creo 2.0 M050 release date changed

[ptc-5044466]

Creo 2.0 M050 maintenace release date has changed to 26th april.

PTC says..it has been changed to bring the best possiblle release...well that is good news.

[TomD.inPDX]

Does that mean we will go straight to Creo 3.0 rather then M060

[ptc-5044466]

and yes Creo 3.0 release has been shifted to 2014..now...

[TomD.inPDX]

Yea jest!

[TomD.inPDX]

Holy Cow! You're not kidding. Creo 3.0 F000 H1 of 2014! That is REALLY POOR FORM, PTC!

So people buying recently, now, or before July this year could miss out on a Creo 3.0 Maintenance release.

Oh this is sad!

[James62]

Lucky me, I didn't buy maintenance this year.

I'd be so mad now.

When they say best possible release. Will they start over from M020? Because that is their best release so far.

[ptc-5044466]

so what abt your maintenance ?

[TomD.inPDX]

My maintenance was pre-paid but I might not see Creo 3.0.

Something big must have happened to move a major release 6 months out. It is not unheard of. WF releases were quite far apart. I wonder if they heard our message to "...and complete the product before release!"

I hope someone digs into this further and reports it back here so we can know what is really going on.

[DenisJaunin]

Hello,

I enclose a document that can show us in a Webinar.

If this bit to encourage you waiting for new versions.

Cordially.

Denis.

[TomD.inPDX]

Thanks Denis. That says Autum 2013 which was the previous planned release. Now it is not until sometime in the 1st half of 2014.

If you can get to it, this is the release schedule: http://www.ptc.com/cs/product_calendar/PTC_Product_Calendar.htm#RANGE!B297

And this time for posterity:

[dgschaefer]

Back when Creo was announced, PTC said they had heard our frustration with the elongated release cycle in WF and pledged to annual releases for Creo. Creo 1.0 was supposed to be in spring of 2011 but ended up in June, Creo 2 did come in spring of 2012 so Creo 3 should be out now. The pushed it back to Q3 then Q4 and now they won't commit to earlier than Q2 2014.

We just renewed maintenance on half of our seats in December, but had debated on letting it expire. The fact that Creo 3 was coming in Q3 (at the time I think) was a factor in us renewing. Now those seats will not see Creo 3. In fact, our clients are typically slow to upgrade so we likely will not use Creo 3 until late 2014, maybe 2015.

Not only are the major releases dragging out, even the maintenance relases are few adn far between. It'll be nearly 3 months between M040 & M050, the others are scheduled almost 2 months apart. That really means we get little for our maintenance dollars.

[TomD.inPDX]

I can certainly tell you I am disappointed by this news. Maybe they should at least consider a point release where new functionality is "debuted".

I'm certain the rationale is for PTC to simply to ask "...and why would you let your maintenance laps anyway? This change should be of no consequence.".

Personally, I want to know -why- the change.

• Is PTC understaffed?
• Is there a major malfunction with Creo?
• Is this a profit strategy?
• Is there a technology shift being added?
• Is parametric being held back to align with other products releases?

This is where PTC should be speaking out.

[gkrishna]

I think they are trying to catchup on PLM base,everything seem to streamlined for PLM market,still PTC doesn't have something equivalent to DELMIA or Tecnomatix

or am i missing something.

[BrianMartin]

With all due respect, yes. Windchill is every bit as capable as Delmia. I'm confused as to what features Delmia might have that Windchill doesn't? Since it's inception, Windchill has been a leader in PLM. In fact, I can make the case that web-based PLM (which is how most of these modern systems work) was pioneered by Windchill.

[magnus.salomons]

From PTC:s Exploring The Evolution of Creo...

[James62]

That's very good question.

I don't think the maintenance is worth it for me atm. Yet, the longer I am without the maint the more costly it's getting. So, with that it's not like I'll be ever getting the maint.

[BrianMartin]

No no no! This is a good thing.

In January at the PTC Technical Committee meetings, we beat the heck out of PTC to improve the features of Creo 3.0. Many of the new features are very good... but there were some long standing problems that were being "kicked down the road" to Creo 4 or 5. We were told repeatedly that PTC had pushed back the release date of Creo 3 once and they would not move it again. In fact (we were told), the code was all but completed and many of the features (especially for compliance with the Geometry Tolerancing standard) simply could not make it into the release.

