Justification to upgrade from IV 5

[jas]

We are currently running IV 5.0 SP2 and have had our fair share of problems. Now we have been asked to justify upgrading to IV 6 and I was hopeing for some ideas and encouragement in doing so.


Can anyone break down the pros compared to 5.0 or should I just tell them "come on, we are the only ones with out 6.0"?



Thanks in advance!

Jude

[Anonymous]

The best justification I can think of is not having
to purchase a new license for each seat of Inventor.  When a new release
comes along that you do want, you don't want to have to pay full price to get
it.  Software companies in general are not allowing customers to jump
several releases for the price of an upgrade any more.  Trying to get
support when you have stagnated on one release can also be a major
headache.

--
Hal Gwin
Mechanical
Designer
Xenogen

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"jas" <
href="mailto:jude.stepaniak@valcocincinnatiinc.com">jude.stepaniak@valcocincinnatiinc.com>
wrote in message
href="news:f141eaf.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:f141eaf.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

We
are currently running IV 5.0 SP2 and have had our fair share of problems. Now
we have been asked to justify upgrading to IV 6 and I was hopeing for some
ideas and encouragement in doing so.

Can anyone break down the pros
compared to 5.0 or should I just tell them "come on, we are the only ones with
out 6.0"?

Thanks in advance!
Jude

[Anonymous]

The "come on" argument is a good and compelling
one.  With a piece of software like Inventor, especially in it's
current state, it is suicide to get behind the development curve. 
R5.3, once it got a couple of service packs squared away, was much more stable
and workable than R5.  The majority of users have found R6 to be better
yet.  To stop at any of the current
versions of Inventor would be like having a son that reached the age of
seventeen and just stopped there and lived in your house forever. 
Inventor is not a mature product yet, and will take a few more versions before
it's hormones mellow out and it's rough edges get smoothed over.

One specific area that has been greatly improved
from R5 to R6: Stability of drawing views and annotations.  In R5, I had to
carefully check each sheet before I printed, to make sure some leader or sketch
hadn't jumped out of place.  Now I just print.

Many of the tools and refinements that have been
added in the last two versions are genuinely useful and worth upgrading
for.  There have been some marketing-driven fluffy toys added, but not
too many.

Just the improvements in the way project files work
would be worth upgrading for.  You might argue that they really should
issue a SP for R5, because the project system was buggy, but the fact is
they're not going to, so...

There's also the compelling argument of the free
support that you can get from experienced users in this group...most of whom are
running the current version.  As you get behind, there will be fewer and
fewer folks around who can help you with any problems you might
have.

For you personally, there is the problem of your
job skills getting out of date.  I would not be excited about my long-term
prospects at a company that wasn't interested in keeping up with the latest
technology.

I hope all this helps.

Cheers,

Walt

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"jas" <
href="mailto:jude.stepaniak@valcocincinnatiinc.com">jude.stepaniak@valcocincinnatiinc.com>
wrote in message
href="news:f141eaf.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:f141eaf.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

We
are currently running IV 5.0 SP2 and have had our fair share of problems. Now
we have been asked to justify upgrading to IV 6 and I was hopeing for some
ideas and encouragement in doing so.

Can anyone break down the pros
compared to 5.0 or should I just tell them "come on, we are the only ones with
out 6.0"?

Thanks in advance!
Jude

[MechMan_]

In a nutshell I'd say that since R5 IV has greatly increased in stability and perforance. If you haven't already, take a look at the "what's new" area of the Autodesk Inventor website for a listing of new features for R6. It would also be good if you could find the "what's new" for R5.3 since it was a good upgrade in it's own right, even if the Release numbering doesn't show it to be. IMO any company still stuck in anything Pre R5.3 is shooting themselves in foot.

MechMan

[jas]

You guys ROCK!!

[MechMan_]

LOL, thanks!



Ok, everybody that chimed...do an air guitar! B-)



MechMan

[Anonymous]

R6 is loaded with lots of improvements. I have had it actually open and
fix drawings which were "corrupt" in both R5 and R5.3.
One of my favorite "productivity" improvements is the repeat work
feature command. You can blast out many workplanes in a few seconds
with minimum clicks. Very handy if you do much lofting. The new
ability to place workplanes normal to and along arcs and splines is very
handy. If you do a lot of cabling, the new grounded workpoints saves
hours of work.

From a visual perspective (pun), the support of shine on textures
should make you marketing department happy. I suspect that the Safety
department would like the ability to put warning and safety labels on
your parts (decals). The emboss and engrave tools can be used to
simplify all kinds of operations which use to take considerable effort.

And the #1 reason (bada boom) is most of the iParts I am now posting are
being done in R6.

jas wrote:

> We are currently running IV 5.0 SP2 and have had our fair share of
> problems. Now we have been asked to justify upgrading to IV 6 and I
> was hopeing for some ideas and encouragement in doing so.
>
> Can anyone break down the pros compared to 5.0 or should I just tell
> them "come on, we are the only ones with out 6.0"?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Jude

[Anonymous]

There is a little "finance" benefit here. If you have your software on
maintenance, you "know" how much to budget each year. This flattens out
the upgrade costs and provides a predictable annual expense.

Autodesk and their competitors have all figured out that people were
jumping releases to save money (their revenue). Notice that these
companies drop upgradeablity of releases beyond about two versions back.
Since R5 is now 2 versions behind R6, it is likely that Autodesk would
drop it as an upgradeable version in the not to distant future. They do
this with AutoCAD.

Hal Gwin wrote:

> The best justification I can think of is not having to purchase a new
> license for each seat of Inventor. When a new release comes along
> that you do want, you don't want to have to pay full price to get it.
> Software companies in general are not allowing customers to jump
> several releases for the price of an upgrade any more. Trying to get
> support when you have stagnated on one release can also be a major
> headache.
>
> --
> Hal Gwin
> Mechanical Designer
> Xenogen
>
> "jas" > > wrote in message
> news:f141eaf.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> We are currently running IV 5.0 SP2 and have had our fair share of
> problems. Now we have been asked to justify upgrading to IV 6 and
> I was hopeing for some ideas and encouragement in doing so.
>
> Can anyone break down the pros compared to 5.0 or should I just
> tell them "come on, we are the only ones with out 6.0"?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Jude
>

[jas]

Thank you C. Bliss!


Hopefully we can convince our company to update so we can stay fresh but if not, I vow to become the IV 5.0 guru. So go ahead and begin forwarding all 5.0 questions towards me so that I may practice my 'gurueyship'.

:)

Jude