We are in the same boat as Shaggy except our pdm is smarteam. IT must upgrade any custom programing before moving forward. Also there is the dreaded fear of bugs with the initial release.
Just upgraded to 2004 last fall and in IT's infinate wisdom loaded the original release (no service packs). That was fun for a couple of months. We also have 2005 hidden in some dark secret room somewhere no time frame on when we might see it.
IT also tied our hands, so bad in fact, we skiped SW04 and moved from SW03 to SW05. SW04 sat on the shelf the entire time.
[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
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You miss sooooo much information when you skip a release. I recommend that if you skip a release get the what's new from the one you skipped and review it, before looking at the next major release of SW.
We are in the same boat as Shaggy and snaper only our PDM is PDMWorks. How can this be??... Our vault server runs NT. No more NT support in PDMWorks 2005. AFIK 2004 isn't supposed to supprt NT either, but it works on our system after hitting "ignor" on the error that pops up during install.
Snaper,
I feel your pain. We also have Smarteam and it is truly ridiculous that two products owned by the same company, Dassault Systemes, can't get along. My understanding is that they are even located in the same building in Boston but the developement groups don't talk to each other. We are still on SW2004 and hope to upgrade to SW2005 by the end of the month. But, before we upgrade to SW2005 we need to upgrade Smarteam to V5R14. We are currently using V5R11. However, even after the Smarteam upgrade the highest version of Solidworks that Smarteam will "support" is SW2005 SP2.0.
I don't know about you, but I am starting to wonder if PDMWORKS might be a better fit for us. At least that way we know that the two are more likely to keep in sync with each other as far a new releases are concerned. We hate being held hostage by Smarteam. We are losing out on some of the new functionality that Solidworks puts out and could be beneficial to us. I know that SW2006 is right around the corner so I will be missing out on that as well.
Why are all five of us still on 2004 when we have 2005 in house and potentially 2006 on the way?
1. 2004 is 10% faster than 2005.
2. The retraining for 2005 was not worth it considering that the first really stable service pack came out about 3 months before 2006 would hit the streets.
3. The new features, while certainly nice, were not enough incentive to upgrade.
4. We don't have to share files with anyone.
5. There are more bugs in 2005 than in 2004 thus negating the argument that you are paying for bug fixes.
I have been doing this job for 3 years now and I noticed a trend within the end of the release of SW03 going into SW04.
Towards the end of one release and the beginning of another my calls drop off. SW04 the calls didn’t drop off at all. I was still sending numerous bug reports into SW at the end of SW04. At the first release SW05 Sp0.0 the calls continued and picked up some while I was supporting both SW04 and 05. But now that most have moved over to SW05 and since the end of 05 is upon us, my calls are down again. It’s almost stagnating. I can actually get other things done now.
The reason I know they are down is because I am required to track all incoming Calls/Voicemail/ and Email that comes my way. Those numbers reflect what is going on. Those numbers are important to me to track how and when calls are made.
My disagreement is:
1) As for speed, I found and felt SW05 to be faster IMO.
2) Retraining???? what do you mean retraining, what do you have to do to retrain someone that has been using SW04? It's not that different then SW04 was, IMHO.
3) That is something only a company can decide on.
4) N/A
5) IMO SW04 was much bugger and still is, then SW05. I still see many SW04 bug posts, but SW05 has it’s share too I won’t lie about that.
I agree with Scott 100%. We also had more bugs with 2004 than 2005. There is also not training in the upgrading. Just learning a few little tricks with the additions of new stuff in each upgrade. You will have more to learn going from 2004 to 2006 than 2004-2005-2006.
I stay up to date with each SP and upgrade and don't see the big problems that most write about.
Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05 ctopher's home site
I think for most mid-large sized companies on Solidworks you have to be extremely careful when upgrading because it's not easy at all to go back to the old version.
As such, you have to do A LOT of testing not just with major versions, but with each SP as well, because problems can appear with a specifc SP that can be "deadly" (i.e. bug with one SP of 2003 that would crash SW when you imported a DWG - ouch). However you can never find ALL the bugs with testing.
So it's a cost/benefits thing - weighing the benefits of any new functionality against tampering with an environment that, if not perfect, is at least known.
That is why it is encouraged to fully test the software before upgrading. We have a customer with at 50 seats and they fully test a version before they upgrade. They don't find everything, but they find enough to confirm whether or not they will upgrade.
I do testing. I test the new version on a laptop for about a month before upgrading the company. I am the biggest SW user and I know which features we use.
Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05 ctopher's home site
Testing is definetely the best way to figure out whether to upgrade or not. However testing on a large scale is note easily done in a production environment, because Solidworks is not backwards compatible (what happens to that new data if you don't upgrade?).
As such you have to do the best job you can in simulating a production environment by getting people to dedicate their time to testing, re-producing work they've already done in the production environment. This is a luxury that not all companies can afford.
Whatever problems you find or read about with a new version are a LOT easier to swallow if there is a significant gain in functionality with that new version.
As well, you can widen the teeth of the fine-toothed comb you use during testing if you know that any minor problems with the new version are worth living with to get the new functionality.
Like I mentioned above we have a large customer that does the same thing as you Production enviroment and they seem to manage it. But not all companies are the same. If you don't test to some degree, then your best to never move up to the next version.
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