Stephen,
In my opinion, this is a tricky question with which you have to be
careful.
Strictly speaking, INTRALINK 8.0+ could actually be more expensive to
implement than PDMLink. This is because INTRALINK 8.0+ is really
neither named user nor concurrent user licensing.
PDMLink is pure named user licensing. And PTC has been willing to
exchange Pro/INTRALINK 3.x seats for some multiple of PDMLink seats to
accommodate the change in licensing approaches.
However, INTRALINK 8.0+ is not named user licensing. INTRALINK 8.0 uses
some odd, hybrid scheme. Connecting to INTRALINK 8.0 via Pro/ENGINEER
is controlled by flexLM. However, users can also access the INTRALINK
8.0 environment through a standalone web browser. Accessing through a
browser provides no license control!
As an example, suppose you have 30 users, ten seats of Pro/ENGINEER, and
ten seats of Pro/INTRALINK 3.x. Suppose you then change to 10 seats of
INTRALINK 9.1. You could connect to your INTRALINK 9.1 database with
ten seats of Pro/E. However, you could also then have ALL the rest of
your users connect via a browser. This situation would violate your
license agreement. However, you would not be able to stop the
violation. Moreover, you would not even know a violation occurred until
sometime later.
At least with PDMLink, there is no concurrent component. PDMLink has
pure named user licensing. PTC offers multiple seats of PDMLink for
each seat of 3.x, recognizing that more seats will be needed in this
named user mode. PTC has no such standard offer for INTRALINK 8.0+,
however.
The only compliant / ethical way to run INTRALINK 8.0+ seems to be to
have a 1:1 ratio of INTRALINK 8.0+ seats to users. I am betting that in
the 3.x world, most, if not all, companies have a 1:1 ratio of Pro/E to
Pro/I seats, but not a 1:1 ratio of users to seats.
PTC has refused to provide a technical or contractual solution to date.
Thanks.
Frank H. Strieffler,
Lead Member Engineering Staff
Mechanical Engineering
Lockheed Martin Engineering Process Improvement Center
Cherry Hill, NJ
