Is this true what the VAR hawkridge is saying?
https://forum.solidworks.com/message/341355#341355
Many thanks
Is this true what the VAR hawkridge is saying?
https://forum.solidworks.com/message/341355#341355
Many thanks
Why is a post from 2010 popping up now? No, it's not true...
2010?? that is a new post today did you read it?
I can't imagine SolidWorks pulling the plug on PDMWorks when there are so many users of it. To say, "Hey, we're going to dump this included vault and make you pay for EPDM" would be assinine and self-defeating. If we weren't already using EPDM, I, for one, would turn around and look for a 3rd party vault service just to not give SolidWorks the money were they to do that.
Yes I would agree with you, but the poster did say his VAR hawkridge said this and that makes a big difference.
Does the VAR not know what is going on or does he?
Either way one of them (Solidworks or the VAR), does not seem to know what is happening.
If the VAR is wrong then they need to be put straight and they in turn need to put their customers straight too.
If the VAR is right then Solidworks needs to be straight with us the customers.
Hi Peter,
Yep, I read it...I was looking at the date under peoples names (oops)....LOL - I saw the 2013 under my name and incorrectly assumed it was the date of the post. Forgot that my 'clock' got reset when I joined the 'real world'.
Joy
Peter,
Hawkridge is our VAR as well. They seem to be honest and straight-forward when dealing with questions, but I doubt that they would go out on limb and say that SW was dropping WPDM before SW announced such a change. I suspect that the original poster misinterpreted something along the lines of "SW does not seem to be putting any serious development effort into WPDM". We can all testify to the truth of that statement.
Jerry S.
Yes Jerry that is a possibility I agree and so this should be clarified asap.
Maybe we should all ask our Var's to see what they have to say on this statment?
Matthew West jumped on one of my last posts where his text jumped up and down in size and fonts but seems to be very quite on this one or he may not have read it just yet. Here's hoping!
Also I must add that none of the bugs found in Pdmworks have been fixed in 2013 yet, so that released, sp1.0 and now sp 2.0, where the bugs remain that were not in pdmworks 2012, all sp's up to sp4, (I skipped sp5 as sp4 worked!), and so are these going to be fixed or are they going to continue run with a sub standard product?
Pdmworks did once work correctly, development work is not required, it just needs fixing to do what it says it can do on the tin.
Pete
Just looked at my work email and there waiting for me were three, yes three! Pdmworks spr fixes sent by Solidworks technical support.
So it does look like Pdmworks IS being fixed and supported still!
Strange the the people mentioned in this post's title have not replied yet' though?
Are you all alive still?
Hi All,
I'm sure the guys mentioned did not respond because they are not aware of the post. As a former employee I can tell you that unless you sign up for email notifications or visit regularly, you will not be aware of posts. If you managed to get to the person you mentioned you were lucky.
This is a forum for customers to help customers. It is often frequented by VAR and SW employees, but there should be no expectation that naming an employee will get you a response. If you really need a response, you need to contact them directly.
Now, back to the topic - this question has been asked and answered several times and is untrue. SolidWorks is committed to supporting the product. As many have discerned, the difference is that you should not expect to see major new functionality.
Hawkridge is a good VAR and I suspect there was a misunderstanding or a possible mis-statement. In any event, if the VAR said that to me I would ask to have that information 'in writing' so that I could investigate solutions for my data management needs.
Cheers,
Joy
You are quite right Joy and so I have sent an email to Hawkridge to see if it is just a misunderstanding.
I will post their reply or maybe they will post their reply here themselves.
Yes, I'm alive and well, thank you. As Joy pointed out - just mentioning our names in a post does not automatically guarantee we will see the post.
To answer your original question : no, it's not true - Workgroup PDM has not been discontinued, nor has any EOL (end of life) been announced.
[Our policy for a platform or product to reach EOL is that there will be a minimum 12 months advance warning in the form of release notes, KB articles, warnings on the download pages, forum posts etc. As an example, see what we did when we announced we would drop support for Windows XP in SolidWorks 2013.]
That said, I would strongly advise considering using Enterprise PDM for new PDM deployments. It scales much better than Workgroup PDM: number of users, number of files, number of sites, etc.