Many of us spent several days bringing up these issues over and over again. Personally, I made a nuisance out of myself constantly harping on the GTOL issues. At one point in the very last meeting of the week, PTC management specifically asked the question if we would want them to hold up the release of Creo 3 just to fix some of the problems we were complaining about. They assumed we would say no. They told us they assumed we'd want to take advantage of the new, cool features of Creo 3 right away rather than waiting even longer for fixes to issues like the GTOL problems.

They were very surprised when the vast majority of the 30+ customers in the room said they would rather have the problems fixed even if it delayed the release of Creo 3 by weeks or even months. We made a very big push for a high quality release that addressed some of our most pressing issues. The fact that Creo 3 has been pushed back is a good thing. In my estimation, it means they've heard us and I think that's a very positive thing.

It's easy to assume the worst in a situation like this. Yet indications from the detailing Technical Committee are that they're going to attempt to address our concerns and that, perhaps, this has affected the release date. I'd rather have PTC put out a release that didn't just add new features- but fixed existing ones that haven't quite worked right. I'm very, very hopeful that this delay signals that our concerns were heard and that Creo 3 will be a very solid, very transformative release.

Regards,

-Brian

[dgschaefer]

I'll respectfully disagree. The primary benefit of my maintenance is new releases. We get little from tech support, it's too slow for our needs.

When we go a full 2 years between releases that means we get next to nothing for our maintenance dollars. IN fact, a person who bought Creo 2 at release will pay another full year of maintenance and still won't see Creo 3. We hesitated to pay our maintenance bill in December and decided that we would only because we knew we may need to get Creo 3 in the fall. Now it turns out those dollars were wasted as we won't get it until mid 2014.

Quality releases are absolutlely important, but so is a reasonable release schedule. What PTC needs to do is figure out what it can get done in a year and do it. Don't bite off too much and push the schedule out. If there's more than can be done, prioritize the enhancements, cut some until the next release and ship it! A long release schedule communicates a lack of development and breeds uncertainty. Meanwhile, the SW guys are pushing out new stuff each year and getting all the press.

[ptc-5044466]

yes customer support is slow. I think PTC should give creo 3.0 to all of those guys who took maintenance starting with creo 2.0 and also those guys who bought new seats of creo 2.0, infact they should start with guys who bought creo 1.0 which was FULL of bugs.......

[magnus.salomons]

Couldn't agree more Doug....and it's even more annoying after the overhyped launch of Creo in Project Lightning where they stated that they would revoutionize CAD in the same way as they did when Pro/ENGINEER was launched.

I've said it before...this smells like Wildfire...a promising start but after that a painfully slow release pace...

[BrianMartin]

I agree the whole Creo launch was overhyped... heavily. I haven't seen anything revolutionary (yet). But I don't see the big clamor for a new release each year. So what?

I mean, honestly, what's the big deal? Is your business dying to have some new color palette... or some new tweaks to the user interface... or some new config switches? I mean... what precisely is the problem? Help me understand because I don't get it.

Forgive my ignorance... and I'm sure this will rub people the wrong way... but to me it sounds like we're just bellyaching over the amount of money charged for support and we're disappointed that we're not seeing something more for that investment. You're getting something for that money... a new support portal, new training options (many free), maintenance releases of the software, and upgrades to the latest revision when it's available. You can argue about the value of those things but you cannot argue that they are being provided.

Let's take a look at the new support portal. The old one was absolutely terrible. It was archaic, hard to use, klunky, and rather useless. Just LOOK at the new portal! I spent several hours providing my feedback and suggestions to the portal development team so they could improve the site. They did it... and the result is so much better than it's ever been before. Have you even seen it??

What about PTC Community? This is another place where your maintenance dollars have gone. This is another way to seek support. You may feel it's "free" because PTC tech support personnel aren't here to answer your questions... but your peers are! We've been able to answer questions here that tech support has given up on. PTC Community is a HUGE resource... and someone has to develop it, maintain it, promote it, fund it, etc. Your maintenance dollars are at work here.

What about the free Learning Connector application and the Learning Exchange site? There are tons of free tutorials and videos being posted by PTC personnel here. I suspect many of you haven't even used these resources. They're very well executed with a very deep knowledge of the software being demonstrated and taught. This is all new stuff people... your maintenance is paying for it.

