maintenance agreement coming to Mastercam

[crazy^millman]

Glad to have you back. All is good in the world again.

 

Crazy Millman

[Toolfab]

Not to beat a dead horse, but I had a lengthly conversation with my dealer yesterday, a cival one, and had the facts about the "maintenance contract" explained to me. After kicking it around, I weighed my options. Get into it now, or get into it later at a greater price. It is not my responsibilty to cut checks, balance budget, or look at eh bank statments. It is, however, my job to make the company the I work for compatitive and remain compatitive. This aggreement makes sence, for me. We have one seat here, and it is mine, I dont want to be left in the dust when the rest of the releases come out.

 

We used V6 all the way up till V9 came out. The reason was we never upgraded was we couldn't pull the money out of nowhere to upgrade. So now I (Tool Fab) can pay a yearly fee, that really is VERY resonable, and never have to worry about being left in the dust as for as Vx in the future.

 

After a talk with the two chiefs here, I sent Shopware Inc. a purchase order for my maintenance. Thank you Mr. Mattera!!

 

 

[ 09-24-2003, 08:39 AM: Message edited by: Toolfab ]

[Brendan P]

quote:

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Thank you Mr. Mattera!!

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As in Matt Mattera?

I purchased some of his instructional mcam cd's.

They were very good!

[Toolfab]

No, not Matt, Mike Mattera. And yes he does have MC training cd's that he has made. They are pretty good aren't they? I liked em'

 

 

[ 09-24-2003, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Toolfab ]

[Brendan P]

Sorry,Mike,Yea these cd's are great.

[Philcott]

Wow,

 

I went away for a couple of days and came back to a firestorm of discussion and emotions. I thought this thread might get some attention, as it got mine when I first heard about it.

I was really hoping someone from CNC would come in here and let us know exactly what the plan is and how it will affect us in the near and not so near future.

Our company has used maintenance agreements with other software in the past and, until they were bought out and the whole direction changed, everything worked well. The agreement was just how we keep current and was just the cost of doing business with them. My concern with this change is (as I understood from the conversation with my dealer) that the service packs and point upgrades would no longer be free unless you were on the agreement. Major bug fixes and such would still covered but that was about all. I understood this to mean the level of support would indeed be different. If this is the case, I am sure my boss won't be pleased to have the rules changed in the middle of the game but he know the value of the product and will continue providing us with the tools to do our job. (I just hope my next raise doesn't go to cover this expence)

 

Phil

[Thad]

quote:

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IIRC, it was something that you opted for when joining the board. It's an e-newsleter, not something that gets sent to your house/work.

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Guess what I got in the mail yesterday? The newsleter. Sorry for the misinformation.

 

Thad

[Noel]

Since reading this thread I to have talked to my reseller with more or less the same results.The one thing I found out is that if you are going from 8 to 10 after 10 is released it will cost an extra 5% per seat over going from 9 to 10. Also if we go to 9 now with maintanence the 8 to 9 on the first mill seat is 1/2 price with the second having the normal second seat discount .So unless I have my numbers messed up it will be cheaper for us to upgrade our 2 mill level 3 seats and one lathe seat to version 9 now with maintanence and get 10 when it comes out for free than it would be to go from 8 to 10 later.Seems to be a no brainer to me.Now I just have to convince the bean counters.

 

 

Noel

[Xtreme Machine]

Ok you guys! Maintenance is Optional but the reason we are saying to get on it now! May be that the price will increase real soon.. REAL SOON! so this is a great chance for those on the older versions to update for 1/2 the cost before it is to late! and you have to pay a higher fee. and we support you guys on maintenance.

 

quote:

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I don't accept there quote for 25% for 03

Version EX isn't even on my radar screen

just yet, and I don't know what condition EX

will be in when released, but I'm thinking I will let it mature for a few months before I will depend on it.

So I will most likely avoid it for '04 as well.

Then in 05, I can review the current 25% annually fee,, And my plan to add a new seat every 3 years,

may be better than it is to pay the annual fee.

I don't mind a kicking in a little bit to grease the machine, but I am protesting the request for 25%.

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SCOTT???? This so this your plan?? after all we have been through together! Chris and I were just letting you know about it! next time just kick me in the head! ~ The big guys are gonna be upset!

[Bocho]

quote:

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I just hope that Mastercam can continue to improve, I think that we should remember that it takes money to change and improve. The support that I have receive from my reseller, Mastercam, and the Professionals on this forum is unmatched by any other piece of equipment/software that I have ever used.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

I don't contribute much, but I read most threads. The information received on this forum...Priceless. But, It is free and isn,t provided by my reseller or CNC. It's provided by my compatriots, maintainence or no maintainence.

[Scott Bond]

quote:

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SCOTT???? This so this your plan?? after all we have been through together! Chris and I were just letting you know about it! next time just kick me in the head! ~ The big guys are gonna be upset!

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Hi Steve (Extreme)

After useing Mastercam for 2 decades, I feel I contribute more than I take.

You and Chris didn't even respond to my 3 emails requesting post modifications for now almost months . When I received a request for money instead, It hurt my Feelings.

Scott teh it's not even my money.

[two words]

Would it be possible for somebody to set up a poll to see how many customers requested the software maintenance and could the poll only be for customers and not delears.