We will continue to support existing Workgroup PDM installations until its EOL.
Vajrang Parvate.
Director, SolidWorks Product Development
P.S. Bill & Swapnil no longer work at SolidWorks.
Thank you Vajrang,
Nice and clear as always!
Thank you for the ups on Bill and Swapnil
Hi Everyone. I know this is a little off topic, but still relevant to something mentioned by Joy Garon.
I work for a reseller here in South Africa, and I do frequent the forums since it provides some great insight into how people work and how the rubber hits the road. I often try to help with problems, but, like you, I have a job to do and as a reseller we are constantly in a 'software production / support' environment, just like you, the consumer of that, is busy working. So we are busy too though I think sometimes some clients think we drink coffee the whole day lol
You make this forum to be what you post on it, and it is not a guarantee that resellers / SolidWorks staff will be on the forums.
You don't drink coffee all day??
Pull the other one, it has bells on. lol
Hey Everyone,
My name is John Peros and I am the Director of our Data Management department at Hawk Ridge Systems. As you have already heard from SolidWorks, there is no EOL announced for Workgroup PDM right now but I sent an e-mail to Pete about this and I wanted to post that information for everyone else as well.
"Hey Pete,
My name is John Peros and I am the Director of the Data Management department here at Hawk Ridge Systems and I wanted to answer your question about what is going on with Workgroup PDM. I can tell you 100% for sure that SolidWorks has not announced any sort of end of life date for Workgroup PDM nor have they confirmed to anyone at Hawk Ridge that the product is officially being discontinued. In all likely hood, someone from Hawk Ridge told a customer that the product will likely be discontinued in the future but we would never tell anyone that was for sure going to happen without official word from SolidWorks.
That being said, there are a couple things you should keep in mind if you are a Workgroup user and worried about its life expectancy:
1) Workgroup PDM is written on a very old architecture that has little potential for upgrade. This is why you are not seeing many development resources put into the tool anymore and you can validate that by looking at the list of enhancements given to the tool over recent years. Things like "Minimize button in the Admin tool" show just how important enhancing Workgroup functionality is.
2) Many Workgroup users experience serious performance issues with the tool because of its outdated architecture. The way it manages and opens multitude of texts files in the background during common operations is the usual culprit for this and fixing that would require at 100% change in the tool's architecture. Not saying that SolidWorks wouldn't invest that money but when they have a tool without those limitations already (EPDM) it's hard to imagine that would happen. As you know, SolidWorks isn't the kind of company that relies on ancient technology and they are usually at the forefront of emerging tech to enhance the user experience in every way possible. That being said, there are many happy users of WPDM without performance issues.
3) The most interesting piece of all this is that in 2012, SolidWorks started a "Registration" process for all server installations of Workgroup PDM. If you have anything to do with the install of WPDM at your company, you have most likely seen this. The reason behind this move is clear, they are trying to get a picture of exactly who is using WPDM in the customer base. Since it's not sold as a separate product, there was no way in the past to track this hence the registration process. I'll leave it up to your imagination of why SolidWorks would want to know this.
All things considered, the one thing I will say is this, SolidWorks is an amazing company and cares very deeply for their customers. They would never just pull the rug out from under a product without informing their customers well in advance and also providing them with a transition plan. Were not talking about PTC here and I know SolidWorks doesn't want to make the same mistakes they made (pulling IntraLink for example). If this does happen in the future as many believe it will, I fully expect SolidWorks to make sure their customers are happy and comfortable with the transition.
Thanks,
John Peros"
EPDM & WPDM have astronomical differences. Not the least of which is cost. 10x $ is a pretty serious gap!
In the beginning WPDM was sold separately (PDMWorks was a separate company altogether) and then later added when Office & Office Professional where introduced. It might be old but it still works great. They must keep it going, period.
If not then they need to develop another alternative. SolidWorks needs to have an economical Workgroup PDM.
Transitioning to EPDM not logical. Not economical! Unless the upgrade is free.
Kenneth, you just beat me to it! lol
When Solidworks brought Pdmworks then the cost must have been incorporated in to the price of Solidworks professional and above.