For Windchill people... PTC Support Monitor... a free tool to monitor and assist in tuning and optimizing your Windchill environment. Again, free stuff... paid for by your maintenance.

To say that you're not getting any value simply because phone support is bad (it really is very, very bad) and because you're not gettting Creo 3 right away is short sighted in my opinion. You're ignoring all of the other good things that are happening so you can focus on the bad things that still need to be addressed.

While this is certainly your right... I really disagree with the way the delay of Creo 3 is being portrayed on this thread.

Best regards,

-Brian

[magnus.salomons]

Brian, we're always on maintenance and I did not mention anything about it. For us it's the belief or hope that SOME DAY we will get a unified interface without the menu manager and 2001 style boxes.

If I take release PDMLink 9 to 10, we're on 10,1, as an example that's a huge productivity boost for us. Simple things as Promo Req with fewer steps, adding objects or collecting objects anywhere. RMB from almost anywhere. This is the sort of improvements I refer to. Not to mention Office integration.

In WS you can now filter your objects with search and they stay put.

To quote your comment "I mean, honestly, what's the big deal? Is your business dying to have some new color palette... or some new tweaks to the user interface... or some new config switches? I mean... what precisely is the problem? Help me understand because I don't get it."

That's like saying that PTC should have sticked with REVX GUI forever....but I doubt they would be doing business today of they hadn't changed it. I understand and agree that stability and funcionality is the most important thing but we expect to see new features also.

I don't know what "long-awaited and necessary features" you refer too but it must be quite big if it delays release another 6 months.....on top of a previous delay of 6-9 months.....

[BrianMartin]

Where's Frank when I need him. I wish PTC had stuck with some of the older menus. They were faster, easier to use, less cumbersome, less intrusive (screen real estate), and they could be incorporated into mapkeys FAR easier than anything in the ribbon or Wildfire menus.

Having said that, I agree we need to move forward. But my point was that this thread was nothing but one monster gripe-fest for no discernable reason. We're mad at PTC if they don't hurry up and release something. Then we're mad at them if it doesn't work. But if they delay the release so the end product has a higher quality, people are complaining that they're essentially being ripped off because they didn't see a new release this year.

Do you see how there's really no way to win?

I understand you take issue with the menu manager and 2001 style dialog boxes. Personally, this doesn't bother me one bit. All they will replace them with is a batch of icons that mean nothing... senseless pictures. For example... a stick with a green swoosh next to it with a small circle and an arrow with a little plus sign... that'll be the new symbol for "Split Balloon". It'll take me a year to remember what that picture means. Then, once I figure it out, someone at PTC will redesign the blasted interface (again), change the icon, move it to another location, and I'll be back to square one. Yeah, I personally don't care if they leave that menu manager stuff alone for the next 1000 years. At least I understand what they commands do because they're written in English rather than some insane heiroglyphic.

For my money, I'm concerned about real world usefulness. I want to see Sweep, Blend, and Variable Section Sweep all work from the same tool with the same features. And, I want tapers (draft) added to it. This is the kind of enhancement I want. I want to be able to switch between sketched holes, threaded holes, and regular holes without removing my patterns. These are things that I can use every day to make me more productive. I want to see GTOL fully compliant with the latest standards. I want detailing mode to be completely revamped so it functions like a modern 2D cad system. The list goes on...

My annoyance at some of the posts in this thread was based on the notion that PTC is doing "nothing" for the maintenance that they're paid. This may not have been something you said. Overall, its very easy to overlook all the good that's been done if you're really hell bent on looking at the bad that remains.

My only point was to say that progress is being made. Delaying Creo 3 longer than previously anticipated does not necessarily mean the sky is falling. To me, it's a sign that someone is listening to us. Yet to other people, all news is bad news. I just don't see how people get out of bed in the morning with that kind of attitude.

Let's give PTC a chance to deliver a good product. They've taken the bold step to delay Creo 3. Let's see if it was the right move before we rush to the conclusion that all is lost and the world as we know it is DOOMED.

[magnus.salomons]

Come on Brian, no one is saying the world is doomed.. We're just disappointed that we have to wait one more year for the next release. I work as a project manager also and I can tell you that I would not get standing ovations if we delay the project one year even if the quality of the product would be better.

