Time to pay the piper, every year.

[RichardJ]

I don't know how many are aware of this, so I'm posting some important information.

Starting January 1st next year (2018) PTC will make it's products available by subscription only.

https://www.ptc.com/en/news/2017/ptc-accelerates-subscription-business-model

Basically, legal ransomware. If you don't keep paying them, you will be denied access to your own IP.

My understanding is that this new scheme will apply to all PTC products, other than one obscure product, so that includes Mathcad. I believe that existing perpetual licenses will continue to be perpetual (hard to see how it could be anything else, since that's how they were sold), but going foward you will either have to pay every year, or lose access to your own work.

[RichardJ]

No comments on this?

Is that because everyone already knew this, or because nobody cares?

[Werner_E]

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@RichardJ wrote:

No comments on this?

Is that because everyone already knew this, or because nobody cares?

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Maybe because everybody is shocked, helpless and can't believe.

I was not aware of that plans.

Our license runs until end of 2018 and we decided quite long ago that Prime would be a dead end and that we will have to change our tools.

When I now read your post I am glad we did.

[RichardJ]

It certainly is a show stopper for me. I lost any real hope in Prime being a usable solution some time ago, but I kept hanging on anyway. This is the final nail in the coffin. Why would I pay a subscription for a product with glaring deficiencies, and a glacial development speed?

[VladimirN]

Everyone is shocked and stoned too.

[RichardJ]

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@VladimirN wrote:

Everyone is shocked and stoned too.

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Do you mean "stunned"?

[ppal]

No, I think he means you have to be stoned to keep on using it

[LucMeekes]

I'm afraid it's because I don't care.

I've sort of been sitting along the sideline and see PTC ruin every part of Mathcad.

First by dumping support for Mathcad 11, making it impossible to (re-)activate Mathcad 11 on new machines.

Then by their extremely slow development (may one even call it that?) of Prime.

Now by migrating to a new forum and throwing away a good many features that we're well used in the previous forum (Jive was good enough, and I could live with the Date's being off. I still have good feelings with the Akiva forum.).

I hope I can keep my Mathcad 11 running for quite a long time.

[vlehner]

PTC should not scare away its own customers.

We as a customer can also act differently and are not totally dependent on PTC-Life goes on, even without PTC.

In case of need, we will choose another product - a pity then the money invested in PTC products, but so is the reality.

The market is fiercely competitive and those who do not satisfy their customers will eventually disappear from the market.

If PTC goes so far, exactly that will happen.

The Management of PTC would do well to take note of this but i don't belive that really.

[FDS]

I have more or less the same feelings as Luc. It is a real pity to see how a beautiful products is stripped down over time.

Werner, just out of curiosity but what software will be your future choice?

[Werner_E]

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@FDS wrote:

I have more or less the same feelings as Luc. It is a real pity to see how a beautiful products is stripped down over time.

Werner, just out of curiosity but what software will be your future choice?

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Primarily MatLab and Maple. And yes, I'll miss the whiteboard interface and the overall look and feel of Matcad.

[VladimirN]

How Maple compares to Mathcad Prime (comparison done by using Mathcad Prime 3.1 and Maple 2015): http://de.maplesoft.com/products/maple/compare/mathcad.aspx

[Werner_E]

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@vlehner wrote:

PTC should not scare away its own customers.

.

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Don't be afraid - they don't. They just try to get rid of those nasty single user license customers.

[RichardJ]

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@WernerExinger wrote:

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They just try to get rid of those nasty single user license customers.

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Especially the very annoying ones that don't pay maintenance every year.

[LucMeekes]

Fortunately not those that use versions of the software that predates their involvement.

[bbond]

Isn't it the case that pretty much all software is going the subscription route?  I know the ones I am familiar with seem to be.  They tend to price their perpetual license so high that it only makes sense to go the subscription route.  The difference is that I can expect multiple reasonably significant updates each year on those subscriptions.  I'm just starting a subscription of Prime after having a perpetual copy of 3.1.  I did find it shady that you can't save as 3.1 from a 4.1 copy.  Someone else in the office downloaded the 4.0 trial and saved our sheets so I was unable to open them and they were unable to save them again as an older filetype.

[RichardJ]

No, not all software is going the subscription route. At least, not for now. Some are in fact exploiting the fact that their competitors are. As soon as Adobe announced it, Corel announced that it was going to put work into improving the Adobe file import. If PTC and Autodesk both go subscription only, don't expect that to happen any time soon for SolidWorks (where the website specifically states that do not intend to go that route).

[VladimirN]

The software will go into "the cloud", with time.

[RichardJ]

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@VladimirN wrote:

The software will go into "the cloud", with time.

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Not until we are all connected to the cloud, all of the time (which means all of the time), and internet connection speeds are always extremely high, and we are not paying through the nose for every few Gb of data. Even if all of that were the case, there are places that have internal networks that are not connected to the web for security reasons, e.g. many chemical plants.

[ccattaneo]

Mathcad 15 remains the highest level of development achieved ; both in terms of calculation and ease of access to commands and customizations
Prime is revealing a total failure ( after over 4 years )
When I'm in a hurry I work with Mathcad 15 ... because with Prime I should use 5 times more time ...

This ( Mathcad 15 ) is the only reason because I am paying maintenance contract ... but I suggest to all to print on paper all your work sheets ... probably we will have to start over again with a new product

You who are American citizens could organize a collective action against PTC; I am Italian ... I just have to suffer

[Fred_Kohlhepp · Accepted solution]

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@ccattaneo wrote:

You who are American citizens could organize a collective action against PTC; I am Italian ... I just have to suffer

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One could argue that Prime is a crime against humanity, and could be tried in the international courts. 

[IFTennent]

    I do not believe PTC ever had the intention to upgrade Mathcad Prime to Mathcad 15 capabilities. I bought Mathcad 15 assuming that it would continue to be supported. I was soon  proved to be wrong. I was then informed that I must pay an exorbitant annual fee to continue to use it(failing to mention that the quoted annual fee did not include VAT).  Mathcad Prime has been  useless from the outset. First of all the original graphing software was dumped so Mathcad 15 charts did not convert directly to equivalent Mathcad Prime Charts.  Secondly it is far from user friendly, requiring far more key strokes than the original. Using Microsoft banners is not a good idea. Solve blocks even in Prime 5 are a nightmare to use. I could go on! Now it appears that the fees are to be increased even more(correct me if I am wrong), presumably because people have had enough of PTC, so the rest must pay more. 

By the way, have you tried to print a worksheet recently, another thing that appears to have been unceremoniously dumped?

[tslewis]

It’s not useless.

What are you taking about not being able to print a worksheet in prime? It’s worked fine for me since I started using 3.1

[RichardJ]

I should add that I have no idea how this will affect access to Mathcad 15. Access to mathcad 15 is necessary to convert old files to Prime (when that's even possible). I would guess that going forward when the Prime license that enables Prime and Mathcad 15 expires after 1 year, Mathcad 15 will be as dead as Prime. So the license we have now may be the last worthwhile one we will ever get

[terryhendicott]

I have two perpetual licences for MathCad 14.  They will probably last as long as the laptops they are installed on.

The subscription model is being adopted by everyone.  Adobe, Autocad, Office etc.  I have perpetual licences for all of them on the laptops.  I am retired so cannot afford the subscrition model keeping up licences without an income.  When the laptops go so does the software.

The subscrition rates should have a non-commercial version for retirees etc.