How do you (Solid Works) take your clients money and not feel guilty about it?

Mark, have you contacted your VAR about this particular problem?

I was the one with over 22 years experience with SWX complaining about SWX2017, but that was until SP4.0.  If you can upgrade to 2017 and go to SP5.0 you should have a markedly better experience.

I can say one thing about upgrading versions, most likely it will fix your problems.  It seems as if you have been in a SolidWorks black hole lately.

Yes, it will probably fix your problems, but then there will be new problems.  But at least you'll be a little bit further down the road before you start discovering those, most likely.

The issues with SolidWorks has been discussed ad infinitum on the forums.  It is a big, complicated program.  There are corporate problems where the profit goes to bolster Dassault's quarterly earnings reports instead of being appropriately reinvested back into SolidWorks itself.

SolidWorks makes enough money to ensure they have the best of the best software developers and a sufficient volume of talent to handle the challenges, but they don't have the say as to what Dassault does with the profit.  And then the results can be seen on Glassdoor. 

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/SolidWorks-Boston-Reviews-EI_IE13824.0,10_IL.11,17_IM109.htm

"Lots of organizational change happening right now. Recently, a decent amount of employees moved on to other companies."

"Advice to Management

Stop the 3DExperience push and the resource investments. SolidWorks users don't want it and most don't care. Reinvest back into the existing product lines - innovate there and set yourselves apart from competitors - that's still your core strength; make better use of it.

Stop the hemorrhaging of your best talent - increase salaries more than the token 1 or 2%. Listen to the GPTW feedback without glossing over … "

"Pros

Good work/life balance. Good benefits.

Cons

No longer value employees' input to product and culture.

Advice to Management

Do your best to speak for what customers truly need. Keep the best employees motivated by finding a balance between what the parent company demand and the creative ideas from the team."

"Cons

Management has no idea what they are doing. The company is squeezing its customers for more money without more value. Prices will increase and value will decrease. It is becoming harder not to lie to customers. Dassault is really trying to push its expensive non-working software to SolidWorks customers"

"Cons

Your compensation review will list, for example, a 16% increase in revenue and thousands of new customers.. and then they'll hand you a 2.5% raise and tell you they don't care that that doesn't cover inflation or increases in employee contribution to your benefits. This is a $4 billion company, but they'll cut your pay each year with that 2.5% raise.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-SolidWorks-RVW2972284.htm

Advice to Management

Enforce the rule against lying to your co-workers. Fire people if several employees quit because of the same incompetent manager. Give substantial raises (or at least keep up with the cost of living). Make better efforts to keep your good employees; in this market, people can get 20% raises by leaving for another company. Clean house in your incompetent MIS department. Make sure your people know who they're reporting to."

"A company that's lost its mojo"

I think we'd all like to see SolidWorks get it's mojo back.