Maintenance Poll
- Thread starter MikeHenry
- Start date
Sorry about that. I realized that there weren't enough choices a few days after the poll was posted but there doesn't seem to be a way to revise it, At the least, there should have been a selection for those on multi-year maintenance, another for those who would just be playing it year by year, and perhaps one more. In the interest of informing 3DS of your opinion you could always state it as a reply to the thread. Better yet, email someone at 3DS if you know of someone with a vested interest in GMD.
bigseb
Alibre Super User
FWIW I think charging a yearly maintenance fee and not releasing any kind of update is just plain wrong. I also think that the fact that no-one at 3D Systems could be bothered to communicate with its paying customers is a hundred time worse. The reality is that if I were to treat my paying clients like that I would be out of business and have ruined my professional name.
On the flip side GD is still a fantastic CAD package and does a great job.
Tough one...
On the flip side GD is still a fantastic CAD package and does a great job.
Tough one...
Well, there's no reason you can't continue to use it without paying maintenance if it meets your needs and you don't mind the bugs that won't get fixed, unless they do and you go back on maintenance. Not many CAD programs will allow use without annual maintenance payments in the future so that's one reason I still have GMD loaded and use it on occasion.
johnwhitley
Member
The lack of updates and communication is extremely off-putting. There seem to be a few possibilities:
I feel like "The Good" scenario is an extreme longshot at this point. As this poll indicates, the lack of any updates or news for well over a year has got to be causing significant hemorrhaging of previously loyal customers and customer confidence. There's virtually no risk of The Osborne effect at this point, so 3D Systems would be foolhardy to not make a public announcement to stem the exodus.
I also suspect that the worst-case scenario of "The Ugly" is unlikely. More likely, GD will probably keep ticking along in some operational form for years, gradually undergoing bit-rot.
For my part, I'm not currently planning on renewing my maintenance. The only question in my mind: Will I still be able to use GD in read-only capacity after maintenance expiration? Either way, that mostly just changes my window to decide on and migrate to a competitor. My work in GD is primarily a long-term ongoing side-business effort; not one which is making any significant income yet. I've been following OnShape, and they're doing some really great work in building a new ground-up CAD suite, but they're still lacking one feature critical to my work. That's scheduled to land this year, but it'll be a race between 1) that feature landing, 2) my testing it and being able to migrate existing work, and 3) my GD maintenance renewal deadline.
As someone else said, above, I don't love the increase in annual cost of OnShape vs. GD maintenance. I may mitigate that at first by going month-to-month; my availability to work on the side-biz varies seasonally, so I can use that to my advantage. If OnShape introduced a plan w/ private documents, customized to smaller users like myself, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
- The Good: Geomagic Design is undergoing a major rework to become a more future-looking part of 3D System's overall software suite. 3D Systems (vs. Alibre) seems to have a corporate philosophy of not communicating much at all about ongoing/future work, so existing users are left completely in the dark.
- The Bad: Geomagic Design has entered a quiet end-of-life phase. Just barely enough engineering effort to satisfy existing maintenance and support obligations, but little active development.
- The Ugly: Geomagic Design development and staffing have already been terminated/reassigned, and 3D Systems continues to accept maintenance with no good-faith effort to sustain the product. If a critical Windows update rendered GD non-operational tomorrow, we'd all be up the proverbial creek.
I feel like "The Good" scenario is an extreme longshot at this point. As this poll indicates, the lack of any updates or news for well over a year has got to be causing significant hemorrhaging of previously loyal customers and customer confidence. There's virtually no risk of The Osborne effect at this point, so 3D Systems would be foolhardy to not make a public announcement to stem the exodus.
I also suspect that the worst-case scenario of "The Ugly" is unlikely. More likely, GD will probably keep ticking along in some operational form for years, gradually undergoing bit-rot.
For my part, I'm not currently planning on renewing my maintenance. The only question in my mind: Will I still be able to use GD in read-only capacity after maintenance expiration? Either way, that mostly just changes my window to decide on and migrate to a competitor. My work in GD is primarily a long-term ongoing side-business effort; not one which is making any significant income yet. I've been following OnShape, and they're doing some really great work in building a new ground-up CAD suite, but they're still lacking one feature critical to my work. That's scheduled to land this year, but it'll be a race between 1) that feature landing, 2) my testing it and being able to migrate existing work, and 3) my GD maintenance renewal deadline.
As someone else said, above, I don't love the increase in annual cost of OnShape vs. GD maintenance. I may mitigate that at first by going month-to-month; my availability to work on the side-biz varies seasonally, so I can use that to my advantage. If OnShape introduced a plan w/ private documents, customized to smaller users like myself, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
NateLiquidGravity
Alibre Super User
That perpetual license works assuming the following:NigelL said:
A) Licensing servers remain in operation.
B) Support still resets/releases license from an old install.
