New Subscription Policy 4

[JMirisola]

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

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

 

[SBaugh]

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
Gryphon Environmental

http://www.2gryphon.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Theophilus]

The beatings will continue until morale improves...



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[Theophilus]

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:

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

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[JMirisola]

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

 

[Theophilus]

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



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[AnnaWood]

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

 

[Theophilus]

Looks like it's still there:

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/99007

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[JMirisola]

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

 

[AnnaWood]

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

 

[ApexM0Eng]

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.

 

[JMirisola]

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

 

[Theophilus]

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

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[JMirisola]

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

 

[AnnaWood]

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

Anna Wood
SW2014 SP2, Windows 7 x64

 

[Theophilus]

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

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[JMirisola]

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

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

 

[Theophilus]

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

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[Theophilus]

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:

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

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[Updraft]

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