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Mathcad Prime 3.1

VladimirN
24-Ruby II

Mathcad Prime 3.1

In the PTC product calendar (http://www.ptc.com/cs/product_calendar/PTC_Product_Calendar.htm#RANGE!A474) will be prompted to Mathcad Prime 3.1 F000. Has anyone heard anything about this?

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96 REPLIES 96
MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:VladimirN)

Absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth are PTC wasting resources on Creo integration when Prime is close to useless?

Mike;

PTC just don't have a clue about the needs of their extant users. I agree - why on earth would they be wasting their time on features that in most cases are of little use to engineers. Mathcad is an engineering tool and is therefore of no use to most Creo drafters. From my experience most drafters don't have the necessary background in math to be able to use such a tool. AutoCad has a built in calculator and this is all most drafters need or want. If Mathcad Prime 4.0 dosen't deliver our engineering needs then all should withold maintenance until they do. Or may the PTC management are big fans of Dire Straits "Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free" . All I can say is that if Mathcad Prime 4 doesn't deliver on its promises then PTC is indeed in "dire straits".

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:MarkBuckton)

Mark Buckton wrote:

PTC just don't have a clue about the needs of their extant users. I agree - why on earth would they be wasting their time on features that in most cases are of little use to engineers. Mathcad is an engineering tool and is therefore of no use to most Creo drafters.

Good point. We have numerous draftsmen and not one of them use Mathcad or another engineering tool for that matter. I am still to find a single person who integrates a 3D modeling package with a engineering tool productively.

Mark Buckton wrote:

Mike;

All I can say is that if Mathcad Prime 4 doesn't deliver on its promises then PTC is indeed in "dire straits".

I don't think they will. I think Prime is targeting 'new' users in college and universities who have not experienced the older version of Mathcad and such, do not miss the missing features.

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth are PTC wasting resources on Creo integration when Prime is close to useless?

Fully agreed on.

The brief spell of hope which aroused when we heard about the changes in PTC managment has been dashed.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:Werner_E)

Werner Exinger wrote:

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth are PTC wasting resources on Creo integration when Prime is close to useless?

Fully agreed on.

The brief spell of hope which aroused when we heard about the changes in PTC managment has been dashed.

Yes Werner.

It is now clear that they have zero intention in bringing Prime to the level of M15. Surely developing an automated convertor would have been a better option than integration with Creo.

Surely developing an automated convertor would have been a better option than integration with Creo.

Not if the original reason for purchasing Mathcad was to enhance Creo.

Fred Kohlhepp wrote:

Surely developing an automated convertor would have been a better option than integration with Creo.

Not if the original reason for purchasing Mathcad was to enhance Creo.

Good point Fred. If that is the case we (old Mathcad users should be very concerned)

Fred Kohlhepp wrote:

Surely developing an automated convertor would have been a better option than integration with Creo.

Not if the original reason for purchasing Mathcad was to enhance Creo.

Yes, and I remember that way back when PTC bought Mathcad in 2006 or 2007 and no program development was noticeable, rumour had it that this will be the end of Mathcad as a standalone product and the sole reason for the purchase was the integration in Pro-E, later Creo.

PTC of course disclaimed and when they published their first roadmap for Prime it really looks that they intended to further enhance and refine Mathcad. MC15 tie was projected with Prime3 and full Creo integration was rather late on the agenda.

Meanwhile PTC seems to have realised that they have underestimated the complexity of the task and that an adequate development of Mathcad is not possible with the ressources they where willing to invest in the past.

So the options are keeping the low level of Prime and making it a super calculator for Creo or increase the budget for Mathcad development significantly. If the info about Prime3.1 is a hint, it looks like PTC management had come to the conclusion that option 1 is more profitable and its quite clear what this means for long term Mathcad users.

RichardJ
19-Tanzanite
(To:Werner_E)

I do wonder if the talk of Prime eventually having everything that is in MC15 has ever been anything more than lip service, with the goal of keeping us all around for as long as possible.Once they built up enough of a new user base, they can just discard the old one.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:RichardJ)

Richard I fear you could be correct, which will see the end of Mathcad as we knew it.

