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amcgough14-Alexandrite
14-Alexandrite
February 25, 2021

Official PTC Mathcad 15 and Prime 1–6 End-of-Sale Announcement

  • February 25, 2021
  • 22 replies
  • 750455 views

Hi Mathcad community members,

 

For those of you who don't know me (some do), my name is Andrew McGough and I'm the product manager for Mathcad here at PTC. I have talked to some of you in the past individually, but I don't get to participate as much as I'd like on the community. I hope this announcement is the start of me being able to be more active here.

 

I would like to share with you that PTC is announcing the end-of-sale for the following versions of PTC Mathcad, effective December 31, 2021:  

  • Mathcad 15 
  • Mathcad Prime 1.0 – Prime 6.0  

 

Effective January 1, 2022, the only version of PTC Mathcad available for subscription will be PTC Mathcad Prime 7 and future versions of PTC Mathcad Prime. After December 31, 2021, PTC will no longer have the right to sell or distribute software versions moving to end of sale due to a third-party component contained in those versions. 

 

I appreciate the passion of our Mathcad userbase, so I would like to pass along some additional information on a helpful offer. If you currently have a subscription license and wish to continue using your current version of PTC Mathcad while you evaluate Mathcad Prime 7, we are offering a multi-year renewal option that will give you the ability to use your current version for up to four additional years. If you decide to take advantage of this offer, it is important to place the order prior to December 7, 2021 to ensure no issues in booking the order or the subscription start date. PTC may decline or be unable to process orders received after that date. Please contact your PTC account representative or PTC partner for more information. 

 

Please bear in mind that the use of old versions of software does introduce implicit risk in areas of security, hardware, and software platform support. 

 

PTC will continue to provide technical support access, phone assistance and expert input for versions of Mathcad that have reached end-of-sale. PTC will not be able to issue new licenses or provide access to software downloads for end-of-sale versions. 

 

Our customers in English-speaking countries received the End-of-Sale announcement on February 17, 2021. Our global customers are receiving the localized communication now. 

 

We have put together multiple resources for you to answer your questions. Please refer to our FAQ for more information. We know this is a big change so the Mathcad team will be monitoring this thread for feedback.

 

Best regards, 

Andrew McGough, 

Product Manager, PTC 

    22 replies

    V
    24-Ruby III
    VladimirN24-Ruby III
    24-Ruby III
    February 26, 2021

    Here are "End-of-Sale Announcement" FAQ: https://www.mathcad.com/-/media/Files/PDFs/Mathcad/End-of-Sale-Mathcad-FAQ-2.pdf

    D
    DaveSeddon4-Participant
    4-Participant
    April 16, 2021

    I have yet to try Prime 7 but prior versions of Prime will not convert MathCad 15 into a functional worksheet so I have not adopted Prime so far.  If, as I suspect, Prime 7 is still not able to convert my MC15 sheets which use checkboxes and radio buttons etc. then I will use the 4 remaining years of MC15 access to convert to either Maple or Mathematica.  Well done PTC, you have finally driven me away!!

      B
      bigjim011-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      April 20, 2021

      They have not written a version of Mathcad for macOS since Mathcad 6, so until they do, they will be missing 40% of the desktop market that do not use Microsoft Windows. It was a great program until Mathsoft was purchased by PTC, then it went downhill from there.

      I
      intern11-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      April 23, 2021

      Will Mathcad 15 no longer be able to run? I have Mathcad 15 as well as Prime 7. After December will 15 no longer function on my desktop? 

      I
      intern11-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      April 23, 2021

      I am also wondering if the license I have for 7 will no longer work to use Mathcad 15?

      M
      MaxR11-Garnet
      11-Garnet
      April 29, 2021

      Thanks for posting, @amcgough .

      Mathcad is one of my favorite applications and many of the advanced features are heavily relied upon by my organization.

      We are planning to upgrade to Mathcad Prime 7.0  later in the year; however, we are still running Mathcad Prime 6.0 in production.

      If we update our license manager with new license pack up'reved for Prime 7.0  which does NOT include:

      #254 Mathcad Image Processing Prime 6.0
      #255 Mathcad Data Analysis Prime 6.0
      #256 Mathcad Signal Processing Prime 6.0
      #257 Mathcad Wavelets Prime 6.0

      Will these advanced features continue to run in Prime 6.0 if I load the new license pack that has been up'reved for 7.0?

       

      A
      amcgough14-AlexandriteAuthor
      14-Alexandrite
      November 11, 2021

      Hi Max,

       

      I'm really sorry I missed this question when you asked it.

