Hi HPS, If it is simple stuff you are going to be modelling in Solidworks and you are an experienced user - then it probably isn't worth the support fee. However, even if you do buy the support - you will not get the bugs fixed instantly- it can take several years before they fix the bug - depending on how "serious" the bug is. I remember when 2007 was released - we were identifying maybe 1 to 2 bugs a week - and some of those were very serious - but then 2007 was probably there worst release yet. If you are not an experienced user - then it can be helpful to have someone to talk to - to try and solve your particular problem - so in this case support is beneficial. Hope this helps you to make up your mind.
Solidworks support I worked for a company that had 5 seats of SW in the past and thought little of the £5K going out the door every year as it meant the team had support in my absence if they had SW issues. However, we only really used the support a few times and when the recession hit it was the first spend for me to cut as I saw it as a "nice to have" rather than an essential. As other users have said, if you are a new user it may well be worthwhile and I will add to choose your reseller based on the training quality given. I am sure you will get opinions on this forum that will help you.In more recent years I have been running my own business and I have completely re-evaluated my approach to design software and support in particular. I no longer pay support as I can use the money for activities that directly add income to my business (I have only contacted support once in 7 years and the answer took 2 weeks - later than my project delivery time). I would now rather pay for add-ons such as renderers than pay support. The argument about keeping up to date only applies if you are receiving files from an up to date SW user - in my case I get files from all kinds of people using a variety of packages so I will always be working with neutral formats anyway. This led me down the path of looking to a direct modelling package to add to SW so I can quickly edit imported files and I have to say it is stunning how much quicker this can be than using the tools in SW. I figure that i can buy the direct edit package for two years subscriptions......Lastly, I have to ask if the HPS refers to the UK bathroom company? if so, I can probably help you furtherSteve
It depends on how critical your usage of the software is going to be to you. If you are working entirely in-house, and having the latest version is not relevant for outside contacts, then it may well be that you don't need to be constantly up-to-date. You will however find that some things, as mentioned, may not work quite as you anticipated, bit this is not an exclusively SolidWorks problem - there isn't a CAD package out there that doesn't! If you decide to do without the support , you will have to stay with the version you have until you fork out some cash to upgrade, SW is not as bad as others in this respect, but you would have to stay with a version for about 4-5 years for it to pay, and a lot can change in that time, least of all your OS and hardware. If you go for the support, the SP's will be there as well as any subscription based content, and the VAR should be able to get you out of most problems, most of the time by a workaround, at least. But this won't always be the case, but if you use the KISS principle and are prepared not to be too cutting edge and 'smart' with methodology, you should get away with it. In the cases where a fix isn't available, you'll have to resort to first principles CAD methodology, rather than the time-saving features where the bugs live! As I said, they all suffer from this. I generally find that if you get your first seat, this can grow to more, and the support package becomes more important, because more usage finds more issues, but you will need to ensure that the VAR is not charging you linearly (i.e. two seats-2x cost; 3 seats= 3x cost); more seats should get you a sliding reduction on support. Remember that when it comes to technique, there's a lot of free help out there on the numerous forums, but you'll have those alternative resources whether you have support or not, in this case more is better. Finally, on VARs. I can only speak of UK-based VARs, and the trick here is not to get saddled with the 'local' VAR that SW instinctively put you with by PostCode. Do some research, and preferably get the VAR to demonstrate with something really tricky from your work history. And I mean tricky - no cubes with holes, find something complex. If you have large assemblies (>2000 parts) let them demonstrate that. Do your research from other users do see if your anticipated usage is going to cause issues. Stretch the VAR to sell you the product, and don't be fobbed off with the "it'll do that" reply - get them to demonstrate! Do the same with VARs from adjoining PostCodes - what they say is not always what they can do - they are in Sales, after all! Finally, Ensure your computers have the correct Graphics card (e.g. NVIDIA Quadro NOT GeForce), your Network is Gigabit if you are going to store your data on a server and you have as much RAM as you can get in. Obvious, but not always considered in reality.
