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New Subscription Policy
4

New Subscription Policy

New Subscription Policy

2
(OP)
For those who haven't heard, SolidWorks has changed their subscription policy, effective 1 January 2016.
ModernTech
TPM

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

This sucks just a tad... especially for customers (like us) that are just trying to survive long enough to make it big.

Also since they are making update changes like these, then they need to send out bug fixes quicker... like my Properties.txt file issue would be great!

Scott Baugh, CSWP pc2
Gryphon Environmental
www.2gryphon.com

Quote:

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: New Subscription Policy

The beatings will continue until morale improves...

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

Jeff, thanks for posting this. Unusual activity from SolidWorks going on, as the links you've posted have been yanked. After poking around in attempt to get confirmation of this policy "straight from the horse's mouth", it appears SolidWorks does not want that to happen. For instance, the two pages you linked above have been silently yanked.

As I just posted on the SW forum:

Quote:

After doing a little digging around, I've discovered some unusual things.

First, this policy changes appears to be a real thing. Second, SolidWorks doesn't want it publicized. I've seen two VAR web sites whose initial publication of this policy change have now been scrubbed! After some probing, this appears to be as a result of a request by SolidWorks that this policy not be broadcast to the world. Instead, the VARs are to contact their customers directly (and NOT broadcast the new policy). Shady, and it puts the VARs in a position where they cannot really defend themselves while enforcing a top-down policy that could well damage their business.

SolidWorks could verify all this conjecture by publishing this new policy in writing. But they aren't doing that. (Hello?)

The VARs that posted this policy (hey--at least you still have one quoted on your blog) no longer have those pages active. Maybe a little birdie suggested they take those pages down?

Getting this policy from my own VAR--solely verbally--is upsetting. This doesn't allow me to see the real terms of the non-negotiable "contract". It's also a poor way of allowing business owners to run their businesses and make the best decisions moving forward.

It's truly baffling to me that SolidWorks would roll out official policy in such a shady way. Why do that? If the policy itself won't be well accepted by users, throwing the policy into a dark closet certainly won't help.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
That's interesting, Jeff. I've reached out to contacts to try to find out what's going on. If I find out anything, I'll pass it on.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

Thanks--any further clarity on this policy before it goes into effect can only help customers.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

I suspect it is getting a bit hot at Dassault now that the cat is out of the bag.

I am assuming the thread on the SolidWorks forum has disappeared as well?

A very hostile customer policy, to say the least. And throws their VAR's under the bus to have to defend the policy.

Hopefully, someone at Dassault comes to their senses and reverse that new policy.

Anna Wood
SW2014 SP2, Windows 7 x64

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
It's Dassault that is driving the change. I think it'd be a miracle if they reverse the decision.

Got this from SolidSmack:

From the Q2 Earnings call.

Jay Vleeschhouwer
Okay. Next, for Thibault, it's our understanding that, starting next January of 2016, you are going to be changing the pricing for customers who have gone off of maintenance or subscription and wish to resume or reinstate the subscription and, in effect, making them – making it less desirable for them to go off maintenance and making it more expensive for them to come back onto maintenance after some period of time. Could you verify that that is in fact something that you mean to do? And given your normal churn rate of customers go on and off maintenance, what do you think the incremental revenue opportunity might be from putting in that kind of new subscription reinstatement for pricing?

Thibault de Tersant [Dassault Systemes, Senior EVP, Chief Financial Officer]
Thank you, Jay. Well, in fact the policy we have for reinstatement across all our process and rules portfolio has been the same for the past well, I prefer not to say but probably 20 years, which is essentially that when you stop paying for maintenance and you want to go back and pay again, and be under maintenance again you need to catch up for the period of time in which you have not renewed maintenance and the reason for that is because we have continued to do R&D and the improvement in functionalities and they are brought when you get back under maintenance, so we need to be fair with all our customers.

And there wasn’t one exception actually to this rule. And the one exception was that we had a fixed amount for SOLIDWORKS users when they were returning under maintenance. And frankly, we don’t believe I mean this rule was the one which was at the beginning of SOLIDWORKS. And we really don’t see a reason why, we would do things differently for SOLIDWORKS than for all of our brands, because we have the exact same rationale. And of course, the more we go, the more the SOLIDWORKS product portfolio will be based upon this 3DEXPERIENCE platform and we’ll share applications, so very important to be a consistent across of users. So that is the rationale.

Now, to be honest with you, I have not measured in terms of dollar revenue, incremental dollar revenue what is going to be brought by this changing of rules. I expect maybe a small improvement in renewal rates. That would be my expectation. But it is not planned exactly yet.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

Yep, the arrogance of Dassault.... Very hostile to customers. Nothing new here.

I will NEVER be renewing the maintenance on our personal seat of SolidWorks. This seals the deal for me to switch to Onshape.

Dassault is not interested in the little guy, never has been. SolidWorks focus in now on the big accounts.

Their competitors must be doing the happy dance now that Dassault has shot themselves in the foot again.

Anna Wood
SW2014 SP2, Windows 7 x64

RE: New Subscription Policy

I know this is very likely not a great place to bring this up as it is off topic, but have people been using Onshape
as a competitive product to Solidworks?

I have only caught wind of it recently, and it seemed like a good way to break into 3D modeling, but I haven't
really considered using it.

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
Onshape has a ways to go with regards to features and abilities, but there are people using it. It's free, go and play with it.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

Anyone else having difficulty with the log-in at the SW forum? Keeps throwing an error at me (after a long pause).

Nice find, Jeff--I didn't know Josh was covering this at SolidSmack--guess I should pay more attention.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
I'm not having any problems with logging it...so far.