[Lathe-Mill]

[iowajim62]

quote:

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You and Chris didn't even respond to my 3 emails

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KNOW THE FEELING REAL WELL !!!!!!!!!

 

Should build a "posse" to go after the pirates but there not in that "bizness" ...... oh well let's pass it on to the paying customers.

 

jm2c

[pimij]

I just received this fax about the maintenance program. I have to agree with many people that I am very disappointed to see CNC head in this direction. I have used various cnc programs for the last 10 years and all have had high maintenance contracts. The fact that MasterCAM didn't have a maintenance contract was one of the reasons I bought the software. I used programs for years with the same bugs that release after release never got fixed --- BUT YOU STILL HAD TO PAY FOR THEM!!! And I am sure there are users out there right now that could point some out ( anyone here use the WCS extensively? ). ( if you want a couple of good examples just ask! )

 

I have had a reasonably good experience with MasterCAM so far...

 

I too would like to hear from someone at CNC directly -- as to me they seem to be a company wihtout a voice - they merely hide behind thier resellers ( sorry if that one hurt! -- and Peter you know where that's coming from ).

 

'nuff said!

 

Jim Pallister

OPM Ltd.

[Rekd™]

quote:

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I too would like to hear from someone at CNC directly -- as to me they seem to be a company wihtout a voice - they merely hide behind thier resellers

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How do you figure?

 

I don't see it that way.

 

'Rekd teh Educate the Ignorant, Ignore the Stupid

[pimij]

quote:

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How do you figure?

 

I don't see it that way.

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I am new to this forum and many of you may be able to tell me otherwise ( which I would like to hear )

But this is just from my own personal experience. My reseller (In-House ) has been great in their support so don't get me wrong on that.

 

Jim Pallister

OPM Ltd.

[Tony]

The Company that I work for

Has always thought that MC was

Low end stuff just because they don't

Work from a Maintence standpoint like

all the big names do.

[Fig sign]

I am not a software programmer ,once learned C and Windows API and I know what it is to debug even a simple program can mean

Even a cnc macro progaram written by you or me can be a hard task for debugging.

WCS is a new stuff related to everything in Mastercam and it do has bugs which are not a simple thing to debug at all.

If you found a bug ,report to CNC software and you will get an answer .

quote:

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they merely hide behind thier resellers

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I am not a MC layer but saying this means you don`t know what is a bad atitude !

 

Now listenin Deep purple Woman from Tokyo

 

[ 09-25-2003, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: plasttav ]

[Harryman]

I feel for the guys that are writing the checks from their own account to cover their shop expenses, one more expense stinks.

 

But in the corporate world, this maintanance expense will go through accounting like worms through a goose.

 

The support I've received from Prototek and in-House and CNC has always been top shelf.

[pimij]

quote:

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I am not a MC layer but saying this means you don`t know what is a bad atitude !

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I am sorry if I sound bitter like I said it was based on my own personal experience. I am not talking about the product -- I do like and enjoy using MasterCAM.

 

I didn't really want to get into all of this - but oh well.

 

I have done some simple programming as well (c, php, macros, posts ) and I understand what it takes to write and debug software -- its a nightmare on a good day.

 

I did report a BUG to CNC -- I think a large part of the work done to the WCS in service pack 1 & 2 are because of it. I can give you a fairly good analysis of how the the WCS works in relation to tplane and cplanes in a 5-axis setup. Where some inherent problems are and where they sould be fixed.

 

The one thing I guess I want to be clear about is this:

MasterCAM is a good product -- all in all no complaints. There are much worse out there and they want more money.

 

 

Jim Pallister

OPM Ltd.

[Rekd™]

I was just curious why you felt they were 'hiding'. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, I just wondered how you came about yours.

 

IMNSHO, they are doing just the opposite. I can't count the times I've seen guys from CNC Software posting here in response to problems. They're very involved. They even came here SEVERAL times to ask what we wanted for this or that..

 

If you've sent a bug report to them, and it was really a bug that hadn't been reported, it would have been assigned a report number and you would have been contacted to tell you the number.

 

I see by your member number you've been here for a bit but just now started posting. Hope to see more posts from you, as we can always use more knowledge/imput.

 

'Rekd

[pimij]

quote:

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If you've sent a bug report to them, and it was really a bug that hadn't been reported, it would have been assigned a report number and you would have been contacted to tell you the number.

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Bug #23237 and Bug #23239 respectively from sometime in may/april of this year -- has to do with drilling multiple holes in one operation with different z heights. The WCS is used and when posted it loses its referance planes uses the original WCS and inserts bad retract moves in the posted code. Reproduceable in ver 9.0 and 9.1

Mostly in conjunction with a 5axis post.

 

anyway -- I really just wanted to post my thoughts about the maintenance program and this is getting way off topic.

 

Jim Pallister

OPM Ltd.

[Lathe-Mill]

+1 pimij, I thought I was the only one.

But now I see more people seeing the big picture.

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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I can't count the times I've seen guys from CNC Software posting here in response to problems.

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Yepper, + 1 on that.

 

I came in here with a problem and had two guys (Roger and Mick) from CNC software and about 10 other Forum members jump right in and help me out!! Now where else can you go for that kind of support?

 

 

Murlin teh appreciative