Creo Packages

[dgschaefer]

We are negotiating getting back on maintenance with our VAR.  We had intended to wait until the end of the year, but with the discontinuation of the Winback program, it looks like we need to move now.

Our VAR has presented moving to one of the "PTC Creo Essentials" packages, specifically Essentials Team.  These are configured differently from the old packages, in fact, many of the old extensions aren't mentioned but are implied.  Fore example, there is no "advanced assembly", but the "top Down Design Tools" in Essentials Team sounds like it might be the same.  There is no ISDX, but there is something in the base Essentials package called "Parametric & Freestyle surfacing".  It seems odd that they'd include ISDX in the base package, however. 

So I decided to dig around for more info on these and I can't find anything on them at PTC.com. A search for "Creo Essentials" turns up nothing. If you browse to the CAD Packages page, they are called Engineer I, Engineer II, etc. and are similar to the old packages from 5 or so years ago.  AAX is mentioned, ISDX is mentioned as are all the familiar old add ons.  There are no add ons mentioned in the Creo Essentials documentation, just 4 different packages.

Can anyone shed any light on these two package sets and how they relate?  Of course, I intend to ask my VAR, but if anyone here has some info I'd love to hear it.  I've attached the PDFs for each here.

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[Marco_Tosin]

Doug,

could this sheet be helpful for you?

http://www.ptc.com/File%20Library/CAD/PTC-Creo-Engineer-Packages.pdf

[dgschaefer]

That's the Engineer packages PDF that I attached above. 

[Marco_Tosin]

Sorry,

I haven't seen them.

[TomU · Accepted solution]

The Essentials packages are sold though VARs, so PTC doesn't list them on their website.  Creo Essentials Team does not include ISDX.

Here is an older picture, but it shows the packages pretty well.

[dgschaefer]

Crazy that PTC offers two completely different set of packages using different terminology.  Even crazier that those who have to work through a VAR can't get any info from PTC's web site.

I was thinking they might be the same things with different names, but it's hard to tell because they use different terminology.For example, in Engineer I you get "Direct Modeling Capabilities" in Essentials you get "Flex Modeling" and "Freestyle".  Is that the same thing?

Engineer II and Essentials Plus are clearly not the same since Engineer II includes a choice of 3 extentions (AAX, Design Optimization or Motion Analysis) where in Essentials you can only get AAX with Team.

[TomU]

Here's the other, newer picture.  Basically "concurrent engineering" is another way of saying "PDM", and "Top Down Design Tools" means "AAX".

[dgschaefer]

That's the chart in the PDF I attached.

The first one you posted makes more sense, at least it related to what I was familiar with.  It doesn't show, however, anything for "concurrent engineering capabilities", which I assume is PDM Essentials since that's part of his quote.

[TomU]

I'm probably not at liberty to share the actual comparison tool, but here is a screen shot showing the contents of three different packages.  Your VAR should have this.

[TomU]

And another for Team.

[dgschaefer]

So, it does seem that they are built on the same building blocks, just described differently.  Makes it hard to tell what you are getting.

We currently have 3 Advanced XE with AAX and 1 Enterprise SE and he's promoting moving to 4 Essentials team with PDM Essentials, not PDM link.  We do not use PDM now, but are wanting to implement basic PDM functionality.  We also very rarely use the additional extensions in the Enterprise SE seat, so he's suggesting that we could purchase a month to month seat of a particular extension as needed when we have a project that demands it.  Seems like an affordable way forward, but I don't know the full details yet.

[TomU]

I know what you mean about Enterprise.  I dropped maintenance on our one seat of that awhile back too.  Maintenance alone for that one seat was almost as much as the full purchase price for a single basic seat.

On the PDM side of things, if you only need basic PDM capabilities, start with PDM Essentials.  There is a pretty straightforward upgraded path from PDM Essentials to the full blown PDM Link, but there is no way to go the other way and downgrade.