Please also take into the consideration that there's a lot of users who did not use REVX or 2001. I started on Wildfire and really hate the old commands especially the lack of feedback where you work blindfolded and only in the end finds out that the command fails.

I saw on another thread that you said that Creo 3 would be the final nail in the coffein for Menu Manager. If that is true and it should mean that detail would get a major upgrade as well the whole delay comes into a different perspective.

[BrianMartin]

Doug,

I see your point... but I still have to disagree with you (at least right now).

PTC wanted to push out Creo 3 this year. They were completely set to do it. Most of the major customers in that room back in January suggested that the release should be delayed to add in long-awaited and necessary features. To wait yet again meant those needed features would not be available until 2015. Most customers do not install the latest version of the software right out of the gate. It's foolish to do so until the bugs have been worked out.

I can hear the cacaphony of voices screaming that software should be debugged before it's launched- and I agree. But this is no longer realistic in the modern world of software. Maybe before 2002-2003 it was realistic but now it's sort of a ridiculous notion that anyone given limited resources could possibly test all potential features, options, switches, hardware configurations, etc of Creo before launch. If you've ever done even a little bit of software development, you know this is true for an application as complex and intricate as Creo. Maybe you could do it for Microsoft Word... but not for Creo.

Right now, we need PTC to go back and resolve many of the long time problems and deficiencies that have existed for years. We're making progress on this but it's slow. Instead, PTC is focused on delivering new versions of Creo as fast as possible... and launching new apps and add-on features. This brings in new business and potential new customers. Fixing old stuff doesn't bring in new customers... offering some cool new add-on or whizbang feature does.

By encouraging them to hurry up and get out the next release, you're only making the issue worse. We can't have the attitude to hurry up and get out a new release ASAP without regard to quality. Otherwise you'll have a host of new features (all of which have some level of problems, bugs, or deficiencies) in addition to the bugs, problems, and deficiencies of the past. You're just making the issue worse.

In my opinion, PTC needs to take a break here during the development of Creo 3, fix the things that can be fixed from the laundry list of previous issues, incorporate as many new features as they can, test the heck out of it to make the release solid, and proudly deploy the results. Then going forward they've got a cleaner, more stable base from which to build. You don't start putting the tenth floor on a skyscraper before you've shored up the foundation. No one says "hurry up, we need a 20th floor... forget about making sure the foundation is set!" This is like saying that the only thing people will be impressed by is building height without regard for the soundness of the underlying structure.

There are plenty of ways to attack this line of thinking. Someone will say PTC makes enough money to do both a quality release and a fast release while fixing all of the old issues. It's a convenient argument but not a realistic one. As engineers, how many times has your boss asked for something fast, cheap, and accurate? They always want it that way... but you can only ever have two of those things. We all know this... it's proven every day we work on engineering projects. This is the same with software development. We know that cost is always a factor and that there are limited development resources within PTC. This means you're going to lose out on either speed or accuracy.

I'll take ACCURATE over fast any day.

Your point about PTC support is well taken. I agree, they are not very good at all. In my opinion, the market place is ripe for someone to start a company that just offers supplemental support for PTC customers. I was thinking of trying this myself... maybe $1-$2 per user per month for support that actually responds with useful, timely information? Or I could just keep coming here and giving away information for free...

Anyway... right now I think we need to give PTC time to get Creo 3 right. THEN from a stable base we can start rolling out one new release a year.

Thanks...

-Brian

[ptc-5044466]

Hi Brian,

your idea of tech support for "$1-$2 per user per month"..is greatest. You are the best tech support any ProE user can ever have. The patience and clarity with which you explain all the things is just wonderful.

and you are absolutely right when you say that the long pending issues have to be fixed, otherwise they will just keep getting accumulated and create more issues.

If the bugs are fixed in Creo 2.0 then it is also a very solid release.being in training and interacting with new users..they like the new user interface a lot.

[dgschaefer]

I don't think there needs to be an either/or in quality versus scheduled releases. There's no reason PTC can't deliver both. It may mean that as the ship date approaches, some items get pushed off to the next release. That's fine, right now essentially all items are getting pushed off as the release date for Creo 3 is now when Creo 4 should have been.

Had PTC stuck to the schedule and shipped Creo 3 this spring with whatever enhancements & bug fixes were ready we'd all have access to those now. Instead, we get nothing for another year. I'm not sure how that's better than something now and something else later.

