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cc-21-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 19, 2013
Question

Windchill migration to Intralink

  • February 19, 2013
  • 20 replies
  • 12213 views

Hello


You have read properly. Windchill is more expensive than Intralink. Of course both systems are different.


I would say Windchill is a PDS/PLM while Intralink is a PDM or advanced vault.


When Windchill implementation is struggling and Windchill is used just to do what Intralink provide. would it make sense to you to migrate to Intralink in order to save on maintenance cost but also reduce cost of changes all the business processes for properly adopting Windchill.


Has any one of you experienced or know of a company who moved from Windchill to Intralink ?


I am interesting in know about the business case to such "downgrading" and does PTC provide as much support and tools for the migration and they do when migrating from Intralink to Windchill.



Thank you


Best regards

20 replies

C
ChrisCollinson12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
February 19, 2013
Hi,

Please publish the responses as we are at a situation where our company
needs to adopt Windchill more widely or let us downgrade to an Intralink
type system for the Engineers and remove the overhead for them.

Best Regards

Chris Collinson
CAD Administrator
B
23-Emerald III
BenLoosli23-Emerald III
23-Emerald III
February 19, 2013
Let's get some terminology correct.

Windchill by itself is nothing but a giant programmer's toolbox. It does no vaulting, no PLM, no change management.

PTC has developed a number of applications that sit on the Windchill Technology framework. PDMLink does your full lifecycle for whatever, be it part usage or CAD files. Intralink (8.0 and higher) only does CAD vaulting.

If you have installed Windchill/PDMLink there is NO downgrade path to Windchill/Intralink. Just don't use the parts of PDMLink that sit on either side of the CAD vaulting portions of the code.

To answer your 4th line, no one has downgraded because it is not a supported path by PTC. Could you do it. Maybe, but if you have already set up Windchill/PDMLink, why would you want to start over with a new implementation of Windchill/Intralink and export and import all of your data. There is NO direct migration path than manually doing it.


Thank you,

Ben H. Loosli
USEC, INC.
B
23-Emerald III
BenLoosli23-Emerald III
23-Emerald III
February 19, 2013
There is no downgrade from PDMLink to Intralink supported by PTC.

Thank you,

Ben H. Loosli
USEC, INC.
R
rrich1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 19, 2013
And what about the people who would like to downgrade now to PDM Essentials.
C
ChrisCollinson12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
February 19, 2013
Well said Ron,



And could this be another Productpoint that PTC gets bored with after a
couple of years, then discontinues so all the users that used ProductPoint
have to upgrade to Windchill?

And is PDMLink Essentials just Windchill Intralink rebadged????


Best Regards

Chris Collinson
CAD Administrator
S
sdrzewiczewski10-Marble
10-Marble
February 19, 2013
Is PDM Essentials just a rebranding of Intralink? The UI still looks like Windchill to me.
D
DarrinHiebert1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 19, 2013
Our VAR indicated when he gave the presentation to our user group that
there would NOT be a downgrade path from WC to PDM-Essentials.


J
JoeD3-Newcomer
3-Newcomer
February 19, 2013
The major difference is PDM Essentials is based on Windchill architecture (Productpoint was not) and the PTC channel has been pressing for this product for years. Finally our voice was heard. PTC did an excellent job with essentials. Concurrent licensing, built-in workgroup managers, visualization and easy deployment make this perfect for new or existing small and medium businesses. The only negative I see for an old Intralink customer is no data migration. This is due to the fact the essentials is SQL Server based while old Intralink was Oracle.

There is no downgrade from Essentials to WC, however you can upgrade from Essentials to WC.


A
Anonymous
February 19, 2013

PDM Essentials is identical to Windchill Intralink except as follows.



  • It is limitted to a single site (no replication).

  • It will support only Microsoft SQL Server, which is included/bundled.

Gerry Champoux
Williams International
Walled Lake, MI



In Reply to Chris Collinson:


Well said Ron,



And could this be another Productpoint that PTC gets bored with after a
couple of years, then discontinues so all the users that used ProductPoint
have to upgrade to Windchill?

And is PDMLink Essentials just Windchill Intralink rebadged????


Best Regards

Chris Collinson
CAD Administrator
S
ScottPearson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 19, 2013
The interesting thing about the direction of this thread now is not the
merits nor the quality of PDM Essentials. It is the fact that PTC soiled
its reputation so badly with ProductPoint and with PDM products so
complex that expensive consultants are required just to install/config
the software in order to even get off the ground. How many folks have
lost sleep, weekends, reputations, raises, and/or jobs because of PTC
PDM products? There is a basic lack of trust amongst the user base.



And though PDM Essentials is marketed as "right sized" solution, PTC's
existing customers apparently have no path to get that "right size".



And PTC wonders why so many of its customers are constantly seeking a
non-PTC CAD file management solution?



A path to Essentials for existing customers would be nice. And if
Essentials goes away after a couple years, all the
repackaging/rebranding in the world won't save PTC's reputation.



Let's hope for the best.



Scott Pearson
Senior Designer

CAD System Administrator

S O U T H W E S T R E S E A R C H I N S T I T U T E(r)
Space Science and Engineering Division
Department of Space Systems
6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238
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