Fresh news from blog. Post "PTC Mathcad Prime: Past, Present, Future": http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mathcad/~3/rYfldS_ICoM/

Quote:

"... Currently, we’re hard at work on some aspects of and finalizing the plans for our PTC Mathcad Prime 4.0 release and beginning to map out the subsequent Prime 5.0 release. But before those are released, we’ll be launching PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1.

PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1, due early in calendar 2015, is an intermediate release. While we are developing some of the larger components of Prime 4.0 we are releasing capabilities that allow PTC Creo users to better access and leverage the benefits of PTC Mathcad in their existing workflow, which the PTC Creo community has been asking about for some time. There are features in PTC Creo that enable users to calculate parameters but PTC Mathcad is specifically designed to do that job. PTC Creo users want to take advantage of the benefits of PTC Mathcad to calculate and, just as importantly, document the reasoning behind those calculations within the PTC Creo framework. PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 will introduce a powerful new integration that will allow PTC Creo users access to the features of PTC Mathcad that they’ve been asking for directly within PTC Creo, embedded within their existing workflow. We talked about that integration in a previous blog and will discuss more aspects of it in future entries.

PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 will also include a completely rewritten API. The API is used to integrate and automate PTC Mathcad with other tools and in many different company processes. The API in PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 has been re-written from scratch to be more efficient and easier to use. It also adds important new features like the ability to get and set data in different units and an event handler. We’re developing an extensive SDK with documentation and a number of worked examples to make designing your own integrations as easy as possible...

... So what’s next? We’re in the final stages of prioritization planning for PTC Mathcad 4.0 and our development team is actively working on the larger projects. We’ve been using our customer feedback to identify those functionality areas that are most important to address. The prioritization process candidates we are selecting from include worksheet protection, Area protection, Area locking, copy/paste multiple regions to Word (or other external applications), the ability to save a worksheet as a Word document, the ability to save a worksheet in PDF format, plot improvements such as title, grid lines and 2nd Y-axis, ability to wrap long equations, and general PTC Mathcad areas of usability improvements. As well as this, we’re in early discussions on how to reintroduce calculation server functionality that would serve the same use cases as it did back in PTC Mathcad 13.0 while utilizing the power of modern computing infrastructure.

After the prioritization phase for PTC Mathcad Prime 4.0 is complete we’ll tackle PTC Mathcad Prime 5.0; and though it’s in the early stages of that release one item that is on top of the list is Input Controls. This is a large project that we’ve been discussing specifications for at length. As we continue to populate our enhancement database the picture of customer prioritized items will become more apparent but we already have a good idea of what people are asking for. Text styles, hyperlinks, program debugging, redefinition warnings and scripted components are popular items and will be considered side by side with other areas of functionality that we have feedback on and will continue to receive as we talk to customers in the field ...".

creomc.jpg

sbaty
4-Participant
(To:VladimirN)

Basically, PTC is choosing to rewrite the entire codebase of Mathcad over six or more version releases. Until a feature's code is rewritten, the feature remains unavailable in Prime. I guess the "Product Ideas" area is the designated method users are conveying the feature-rewrite prioritization to PTC.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:VladimirN)

VladimirN. wrote:

creomc.jpg

Brilliant

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:VladimirN)

Well I have just spoken to our re-seller and they claimed they do not know anything about Prime 3.1. They are still waiting for information on Prime 4.0.

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Well I have just spoken to our re-seller and they claimed they do not know anything about Prime 3.1. They are still waiting for information on Prime 4.0.

Whatever this may tell us about PTC's selling politics.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:Werner_E)

Werner Exinger wrote:

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Well I have just spoken to our re-seller and they claimed they do not know anything about Prime 3.1. They are still waiting for information on Prime 4.0.

Whatever this may tell us about PTC's selling politics.

Even the re-sellers have the opinion that Prime cannot be classed as a replacement for Mathcad 15 and don't even try to 'sell' the product.

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Werner Exinger wrote:

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Well I have just spoken to our re-seller and they claimed they do not know anything about Prime 3.1. They are still waiting for information on Prime 4.0.

Whatever this may tell us about PTC's selling politics.