       

      Those four 'extension pack' items you see in licenses for Prime 6.0 and earlier were in the license for when it was used to activate Mathcad 15.0 only. They automatically activated those extension packs in Mathcad 15.0. Mathcad Prime has no concept of extension packs, everything in Mathcad Prime is in the base product, so those extension pack items were redundant in the license if used to activate any version of Mathcad Prime. That's why you don't see those extension packs in the Prime 7.0 license - some changes were made to how the license works for Prime 7.0 and part of that removed those extension pack items (as they don't activate anything in Prime 7.0).

       

      I hope that answers your question!

       

      Many thanks,


      Andy.

        M
        MaxR11-Garnet
        11-Garnet
        November 12, 2021

        Thanks, Andy. This does answer my question. I consider Mathcad PTC's gift to engineers, ALL engineers, and appreciate your good work getting this software modernized. 

          B
          bigjim011-Visitor
          1-Visitor
          May 4, 2021

          I have not used Mathcad since migrating to the Macintosh as Mathcad has not been on the Macintosh since Version 6. Virtualization is not currently an option because Microsoft does not license Windows 10 on ARM for M1 Macintosh computers and there is no reason why to limiting Mathcad to only a 60% marketshare of desktops.

          A
          akelly12-Amethyst
          12-Amethyst
          May 14, 2021

          This is unfortunate.  After 7 releases of Mathcad Prime (and 11 years of development), it still hasn't reached feature parity with Mathsoft's pinnacle release. Mathcad Prime is essentially an ongoing public beta test.

           

          Mathsoft's Mathcad was a word processor (e.g. Word, WordPerfect, etc.) that could do live math and plots.  The text styles, bullets & numbering, page formatting (headers, footers, etc.) and polished plot formatting made professional-quality documents. And the customization offered in the user-defined unit system made unit management virtually transparent.

           

          Sure, PTC has added some new features to Mathcad Prime, but none of that us useful enough to make up for the lack of text styles, default unit systems that aren't convenient, and horrible looking plots.  No matter how hard you try, output from all of the Mathcad Prime releases is poorer quality vs. the Mathcad 15 benchmark.

           

          If you're going to cut people off of Mathcad 15, then you'd better spend effort focusing on word processing features, page formatting, and plot formatting and user-defined unit system customization for the Prime 8 release.  Lack of those features makes Mathcad Prime harder to use.  It costs time (and money) to do manual formatting and constant fiddling with result units. It's hard to imagine that PTC still hasn't grasped this.

            B
            bigjim011-Visitor
            1-Visitor
            May 14, 2021

            It does seem like the Mathcad Prime series has been problematic. From some of documentation that I have seen, it has a very poor rendering engine as compared to other software. The price of the software has skyrocketed since the Windows 3.1 days and it no longer has an appropriate benefit/price performance that it once had. Mathcad is not the only piece of software that has exponentially increased in price. Price as well as the limitation to Windows has really made Mathcad a niche software status and no longer viable as an Engineers Electronic notebook. I am sure that there are some open source programs that will fit the bill quite nicely that Mathcad once did.

              R
              Raiko17-Peridot
              17-Peridot
              May 21, 2021

              Sad as it is, MC Prime has lost all the versatility of MC 15 and is therefore in no scenario a suitable replacement for MC 15. PTC never listened to customers in this regard and therefore ending previous versions of prime and MC15 has the appearance of another attempt to force prime onto customers.

                D
                DJNewman18-Opal
                18-Opal
                December 8, 2021
                @amcgough wrote:

                 

                I appreciate the passion of our Mathcad userbase, so I would like to pass along some additional information on a helpful offer. If you currently have a subscription license and wish to continue using your current version of PTC Mathcad while you evaluate Mathcad Prime 7, we are offering a multi-year renewal option that will give you the ability to use your current version for up to four additional years. If you decide to take advantage of this offer, it is important to place the order prior to December 7, 2021 to ensure no issues in booking the order or the subscription start date. PTC may decline or be unable to process orders received after that date. Please contact your PTC account representative or PTC partner for more information. 

                 Note that while it is after December 7, 2021, PTC can still process multi-year renewal orders right now. Be sure to talk with your account representative as soon as you can if your plan hasn't been settled yet.

                  J
                  JH_94159311-Visitor
                  1-Visitor
                  January 10, 2022

                  Hey Andrew,

                  I bought Mathcad Prime 5.0 Student Edition on January 6th 2022 and had problems with the installation assistent. I can't select any program in the list after agreeing the license agreement.
                  While my search for a reason with my problem, I cought on your blog post. How is it possible that I could bought Mathcad Prime 5.0 at the official PTC Web Store in 2022 when PTC isn't allowed to sell older versions anymore?

