upFront.eZine visits PTC, tomorrow

   I'm leaving for the airport soon to make the cross-continent trip to visit PTC in Needham, MA. They've invited a few people to get an early look at Creo 2.0, as well as... well, let me quote the agenda: "Top Cool Things You May Have Missed in Creo 1.0."

This 3/4-day meeting arose from the Creo 1.0 reviews following its "break free from CAD prison" launch last year. PTC created confusion over what this new Creo software is, unfortunately, and then made things worse by renaming their two pre-Creo software packages with the "Creo" prefix -- even while maintaining the old names internally.

It was a marketing mess not  helped by the immaturity from which all new software suffers. I struggled to review the software last fall for Design Engineering magazine. (I finished the review from Manila, with the help of PTC tech support over Skype sessions back in Needham.)

Other reviewers faced similar problems, and so PTC is flying us in today. Some of our complaints are cured in Creo 2 apparently, and tomorrow I hope to see them.

PTC could have saved itself much grief by stating plainly a year ago what its new CEO finally explained clearly last month: Creo is the merging of history-based parametric modeling from Pro/E and direct modeling from CoCreate. (And then add this technical detail: it comes in modular form, and uses a universal file format to handle data between modules.) Clear, to the point, and done.

Now, I just hope I make the 1hr 10min connection in Montreal, where I have to go through security a second time and US immigration pre-clearance -- coming off a flight that statistically is on-time 46%. Well, I only have myself to blame, seeing's how I picked out the flight.

[Disclosure: PTC is providing airfare, accommodation, some meals, and ground transportation.] 

 

Comments

[Jon Banquer]

One of the major problems PTC has is that they have put so little resources into Pro/NC now Creo NC. Users tell me that Pro/NC is a decade behind.

PTC needs to invest heavily in Pro/NC if they want to be taken seriously. PTC has only one video on You Tube that I can find showing Creo NC 1.0. The video is short and so generalized that it's meaningless which I find very telling.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA
http://cadcamtechnologyleaders.blogspot.com/