Even the re-sellers have the opinion that Prime cannot be classed as a replacement for Mathcad 15 and don't even try to 'sell' the product.

Sure, they probably get first hand feedback from their customers and we can image what that feedback looks like. But what tells us the fact that not even the resellers are aware of P3.1?

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:Werner_E)

Werner Exinger wrote:

Mike Armstrong wrote:

Even the re-sellers have the opinion that Prime cannot be classed as a replacement for Mathcad 15 and don't even try to 'sell' the product.

Sure, they probably get first hand feedback from their customers and we can image what that feedback looks like. But what tells us the fact that not even the resellers are aware of P3.1?

Seems crazy to me, but then again, PTC have not been forthcoming with information in the past, have they?

Even the re-sellers have the opinion that Prime cannot be classed as a replacement for Mathcad 15 and don't even try to 'sell' the product.

Mine certainly does. I get regular phone calls, in which thy inform me I don't have the latest version and would I like to purchase it / renew maintenance. I always tell them that yes I do have the latest version, they just don't know about it. They evidently never enter that piece of information into any kind of database, because 6 months later, I always get another call

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:RichardJ)

Richard Jackson wrote:

Even the re-sellers have the opinion that Prime cannot be classed as a replacement for Mathcad 15 and don't even try to 'sell' the product.

Mine certainly does. I get regular phone calls, in which thy inform me I don't have the latest version and would I like to purchase it / renew maintenance. I always tell them that yes I do have the latest version, they just don't know about it. They evidently never enter that piece of information into any kind of database, because 6 months later, I always get another call

Maybe I can count myself lucky in that respect

Speak of the devil! They just called again. The last time they called was only about a month ago

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:RichardJ)

Richard Jackson wrote:

Speak of the devil! They just called again. The last time they called was only about a month ago

Maybe you need to tell him to contact when Prime reaches the level of M15

From my understanding and talking with the PMs at PTC Live 3.1 is the start of adding back in the APIs. also this give more ability to perhaps use Mathcad sheets for the relations and Pro Program.

Andy Hermanson wrote:

From my understanding and talking with the PMs at PTC Live 3.1 is the start of adding back in the APIs. also this give more ability to perhaps use Mathcad sheets for the relations and Pro Program.

For which programs though? From what has been posted on this forum it seems that 3.1 will concentrate on compatibility with Creo.

Did you hear anything else at tje PTC Live regarding the future on Mathcad?

They are working to get most of hte API stuff back into MP4. THings like web controls have been asked for by lots of customers. Those are one that i asked about anyway. Those are the ones my users need to move forward.

Cheers Andy,

If they are delaying the release of Prime 4.0, I see that as a perfect opportunity to try and include as many of the missing features as possible. If Prime 4.0 has the majority of the features that M15 has, PTC might be able to save Prime and convince users that Prime is a suitable product to drive Mathcad forward.

Andy Hermanson wrote:

From my understanding and talking with the PMs at PTC Live 3.1 is the start of adding back in the APIs. also this give more ability to perhaps use Mathcad sheets for the relations and Pro Program.

This is in line with what was said above, namely that PTC's efforts are now the integration in Creo. The may have given up on the idea of bringing Prime at least at the level of Mathcad and obviously consider that way to give them the better cost-benefit ratio.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:Werner_E)

Werner Exinger wrote:

Andy Hermanson wrote:

From my understanding and talking with the PMs at PTC Live 3.1 is the start of adding back in the APIs. also this give more ability to perhaps use Mathcad sheets for the relations and Pro Program.

This is in line with what was said above, namely that PTC's efforts are now the integration in Creo. The may have given up on the idea of bringing Prime at least at the level of Mathcad and obviously consider that way to give them the better cost-benefit ratio.

Lets prey this is not the case.

RichardJ
19-Tanzanite
(To:Werner_E)

The may have given up on the idea of bringing Prime at least at the level of Mathcad

No, I believe they do intend to do that, if only because it's the only way to get everyone to shut up about it. It may not be their top priority though, and given how long it's taken to get to where we are now, we probably still have a very long wait.

MikeArmstrong
5-Regular Member
(To:RichardJ)

Maybe with the delay of Prime 4.0 we might get there at a smaller version number.

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