This cost must be a lot lower than EPDM.
Will we get EPDM for the same price as we pay for Pdmworks (the difference between standard and professional?)
Otherwise it will be seen as a money grabbing exercise, (hint! bankers).
IIRC $995 a seat. Easy to install. Easy to setup.
Kenneth,
Can you tell me what IIRC is?
If I Remember Correctly
Thanks,
I'm not up on Texting so I don't know most of the acronyms yet.
I thought you were talking about a program name that was abbreviated IIRC.
Should have gone to www.acronymfinder.com first!
We have been researching adding workgroup.
Your subscription must be current (this is a must to add Workgroup standalone).
For our 6 seats of Standard our VAR has quoted $8340 to add Workgroup.
That's $1390 per seat. It probably changes with the number of seats.
Also, a floating "Contributor" License is $695 ($495 + 200 for subscription) (non cad user that needs access to the data).
To add ePDM it is $1795 + $495 for subscription per seat.
Get a genuine quote for EPDM.
Bear in mind you will need some setup and training.
You will need a real server too.
Make sure you're sitting before opening and reading the quote.
This was the real quote from my VAR for ePDM (not workgroup).
$1795 + $495 per seat - 6 seats =$13,740.
They were originally talking around $21,000 and that included 5 days training and installation.
Later they broke it down for just the software and subscription cost with the note that training and installation was "Necessary" for ePDM.
Rick, Kenneth has good advice for sure though it sounds like he may have been the victim of a price gouging quote at some point in the past. Speaking from a reseller perspective, you can't compare just the seat costs because EPDM does require a more powerful server and usually the cost for implementation of EPDM is higher. I can't speak for what other VARs charge but our typical implementation is between 6 and 10k. You can always set it up youself the same way people do with Workgroup though its not necessarily the best option.
If hardware/IT resources are something difficult for you to swallow, there is a really great new company out there called EpiGrid which offers a hosted solution for EPDM and will even implement it for you. Its especially good if your resellers service dollars are a bit hard to swallow.
If you are doing a NEW pdm deployment, I would certainly echo Vajrang from SolidWorks in saying EPDM will serve you better in the long run and the cost differential usually isn't that big, especially if you need to bring seats back on subs or purchase Workgroup licenses separately.
For anyone who has seen an EPDM quote in the past and it was pricy, I'd suggest looking again. Resellers have really figured this out in the last two years so service costs have certainly come down.
John,
That's really good information, as was the information from Kenneth.
I also agree with you on the installation costs. Our VAR quoted 6.5K with the disclaimer that they would have to fully evaluate our requirements and systems for a final "accurate" quote. Sorry I left that out.
I also was basing this on some of our current conditions - we just upgraded all our SW users to New Dell T1600 workstations that we had beefed up with faster CPU's, higher memory, more disk space, and good video cards. When I was researching the systems I got many recommendations from users and followed them. This included Anna Woods recommendation that I get the T1600 for my needs as she was using these and they performed well with SW.
Even though I agree that ePDM would be a good long term solution, my company is looking at the most effective bang for the buck in the short term. I would like to have SW Pro AND ePDM. We only have SW Standard and we will get more out of the Pro than the ePDM since we can use workgroup. Long term, we can look at ePDM but now my company doesn't even maintain the subscriptions and that could really bite us with ePDM.
Yes, I'm alive and well, thank you. As Joy pointed out - just mentioning our names in a post does not automatically guarantee we will see the post.
To answer your original question : no, it's not true - Workgroup PDM has not been discontinued, nor has any EOL (end of life) been announced.
[Our policy for a platform or product to reach EOL is that there will be a minimum 12 months advance warning in the form of release notes, KB articles, warnings on the download pages, forum posts etc. As an example, see what we did when we announced we would drop support for Windows XP in SolidWorks 2013.]
That said, I would strongly advise considering using Enterprise PDM for new PDM deployments. It scales much better than Workgroup PDM: number of users, number of files, number of sites, etc.
We will continue to support existing Workgroup PDM installations until its EOL.
Vajrang Parvate.
Director, SolidWorks Product Development
P.S. Bill & Swapnil no longer work at SolidWorks.