C) Hardware and OS updates don't render your software obsolete.
D) You retain a copy of installer or server still provides it.
I may have missed something else (besides apocalypses and such).
The program does for me, a home hobbyist, pretty much what I need it to do, although I would like the import/export capabilities to be seriously beefed up. Having said this,why should I pay for maintenance? Why should I toss away more money in when:
A. It already mostly does what I want it to do.
B. Geomagic clearly isn't updating it (at least, it looks that way).
So... Why pay for maintenance? It's an easy call for me. Plus, I'm actively looking into other CAD programs given that this program, which I have loved using, is fast becoming abandonware in the absence of any official news to the contrary.
Hey Geomagic, want people like me to buy maintenance? Then MAINTAIN the program! It really is that simple.
Bob
A. It already mostly does what I want it to do.
B. Geomagic clearly isn't updating it (at least, it looks that way).
So... Why pay for maintenance? It's an easy call for me. Plus, I'm actively looking into other CAD programs given that this program, which I have loved using, is fast becoming abandonware in the absence of any official news to the contrary.
Hey Geomagic, want people like me to buy maintenance? Then MAINTAIN the program! It really is that simple.
Bob
BenzB
Senior Member
I anted up this year. We will see what happens next year. FWIW, $400 is CHEAP for maintenance. If you look at what else is out there, Inventor/ Solidworks they are on subscription plans. I can't even touch these. You HAVE to renew if you want to keep using it. This is worth trying to keep alive. Unless you have loads of money to toss around, then by all means, go and do it. Maybe send some my way.
Sunprojekt82
Member
You can not compare SW with GMD. SW is on a whole different level!
Only the sheet module is so very apart, GMD can not keep up.
I prefer to pay more in the basic price, do no maintenance and have so a thousand times more advantages than every year maintenance to pay for nothing. If one calculates that for certain years it is then no longer more expensive, but better!
For hobbyists, SW sometimes even offers learning licenses, these cost only a fraction of GMD, it is still a full-fledged license and may be used for private use as long as no profit is generated.
Only the sheet module is so very apart, GMD can not keep up.
I prefer to pay more in the basic price, do no maintenance and have so a thousand times more advantages than every year maintenance to pay for nothing. If one calculates that for certain years it is then no longer more expensive, but better!
For hobbyists, SW sometimes even offers learning licenses, these cost only a fraction of GMD, it is still a full-fledged license and may be used for private use as long as no profit is generated.
Sunprojekt82
Member
"adequate" is not appropriate for me that I pay maintenance costs, but no new features get. Who buys a CAD program and can afford to buy a new one shortly afterwards.
Since man has rather a last spark of hope that finally updates come ..
But this hope is also buried somewhere. At the latest, this behavior will be avenged by 3D Systems
I have paid 2016 maintenance for nothing and deceived me!
Since man has rather a last spark of hope that finally updates come ..
But this hope is also buried somewhere. At the latest, this behavior will be avenged by 3D Systems
I have paid 2016 maintenance for nothing and deceived me!
JST
Alibre Super User
If you look at Design X, they do not mention being able to do regular Geomagic files.
"Create CAD models in
Design X and transfer them, with complete feature trees, to Siemens NX, PTC Creo,
Pro/ENGINEEER, Inventor and SOLIDWORKS"
http://www.geomagic.com/files/7014/4163 ... r-2016.pdf
I would ASSUME they do, but the brochure does not mention it. Maybe they did not bother. Or, possibly design X uses the geomagic format and does not need to convert. Your answer to that may depend on how much you believe that GMD is dead.
"Create CAD models in
Design X and transfer them, with complete feature trees, to Siemens NX, PTC Creo,
Pro/ENGINEEER, Inventor and SOLIDWORKS"
http://www.geomagic.com/files/7014/4163 ... r-2016.pdf
I would ASSUME they do, but the brochure does not mention it. Maybe they did not bother. Or, possibly design X uses the geomagic format and does not need to convert. Your answer to that may depend on how much you believe that GMD is dead.
HaroldL
Alibre Super User
Your link is incomplete, just opens a blank page.JST said:
When 3DSystems bought Geomagic and Alibre I don't think rewriting one or the other so they both used the same file format was in their plans. Why spend the money on Alibre if they're just going to rewrite the program (seems like a lot of work) or let it die (what a waste of cash).JST said:
The Swedish reseller on facebook:
"Missa inte den nya produktsidan för dig som använder Alibre Design! Snart kommer något stort hända."
Translated from Swedish to English by Google Translate: "Do not miss the new product page for those using Alibre Design! Soon something will happen.
"Missa inte den nya produktsidan för dig som använder Alibre Design! Snart kommer något stort hända."
Translated from Swedish to English by Google Translate: "Do not miss the new product page for those using Alibre Design! Soon something will happen.