renew lapsed maintenance...

Last year I elected to NOT renew my maintenance on (2) seats of ProE,
and evaluate solidworks as a replacement. We do mold design,
primarily, and solidworks has proven to be quite a bit slower and not
nearly as easy to use dealing with very large assemblies. There are
some things that at really nice about it, but for us ProE is a better
solution.

That all being said, I want to get "back in" with PTC and to do so they
are telling me that I need to retroactively go back to when we lapsed.
Therfore my renewal expense is nearly 14K, essentially double my normal
annual renewal of 7K.

Does anyone have a similar experience, and were you able to negotiate a
lesser renewal? I agree that it should be more than a normal renewal
but 2X seems a little excessive, especially because there was no actual
support given during the year we were away...

Any insight to this would be appreciated...

 

Am I right in assuming that, for this period of time, you still had two
functioning seats of Pro/e, that you didn't just give up these seats while
you were evaluating Solid Works? And, for a year, you had and used Pro/e but
had no need for support? Maybe you just don't have that big of a need for
support. Have you thought about how many pay-as-you-go calls to PTC's
support line you could make for $14K? If you're not calling them every day
and you have only two seats, you might be able to save yourself a bundle by
going this route. Seems like you need a better evaluation of your real needs
than you've presented here. If you need the steady stream of bug fix
releases, then you probably need both seats on full maintenance. However, if
you only need to be able to put in an occasional help call or just have
access to the Knowledge Base, maybe just putting one seat in five on a
maintenance contract would be enough support. Or, for a value added
solution, take the $14K and get another full seat with maintenance. Sadly,
the kind of license negotiations you are talking about, and any special
deals, are played pretty close to the chest by PTC and most companies. I
don't know if such negotiations are covered by confidentiality agreements,
but, if they were, it wouldn't surprise me.

David Janes

 

We were interested in doing the same type of evaluation of Solidworks
at our company, and we're in a similar type of situation, 2 seats
etc...In conversation with the Solidworks sales rep he was very candid
in saying that if you threaten to move from ProE to Solidworks,
typically ProE is will to forgo back charges for lapsed maintenance if
you're willing to move back to ProE.

We never actually tried it, but the sales rep seemed to be very honest
that ProE would do that. ProE is loosing a lot of market share to
Solidworks, try and use it to your advantage.


Ed

 

2 seats

Leverage that, m*f*!

So did the one that sold me the Vega.

Also from conversation with the Solidworks sales rep?
Your own expert analysis?

We can go pound sand.

Who do we work for? I've got a Vega ...

 

Our experience has been that PTC sees themselves to be in complete
control in situations like this. Whether or not that's legally true,
or fair, is another matter. They will push your head back underwater
to let you back into the maintenance. I can sorta see why they do it,
considering that many customers might only pay for maintenance on the
years that they install a new release. Good luck.

I know some other customers have grandfathered their existing licenses
and bought new bundles which of course come with fresh new maintenance
bills. But PTC won't always do that. The sales reps will play "don't
shoot the messenger" in any case and make a production out of the fact
that maintenance is done by corporate.

I would really like to know if this inconsistent policy is legal based
on monopolistic laws.

Dave