Edited to clarify: I do not believe Dassault is abandoning SW, only that they are forcing my hand to look into alternatives.
Dassault has made several changes this year that negatively affect us all. I've noted them below in no particular order and will update this post with any changes that I left out. The result will be that I will take these points and write a justification letter to purchase a copy of either SolidEdge or Inventor next year to help prepare to transition over if necessary. We will probably need to drop a license of SW, but we'll manage.
Please feel free to comment on any changes you have seen and I'll include them. And let's keep it constructive, I don't want this thread to be locked.
- Discontinuation of the HUL. I taught myself SW mostly at home using the Home Use License. I still model things at home and use SW for hobby 3D printing as well as to do things like study for certification tests, or explore functionality I don't use at work. But, if my hard drive goes out or I lose the computer, I will no longer have access to SW at home (and Dassault could turn my HUL off at any time). I'll just transition over to SE or IV at home with their HUL from the license we purchase. I'm going to have to teach myself whichever we choose anyway.
Here's a link to that discussion HUL - home use licence.... - Decision to not include SQL Server in the cost for PDM Pro. While this doesn't affect me directly because we currently use PDM Standard, this is a very costly decision they've made, should we decide to upgrade. I've seen in the thread by Grant Mattis at SQL Included with PDM Professional No More this could increase the cost by upwards of $20k/year depending on your setup.
- Charging for Draftsight. It was understood that Draftsight was free because SW didn't do 2D. They should have at least allowed SW users to have a free license when they decided to charge for it.
Here's a link to that discussion DraftSight Free Appears to be No More - Forcing us onto the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This year they've moved the Top Ten List over to that platform. I won't be surprised if they try to move the forum over there. Regardless, it looks like they expect us to iron out all of the issues with their platform, without compensating us.
Here's a link to a discussion on the matter 3DExperience World 2020 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List (there are plenty more, if you send me links, I'll include the ones you want) - Replacing Solidworks World with 3DEXPERIENCE World. This coincides with the point above. Where they are taking Solidworks is uncertain, but they have made it abundantly clear they are making Solidworks part of the 3DEXPERIENCE. The users didn't ask for this, but it is being forced on us. Generally, when changes are forced from management like this, the user suffers because their concerns and needs aren't considered.
I think Adrian Velazquez's answer sums it up pretty well at Goodbye Solidworks World.
There's also an article over at The CAD Insider: SolidWorks. - They raised the maintenance fee this year. No additional services or benefits were added, and they've cut a lot (see the other points).
- They dropped the support for video cards to three years. Working for a state government, it is a difficult process to justify and purchase new video cards. My current video card works just fine, but is no longer supported.
There's a thread about this at Very much fewer certified compatible graphics cards!?
Edited at 12:20pm 12/2/19. Jeremy Riedel called to speak with me about this issue. He is giving a presentation in part about this at 3DXWorld, where things should be made more clear. Here is a link to the training session: Hardware Certification - Comprehensive Overview. I will provide a link to the presentation if it is made available after the event, as well as clarify this point accordingly as best I can.
If this is of concern to you and you are attending the event, please go to that session and post back here. I am not attending. So I will be relying on others to help me clarify this point.
Each one of these points taken by themselves may not be that concerning depending on your setup and workflow. But when you consider that all of these changes happened in one year, it raises a lot of uncertainty about where SW is headed. As I've posted in another thread, if all this happened in 2019, what does 2020 look like? That is the reason for this thread. I think we all need to evaluate our options and prepare for a change if necessary.
I'm going to ping some users because I'm posting this on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and I want constructive input: John Stoltzfus, Dennis Dohogne, Dan Pihlaja, Rick Becker, Rob Edwards, Tom Gagnon, Josh Brady, Alex Lachance, Kevin Chandler, Rick McDonald, Tony Tieuli, Todd Blacksher, Frederick Law, David Matula, Paul Salvador, Christian Chu, Edward Poole, Glenn Schroeder, Deepak Gupta
I included just the top 20 (I think I got everyone in the top 20, but if I missed you, sorry). But, I want everyone's input. And I know there are a lot of people that will have some constructive input. For instance, Grant isn't in the top twenty, but he discovered probably the largest problem on the list so far.
Edited at 4:47pm 11/23/19 to add links to each point (except about the maintenance fee being raised, I couldn't find a specific thread about that one).
Edited at 9:30am 11/24/19 to fix an egregious spelling error on the title.
Edited at 9:50am 11/25/19 to clarify what I mean about abandon.
Edited at 12:20pm 12/2/19 to address video card support.
Each of these topics alone has had its own thread. It'd be helpful to gather links to those, to include the many relevant comments in each topic.
It has been a volatile year. I really hope that these harmful decisions were not made lightly by some ignorant bean counter without understanding their practical implications.
I'll consider more on this overall, but the first thing that I believe affects us most broadly is the last on your list, reducing the video card support duration. I don't know about others' hardware budgets, but my company expects five years of service from any PC, and due to high cost of workstations, practically even more from those capable of running SWx. This does not include a video card upgrade at its half-life, because it WAS working just fine upon a previous release. If hardware limitations preclude upgrades, then my subscription benefits are reduced down to tech support coverage because I can't effectively upgrade to the latest version.
Most of all, our hardware considerations prioritize the CPU and relegate the video card to secondary status. Buying a good-enough older generation video card for today's software will surely limit its future supported usability. We may have to change paradigms to buy better video cards than currently necessary or useful, only to ensure that it'll last (optimally) three years under supported certified drivers, which doesn't even fulfill our expectations of a 5-year usage from hardware. EVEN WORSE, we have no projected guidance or targets of coverage from within the supported drivers page, which effectively means that for every card purchase decision, each of us has to research its release details on our own to project forward how long it MAY be supported.
I predict that this will be an increasingly common forum issue by users unfamiliar with the support 'schedule'. They will buy acceptable hardware, Solidworks subscription, and much sooner than expected find that there is no certified driver for their card. Much more common, I expect, is that many will Upgrade to a new release because of the newer = better assumption (every release we have some regretful upgraders that learn not to use SP0 releases because they break things they had relied upon --> One and Two) and then encounter bugs and issues because of their unsupported video card. The end result of this conundrum is that many formerly viable tech support calls will be excused away by unsupported drivers and hardware, i.e. It's your fault, not the software's, and it's too late to downgrade to supported software now that you've been working with the new one in your library and projects. How long will that last, to sucker new buyers into a rigged system? Or, will VAR sales teams emphasize the need to establish healthy customer expectations to perpetually upgrade hardware before selling the software? Of course not! Why would any salesperson elaborate on the shortcomings of their offering? This right here is guaranteed to automatically generate negative customer Experiences.
Reduced hardware support is particularly contrary to established expectations. Those who learn that their expectations were inaccurate will surely feel betrayed by a system beyond their control, especially when they already chose to buy into it and maybe even invest into training users.