (that's 30%).

 

[cncwhiz]

Brian,


I was not comparing ptc to solid works. Our maintenance went from 12,000.00 last year to 21,000.00 with a discount down to 17,000.00. So your 15% to 25% does not wash here. Our maintenance fees went up almos 100% so if solidworks is only 1500 than that sound like a better deal than what we are being quoted. We faxed over our last years price and told ptc that their price was out of line. We have not heard from them yet. You are talking like a VAR to me. Everyone here that uses tech support knows that If you can get an awnser for your question that you can understand than you are lucky. The fact still remains that we are using the same software and ptc is saving a bundle bysending tech support to Inda yet instead ofpassing on the savings to the users the raise the cost in our case almost 100%. And we onlyhave five seats.

 

[mgnt8]

$21,000 for 5 seats, AAX, & Pro/Man. Depending on the current prices for AAX & Pro/Man, it looks like your paying around 50% - 75% (of current seat costs) for maintenance. And that's up 67% from last year. Wow, you are indeed getting ripped off.

 

[dr_gallup]

There is no reason for your maintenance to go up unless you added seats or modules. You have to talk to PTC maintenance directly, faxes and emails do no good. I have to call them every year. They send out those high quotes hoping that some smuck will just pay it without questioning it.

Most of the problem is with PTC's shady software pricing schemes. They frequently bundle a lot of extra software at a "really great price" to get you to buy more than you need. Then they charge 15% maintenance on the LIST PRICE of the software. The maintenance may be more than you paid for the software! If this has happened to you, get a license report and see what you need and what is not needed. Decline maintenance on everything but what you need.

 

[Brian_Adkins]

The last time I physically loook at a software quotefor Pro/E was about six years ago, butthis is what the "basic deal" was at the time (circa 1999):
<UL>
<LI>Pro/E foundation = $6000
<LI>Pro/E Foundation maintenance = $1500 (25%)
<LI>Maintenance for all other Pro/E modules above and beyond foundation was either 15 or 20%... I can't remember which now.</LI>[/list]


I definitely would notpay 67% for maintenance for Pro/E... for that amount, you'd be better off purchasing new licenses from scratch every other year. I'd recheck your numbers and licensed modules and then give PTC a call...


One thing to check... PTC used to throw in free or diccounted modulesat purchase time, but then you'd be responsible for paying the maintenance on thefull list price of that module 90 days later (or I guess you could drop maintenance on it). Make sure that PTC is working off of the same list of your purchased modules that you are.



Edited by: Brian_Adkins

 

[robertib]

We have 5 seats of Pro/E Foundation, and our maintenance update cost has just been quoted as

 

[AHA-D]

If you want to compare :


I run my personal version of Solid Edge for work outside the daily ProE-job (it used to be SE all day long, but that's a different story). Solid Edge comes with far less options and configurations than ProE. Extra's are mainly a "feature recognizer" to convert imported models to smart solids, a piping add-on, mechanical handbook, web publisher and Virtual Studio Plus (an enhanced environment beyond the standard rendering/movie module). Standard maintenance (for me) is 1150 Euro, I pay 1310 because I added the new VS Plus. Buying a license for a node locked standard license will be around 7-8000 Euro at present. This includes Part, Assembly, Draft and Sheetmetal and has 'rendering' and 'motion' default on board. The goal is to deliver a new version every 6 months (V17 shipping now), while there are around 10 servicepacks average for each version before focus is shifted to the newest version.


I've had a look at lots of other programs in the past and followed evolution rather closely until a few years ago. The information reaching me told me that some years ago ProE drastically lowered license prices to regain market share (upsetting customers that payed full price just before). There were also rumours of PTC getting in a bad financial position. The latest news is indeed that more and more customers are reviewing their cost-of-ownership and are shifting to - among others - Solid Edge. This is certainly true for the local CNH-plant.


Alex

 

[kschauer]

The maintenance is the worst part about ProE.

Is is interesting to see everyones pricing here. Ours is like
this: A seat of ProE Foundation Advantage is $5000. The
maintenance is $1500. That is 30%

You have to watch the PTC sales guys closely. The so called "Win
Back" programs, in my opinion, are a scam. This is what they
did. We let our maintenance lap for a year, then PTC came back
and offer to forgive one year of maintenance and as a bonus give us
some extensions or upgrade the packages for free. There is no
such thing as a free lunch and here it comes.

Now with the new more powerful seats, which we didn't need, the
maintence is a lot higher. Somehow PTC convinced our IT guys and
management that it would be good to accept the bargin upgrade to a Flex
3C license. What they didn't tell them that this license has a
$4500/yr maintenance cost! We will not use the features of this
package in the next 20 years. There was no way to revert this
upgrade. Also we were stuck with other extensions on our other
seats driving thier maintenance up as well.



This is what we did. We just purchased all new seats of
foundation advantage and keep declining the maintence on the other
seats. We have 7 seats total. 3 with no maintence and 4 of
Foundation Advantage with maintenance. It upsets PTC because the
license manager does not control what release of ProE is
installed. They started it.



They did make a change with Wildfire. Only need a new license
file. But PTC 'must' keep putting your old licenses on the
license file weather or not you pay maintenance on them.



Tinag: Good job on going 6 years with no maintenance. or maybe
not. How do you keep ProE going without upgrades? If I were
you I would buy 5 new seats of WF3.0 and have them "added" to your
license manager.



My personal note:

Maintenace for software should be stopped. Basically what it does
is allow software people (PTC) to extract money from Management (your
company) by claiming you (the Engineer) need this (can't live without
it).

How I think it should run is that you buy the software. The
software maker supports it for 4-5 years. You may purchase
an upgrade at a reduced price every 2 years. Every year is not
worth it.

Look at it this way. If you buy a new car you expect it to be
corrected by the manufacture for the warrenty period. Let's say
24 months. Now after a total of 30 months the automaker finds so
many bugs and issuse a recall or upgrade only to thos people who pay
for "extended service". Wouldn't that piss you off?

cncwhiz: I don't think mcadcentral is in bed with PTC.

I read most of the posts but only reply when I have something to contribute or I just can't take it anymore.

 

[spm]

Hi,
At the company I work at weuse Pro-Eng for a long time now.We bought 2 seats ofBasic type Bundle1996,here the maintenance was around

 

[cncwhiz]

Read "where to buy pro e" thread. This is the same garbage by the same people that I am talking about. I don't think that they should be able to advertise in a thread. They are pushing new "upgrades" like you can't live if you don't have them. PTC and their buddies are not being 100% truthfull. If they come back with their 21,000.00 for our cost for the year then we have the newest software that we could get and they are gone. I like the one they tell you about "Rand" this is all a bunch of garbage as well. Rand was smart to dump ptc. They were losing money and they went with another company that will be here tommrow. Sounds like a smart move to me. PTC needs to stop milking money out of their existing customers and cut the fat on their level, not pass it off on us. As far as tech support we will use this site and pro user if we need any help. Don't get me wrong that I don't like the software, I have been running it from version 17.

 

[Brian_Adkins]

>>I don't think that they should be able to advertise in a thread


They aren't:
[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25 319&PN=1&FID=2&PR=3 [/url]


If you run across someone advertising in the forums, please report the post using the "Report" icon next to each post. This way, the post will be reviewed by a moderator.





>>...PTC and their buddies are not being 100% truthfull


Are you wearing your tinfoil hat right now?