                  Is the only way to get an working version to buy Prime 7 and it is possible to get my money back when the version I bought few days ago isn't working?

                   

                  My Blog Post: https://community.ptc.com/t5/PTC-Mathcad-Installation/Problem-mit-Installationsassistent/m-p/771413#M1292

                   

                  Where I bought Prime 5.0: https://store.ptc.com/store?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&Locale=de_DE&OfferID=44555721909&SiteID=ptc&ThemeID=21925700&productID=5102736200

                   

                  Greetings Jonas

                  A
                  amcgough14-AlexandriteAuthor
                  14-Alexandrite
                  January 10, 2022

                  Hi Jonas,

                   

                  I'm digging into this now. I'll send you a direct message to ask for a few more details.

                   

                  Many thanks,


                  Andy.

                   

                    P
                    ptc-22788994-Participant
                    4-Participant
                    March 26, 2022

                    Hi Andy,

                    I am reading this thread for the first time here in March 2022 with a sinking feeling,  Maybe it's because I watched "Titanic" last night ... but I don't think so.

                    Let me introduce myself: I am an engineering manager in one those Fortune 500 companies that is one of your customers.  I have for decades done my bit to convince junior engineers that they need to take a look at Mathcad.  I am certain that Mathcad 15 is an enabler ... not just for productivity but for analysis at a synergistic level that  goes beyond what can be accomplished using collections of other tools.  At this moment, just this week, I am in the early stage of launching a project to update the analysis for an existing product that was designed using Mathcad and needs new features.  I told several engineers they needed to get Mathcad on their computers and get familiar with it.  I am now wondering if I have to abandon this path.  Why would I knowingly build in obsolescence?  This product will have a life cycle that runs for quite a bit more than a year or two.   You may think "Mathcad Prime" will be my path forward into the future.  No, sadly.  I had  a solid reason to work with Mathcad Prime 6 a year ago ... because I had some large arrays that Mathcad 15 could not handle.  After months of working with it I can conclusively say there is no way I can convince engineers that are familiar with getting things done with Matlab and Excel that the learning curve for Mathcad is worth it.  Why?  Because the output of Mathcad Prime is next to worthless.  The graphs are a bad joke.  If someone at PTC thinks that communicating results of engineering analysis is a secondary part of the task that can be ignored ... please ... disabuse them of that notion. 

                     

                    I honestly solicit your advice on what to say to my engineers on Monday.

                      H
                      HM_102795591-Visitor
                      1-Visitor
                      April 14, 2022

                      I am one of those permanent license holders to whom you promised that PTC would honor their licenses.  I purchased educational Prime 2.0 in 2013 mostly to get MathCAD 15, while then associated with the University of MN Twin Cities.  As Professor Emeritus of SD School of Mines, I used my henry.mot@sdsmt.edu email to identify the purchase.  I no longer have access to that email account.  I used MathCAD 15 to develop materials for a textbook project.  Then, in 2017 as a member of the St. Cloud State University Faculty I purchased educational Prime 4.0 so I could access student work done using the Prime 4.0 that St. Cloud Stated licensed for its students.  Both of these purchases came with perpetual licenses.  The original license file from the 2013 purchase is attached.  In order to activate the MathCAD 15 I needed to first activate Prime 2.0 and then direct MathCAD 15 to the issued license file.  For the 2017 purchase (copies of the disc and contents are attached) the process was much the same.  In 2020, again in order to be able to access my students' work done through the St. Cloud State system, I purchased an educational subscription to Prime 6.0 which had a one-year term.  About that time, I needed to migrate my MathCAD 15 to a new PC and the tech who assisted me sent me a one-year license instead of a perpetual one to which I am entitled.  That one-year license has of course expired.   I have been to the website from which if I had a current product key for MathCAD 15 I could license the software.  Since neither purchase of MathCAD 15 (with Prime 2.0 or 4.0) was I ever issued a product key for MathCAD 15 I cannot enter a valid product key.  (see Prime 4 license queue and Prime 4 license queue response).  The license I have for Prime 4.0 and MathCAD 15 remains valid - via my old computer (which is falling apart) - see Prime 4 license message.  So, back in 2020 I was simply sent a license file and the instructions regarding how to activate it.  I would request a similar approach at this time, except that the license file needs to be permanent. 

                       

                      Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

                       

                      Henry Mott

                      H
                      HM_102795591-Visitor
                      1-Visitor
                      April 14, 2022

                      Oops - defunct sdsmt account was henry.mott@sdsmt.edu.

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