I've been working off an old release for a while. What's the situation for getting current again? Do I pay the usual annual maintenance fee plus a penalty? If so, are all VAR's required to charge the penalty?
There's no reason I couldn't use a VAR anywhere. Tech support, etc at the local one is of no value to me.
Thanks, Bill
Bill, Depends on the VAR. If you push real hard they may give you some amnesty. Depends also on how long you have been off. Think about this for a minute. If you have been off for a long time, that is a long time you haven't given any maintenance either. So if you are now willing to sign-up, then the probability of staying signed up is greater revenue for them. The Vars have extended amnesty from time to time, if enough customers drop off in a short time window. my experience anyway. Also you can relatively easily transfer your license to another VAR. There is even a SW form for that. Check with a competing Var, they will be happy to sign you over. About the only real leverage you have, unless you have lots of seats.
I am a strong advocate for maintenance, but it frustrates me when you have very little recourse if the maintenance program doesn't have much benefit for your situation. I am all for maintenance, when it is used for just that, improving things that don't work well, or don't work at all. Not for new icons, and other UI cosmetics, or demo features that are added to sell new seats.
ca
it's going to get worse before it gets better.
this company is all about satisfying their investors, the vars and new customers,.. not old customers.
their business is/was about new customers so, how do they treat old customers.... they don't.
hmm... can we all smell a classic functioning dysfunctional business sitting high on the hog?
..
Dassautodesk? Solidwautocad?
You can get amnesty, but VAR's don't make that call. The SolidWorks regional manager does.
If you don't have a strong requirement for upgrading, there really isn't any reason to do so. I'm still on v2007 (even though I'm paying for maintenance) and based upon what I'm reading about v2008, I might never upgrade. If I did I would also have to update my computer hardware.
Will I pay for support in the future? That's a tough question. Luckily my employer picked up the subscription cost for my personal copy of SolidWorks last year. I'm not certain I can look them in the face and say it was a worthwhile investment.
After being forcibly switched from the VAR I had used for over 6 years, because I relocated, to a VAR who was 'highly' recommended as one of the BEST, I've not heard a peep. No e-mail address for support, nada, zippo, zilcho. At least before when I infrequently had a question (which was usually a bug) at least I had an e-mail address to a real person who would respond. Gives a person a real warm and fuzzy.
Y'all take care
My reason for upgrading would be entirely about using files from customers and library sources that are from newer releases. There hasn't been anything in the last several releases that is of any value to me.
For strictly files of my own origin, I've been thinking lately about seeing if I can find my old disks from sw2001 and the SP files. In 2001 version, I did a pretty large assembly and drawing set that I'm pretty sure would be so slow on sw2007/8 that it would be unusable. It was sluggish then, but I was using a P3-750 with 256 RAM. The same project and sw2001 should scream on my machine now. As I remember, the final couple of SP releases were quite stable. The lack of features added since then would probably impact my working time by maybe -2%, but the speed difference would improve time by about +20%, I would think. Imagine if all the 15/30 second rebuilds were reduced by 90%. A person might be able to remember what they were going to do next :)
Anyone lately tried working with a wayback release?
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