SolidSmack has a new section, talk.solidsmack.com. It's an area where they post stuff for people to discuss.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

Jeff, I am not able to log into the SolidWorks forum at the moment either.

Anna Wood
SW2014 SP2, Windows 7 x64

RE: New Subscription Policy

Ha--wonder if we're banned or if there's just a little too much heat going on? I see Roland just got a post through.

Jeff--thanks for the heads-up. I just posted at the SolidSmack forum area.



Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
I can still log in and the thread is still up regarding the new policy.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

I can finally see the forum, but I do not see that thread unless I'm logged in. And it won't let me log in, since I still get the error. I wonder if anyone else can see the thread if not logged in?

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

Figured I'd post this here, too:

Though I cannot access the SW forum right now (server throws errors when I attempt to log in or view the related subscription thread), I am subscribed to the thread. So I received notification of an update by email that Rachel York replied with this:

Quote (Rachel York)

All SOLIDWORKS Value Added Partners have been notified of a new late Subscription policy and have begun reaching out to individual customers. Effective January 1, 2016, licenses with expired subscription will be required to pay the subscription cost for the period of time the license was not under Subscription. This change effects all DS SOLIDWORKS products and is consistent with industry norms as well all Dassault Systemes products. For specific details regarding your license, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Partner.

Though it's NOT the norm of SolidWorks to charge for unnecessary/unused subscription services, after 20 years of business---it now WILL be. Is that the norm with Onshape? Other competition?

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

RE: New Subscription Policy

OnShape is still in Beta, but looking very good. They have a free version that limits you to five active documents and 100M storage - that is being hotly discussed in the OnShape forum. Their professional version is $100/month. The free version is not limited or hindered in any way except by the number of files and storage space.

I was very much against the cloud based system at first, and I am sure there will be some companies that will never allow it, but they have some very distinct advantages over locally-installed software. Collaboration is amazing in that multiple people can be editing the same file at the same time from wherever they are in the world. All you really need is decent internet access, no significant computing or graphics power required. No locally installed software means no service packs or upgrades to install (this takes a surprising amount of time to get the whole company on the same version).

I am watching and waiting for it to get close enough to the current capabilities of SolidWorks. I am confident they will get there and then surpass it with other nice things SolidWorks cannot do.

The $100/month is less than maintenance for SolidWorks. And as this thread above makes clear, SolidWorks, though it got its growth by listening to the users, has been taken over by businessmen that can't even spell CAD. I have used SolidWorks since the first version came out in 1995. I love the software and what it allows me to do, but I think this time next year I'll be shutting it off for something better. This bonehead move with their maintenance policy will just be the breaking point for a lot of people.

- - -Updraft

RE: New Subscription Policy

(OP)
Now I can't login to the SolidWorks forums...

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

RE: New Subscription Policy

Does anyone have any thoughts on Fusion360 from autodesk? It appears to be a similar product to onshape.

The new Solidworks policy is certainly motivating me to look to see what else is out there. That is a good thing.

RE: New Subscription Policy

Onshape has made it public that they are going to be changing their free plan. It's going to be 10 private documents and no "inactive" documents. See https://www.onshape.com/free-plan-changes

I don't think they are far from having a product that can do what many companies need it to do, particularly small-medium shops. The major missing tools like drawings, sheetmetal and surfacing all seem to be in the works. What's more, it comes with built in version control, branching, and baked-in file management. As a free account user I've put in performance enhancement requests and submitted bugs, and the dev team at Onshape has already rolled out these changes. The more Solidworks brings about policies like this, the more people willing people will be to give Onshape (and similar tools) a strong look and even contribute to its development.


RE: New Subscription Policy

Drawing/Sheetmetal would likely be all I need for basic features. I will likely keep my eye on any information of the development in that area.

RE: New Subscription Policy

I just stumbled upon the license renewal situation yesterday and I'm still reading up on it. I am running SW2010 Professional. Since getting it I don't see where the new versions have been much of an improvement. It looks to me as if they are busy changing it continuously but change isn't improvement. And it seems as if over the last 18 months there has been a change in the way they approach business. They have gone to a model of maximum sales and marketing of what they've got rather than fixing it. From my very limited perspective I'd guess that management of the SW product has previously been more from the programming side rather than the (mechanical) engineering perspective (that I would have preferred) until recently and now it seems as if the marketing / sales / business degree folks have taken over, said folks not knowing that product improvement can improve profit but rather only working to sell more of what they currently have for short term gain at a long term loss. Without having a pool of us who aren't paying for support who may be lured back into annual payments there is little incentive for the current management to do anything to fix the product to draw us back in. So with the sales mentality and the loss of incentive to make the product better I predict a slow decline in popularity of SW. But the people responsible will be on to another job by then.

I want to differentiate support from license renewal. We don't need to make annual payments to renew our license, at least as far as I remember reading it. What you are paying for is support and annual updates. Yet one of the blurbs I've read which was purported to have come from SW referred to it as a license renewal. I think if they have drifted to that mentality they might find themselves in a bit of a class action law suit.

Somewhat in parallel with this and showing how SW doesn't recognize you as being legitimate for buying a license but only recognizes customers who continue to give money... I downloaded eDrawings 2016 (2015?) a few months back. It has something in it that went in and killed my PhotoView 360. I've been unable to render with it since that free download. And since I believe I have a perpetual license to run SW 2010 I contacted the local VAR to see how I could get the functionality that I paid for back. I was told more or less that I got what I deserved for not giving them money all these years and given no help. And that downloading of eDrawings (supposedly free) unleashed a torrent of solicitations to buy SW again.

Mark

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