And yes, this is about the value of my maintenance dollar for me. I'm purchasing access to new functionality from PTC, first and foremost and getting very little. PTC maintenance is one of the biggest expenses my company has aside from people and facilities and it's one of the worst values for the dollar.

Look at it this way, I'm in design consulting. What if your company had contracted my company for $20K per month to an ongoing series of enhanced designs. Say at the end of the month I said I wasn't going to deliver after all because I thought the release would be better if we held off for another month, but I need you to keep paying $20K per month even though we didn't deliver anything this month. You might feel ok that first time if the proposed benefits were desirable and you didn't have orders pending that release. What if I kept doing that, not delivering but kept charging and you never knew when you were going to get what you paid for? I'd be fired, I bet. With PTC we have little choice,we rely on Creo for our business so we swallow hard and deal with it.

It's not good for PTC to go so long between releases, and therefore not good for us. The product looks stagnant, all the apps and things they bragged about seem like vaporware and in general they fall off everyone's radar. A regular set of smaller, quality releases would be good for all of us.

[TomD.inPDX]

Brian Martin wrote:

Doug,

...

Your point about PTC support is well taken. I agree, they are not very good at all. In my opinion, the market place is ripe for someone to start a company that just offers supplemental support for PTC customers. I was thinking of trying this myself... maybe $1-$2 per user per month for support that actually responds with useful, timely information? Or I could just keep coming here and giving away information for free...

...

Thanks...

-Brian

PTC must have read this post and responded...

http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/media/streamed.jsp?icg_dbkey=904&im_dbkey=152349&utm_campaign=Support%20Advisor_April%202013_EN%202%20Max%20Pro&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua

[BrentDrysdale]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for this insight. I know from very occasional Conference TCs (tyranny of distance) that discussion is always robust and I am sure glad that PTC listened to concerns about ongoing functionality as being very important and easily as important as the "golly gee whizz" stuff.

My take on releases.

We have always skipped alternate releases going way back 18 years so we have less concern about when release dates are. What we want are rock solid releases without new bugs added. We are finally looking to move from WF5 (sorry Creo Elements/Pro 5) to Creo 2.0 and are picking M040 as our adopting start point though I have M020 loaded to test.

And I am sorry but the first release of a major software product; expecting this to be near 100% correct? Not in my experience. That maybe OK in some industries; especially the ones that push through updates each week

As an old time user I railed against WF as a change from a very functional R2001. In that case for our experienced users the productivity hit was massive but eventually we got back what we lost and even progressed a bit. From what I can see of Creo 2.0 there will be much less performance hit as the base functionality still has similarities and this time there is the search function for commands which is useful to experienced users who know what a command/function is called. Actually I just want to be able to do my work using the tool that my employer provides without the tool causing me problems.

It is my opinion that far less effort goes into gradual product usability and most goes into "glossy" stuff that gives something to promote. Don't get me wrong; some of the newer functionality can be very useful and a timesaver but generally not saving as much time as improvements to the interface (optimization) would achieve all day every day.

And on the support side we are very fortunate to have a VAR that takes support seriously so we don't have to waste our time with calls to a hard to understand helpline. Actually most of our queries are not that easy for "paint by numbers" help service anyway which is the main reason we don't call.

Sorry to be missing going to PTC/User again this year so will have to follow goings on from afar.

Brent

[BrianMartin]

You've totally hit the nail on the head Brent.

I agree with you. I want to see progressive improvements to the tool making it easier to use. I don't care so much about the glossy additions that are only really there as an attempt to lure new customers.

I also agree with you about the transition from R2001 to Wildfire. There was a huge productivity hit there. Wildfire software was so bloated and slow that we lost a great deal of speed just for that alone. The hop from Creo Elements Pro/5 to Creo 2 can be made even easier by customizing your user interface to resemble Wildfire 5.0. This is pretty easy and it makes the transition less painful.

We also do not "chase" the latest revision. We wait for the bugs to shake out a bit and then hop over. It takes a long time to move a large organization and there's no value added to constantly move to a new version unless there's some huge bug fix or some massive productivity increase we can achieve by doing so.

You're lucky that you have a decent VAR... the quality is definitely uneven. You're lucky you have a good one!

Best regards,

-Brian