Local VAR Out of Line?

[butelja]

Here's the deal.

I've made a proposal to my boss (and his boss) regarding upgrade from Autocad to SW2001+ for mechanical design. I design custom equipment for in-plant use in a chemical processing environment. Since my bosses are not ME's (CHe and MBA Co--sucker), they have a combination of not understanding and not believing the benefits of the upgrade. BTW, I've shown that with a ~25% increase in productivity, the investment has a ridiculously large rate of return.

To help sway the uninformed (who unfortunately are my bosses), I've asked the local VAR for a 30 Day trial license to demonstrate SW's capabilities. Much to my dismay, he acts like this request came from a stranger in a distant galaxy, who also has bad credit! I haven't seen any discussion of trial licenses on eng-tips, but from discussions on the comp.eng.solidworks NG, this seems to be common. Am I out in left field with my request, or do I have a lazy local VAR who just doesn't care about a 1-2 seat sale? If the latter is true, I'd like to let Dassault know and move on to someone who will help me. Thanks in advance.

BTW, if all else fails, I'm also looking for names of more progressive employers of ME's in the St. Louis, MO area. Thanks in advance again.

 

[SBaugh]

Well Butelja,

The VAR you asked is obvisously to lazy to give you that 30 day trial. Contact a another VAR in your area. You can check to see if any are close to by going to

http://www.solidworks.com/swdocs/var/certifiedlist/html/

put in your state and walla you have a list of potential VAR's.

I am surprised that they are behaving this away. That is completely unprofessional. It shouldn't matter how many seats of SW your going to buy. You may want to contact SW first and tell them about this situtaion. Then proceed to a new VAR. I would explain to them about this situtation as well They might be the more professional VAR than the other one. Heck, they may even give you a discount to just keep your business with them

Best regards and good luck,

PS. Hey, we don't live that not far away from each other ;-)
Evansville, IN Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help first*

 

[dsi]

butelja:

I'll bet you will see that type of productivity increase by upgrading. Easy on the ChE poke... it must be the "MBA" that messed everything up... Anyone that takes more than 5 minutes to research the issue will see the benefit, especially since you are designing custom equipment. Sure hope it works out for you.

As far as the trial version, that should cost the VAR no more than the postage required to send the disk. Oh, if they were smart they might splurge on a follow up call as well. I have receieved trials for several of the add-ins from my VAR without any issues. I would follow Scott's path, contact SW to report the issue and find a new VAR. DimensionalSolutions@Core.com
While I welcome e-mail messages, please post all thread activity in these forums for the benefit of all members.

 

[SupremeEngineer]

butelja,

I've just been thru this whole process you went thru. We submitted a proposal on upgrading to SWX from Autocad. I had no problems w/ the 30day trial copy. I did have to sit thru a hands on demo before I received the copy. I didn't have a problem w/ this aspect. It was helpful to go thru the hands on class due to the difference in functionality of the 2 programs. The hands on training was completely free. I would recommend the hands on training 1st though. They give you alittle booklet as a tutorial. I did have a time frame issue in receiving my 30day copy. The microsoft installer supplied w/ SWX was messed up & there was a recall on the CD's.

We had 30day trials of both Inventor & SWX. Both organizations required a hands on demo before giving the CD's out.

We were quoting 9 seats of SWX but our company only settled on 3 seats. We ordered them on a deal thru SWX which was buy 2 get 1 free. Also received the same in training on the new software.

We are based out of Goshen Indiana (near South Bend). We went w/ CATI out of Indy. They have a good program availible.

If you would like any assistance I've been thru all this myself. Also we could burn a copy of our trial disk if that would work. Not sure how much legality there is there.

Dean Weldy
Supreme Corp