Creo is NOT Creo/Elements Pro

This is a totally different scenario than what you first told us. You have lapsed maintenance & want additional functionality. In this case i would wait a little longer (just to make the cost/benefit ratio better) then buy complete new licenses. With the high cost of maintenance, the fact that it does not buy you any new functionality and decreasing new license costs it only takes about 4 years with out maintenance to come out ahead.

As a long time (20+ years) user, I have always been extremely pissed off about PTC maintenance and licensing policies. We refuese to pay maintenance on packages they bundled in at the time of sale that we did not need or want. Every year I have to re-negotiate our maintenance as they continue to bill us for everything. Then they have the gall to say they are giving us a "discount" when those unused & unwanted options are not in our license codes. There is no discount, we are just paying for what we use. We continue to soldier on without the new functionalities bundled in with new licenses that sell for a fraction of what we paid years ago.

Don't cave & pay back maintenance, just tough it out until you can justify buying new.

In Reply to Steve Cooke:

Michael

Was there an upgrade cost?

I have asked this specific question and this was the answer from my VAR
(Only one in South Africa so I don't have much choice!)

Quoting:
"To answer the second part. on upgrades:
We can upgrade from Creo Foundation to Creo Parametric, it sells for R20,000
(based on USD of R 😎 and requires that your maintenance be up to date on
the package before we can upgrade it."
End quote

In spite of the above he also is quick to explain that there is no such
thing as Creo Foundation to buy as a new user. But any functionality missing
from your ProEngineer foundation license will be missing in Creo if you move
on to Creo without paying the upgrade fee detailed above.

Examples of this would be the Design Animation module and Surface which are
now included in Creo. It is not in my foundation license because we bought
in at Version 19. I have not paid maintenance since WF2, but even if I had
the additional functionality in Creo Parametric would still not be available
unless I upgrade.

Depending on when you bought your foundation licenses you might not even
notice any loss of functionality.

The issue of legacy as PTC re-bundles things is a sore point for me. When
we bought, I was forced to buy Pro/WEDM and Pro/Turn in the Pro/NC MFG
bundle even though I knew I would never use either of them. I pleaded
unsuccessfully to buy NC/Mill stand alone. Later on NC/Mill was sold stand
alone, with additional features we did not have access to and this after
years of me paying maintenance (at the higher cost) for software I have
never touched. When I moaned I was told to buy a new seat of NC Mill and
abandon my NC/MFG license, then I could enjoy the benefits of the additional
features!! IT was at that point that I stopped paying maintenance!! Leaves
a bitter taste and played a part in recently abandoning the NC Mfg License
and buying a machining package from a different supplier.

Their reasoning is apparently that the additional functionality has an R&D
cost and I should have to pay my share of that if I want the additional
functionality. There was no suitable answer given when I asked what portion
of my maintenance paid faithfully over many years went towards their R&D,
nor why I had paid a higher price for a less effective product than was now
being offered at a lower price! This is not a good example of how to reward
your loyal customers. (Note that having not paid maintenance since WF2, I no
longer count myself as a loyal customer!)

This upgrade cost to Creo Parametric is simply more of the same strategy but
surely a better way to develop loyal customers would be to offer maintenance
paying customers what ever is in the new package when they re-bundle the
software to match what ever they have to do to compete in the current
market.

Regards



Steve