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Michael,
I think you're right. I know that for most
of us ONE problem solved thru the use of this group would more than offset
the
cost of a subscription fee. I would be more than happy top pay for this
expertise and knowledge. To have Smartcam
revived and updated to boot, well, I'ld look at that as
a BIG extra benefit. I have V11.5 of Production Milling and V9.0 of
Production
Turning and would very much like to
upgrade to Freeform and also to be able to import
current cad drawings into it.
Don
Gardner
LOOK you simply do
not look a gift horse in the mouth!
By that I mean we
have been given a chance to have our beloved SC resurrected by a
group
of dedicated loyal
users, operating on a boot string budget. They have to
cut costs in order
to keep outside investor capitol
as an option, in order to keep SC alive.
Remember why we are here in the
first place? Point Control bought by SDRC bought by
EDS bought by UG all of whom had
ONLY the bottom line as their number one priority
and not the betterment of SC. We
were simply left out in cold after V11.5, to bad so sad
see you later.
SC is not even off
the ground and we’re already whining over a messily $5 or $10
US fee
that will be credited towards
any future maintenance or product updates?
I’ll go on record and state that
I’ll gladly pay that fee out of my own pocket in order to have
my
SC fixed up so it can run future
Microsoft operating systems simply because there is NO
alterative.
Well there is always MasterCAM,
Esprit and EdgdeCAM.
For me SC is what brings home the
bacon. How many others in this group need SC
to make a
living?
-----Original
Message-----
From: Angelucci
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 8:34
AM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [mfg-smartcam] this mail
list
We can create a free discussion
list at yahoogroups
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday,
December 19, 2003 7:17 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
Well its here now
.... But it doesn't just come out of thin air.
UGS-PLM is supplying a server (notice it says sdrc.com) and someone
who maintains that server when there are problems and
an adminstator for the list who maintains that when there are problems,
and since they've signed this contract with me, they don't expect to
continue having to do that. They are expecting that I will take
it over. I'm either going to have to go through some kind of
list vendor, or go through my hosting service, or get a server of my own and
then get it set up and move the accounts over. I
haven't tried to figure out all the costs yet but surely something like
$5 or $10 an account would probably cover
it.
People have to understand that
I'm not SDRC or EDS. I don't have an IT department already
in place. I don't have a bunch of servers already on hand that I
can put stuff on and extra people to do the work, I didn't already have a
website or an internet connection when I signed the contract and I
don't have a bunch of other product lines that are already generating
income. John and I are bootstrapping this thing up. Once
we get things up and going we may have to assess whether we need to go
out and seek outside capital, but we chose not to go that route to
begin with because we didn't want to have some sort of venture
capitalist/return on investment type person with their fingers in the
pie.
Besides as I said, it
will be credited towards any future maintenance or product you
get, so you can think of it as a down payment on
that.
----- Original Message -----
Sent:
Friday, December 19, 2003 1:16 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
I
agree, can't see how you can charge for this mailing list, it's already
here. Somebody else will start one up if this one gets taken over and then
this fine body of SmartCAM user will become
fragmented.
Maybe
MRS should start another 'official' on-line help group, with a nominal
charge for subscribing but with a guarantee that your query will be
answered.
Don't
forget, I make a living supporting SmartCAM, writing macros
and code-generators, doing training and programming but that doesn't
stop me giving stuff to the group for free. How many of you would pay
for the stuff I post?
----- Original
Message -----
Sent:
Friday, December 19, 2003 2:45 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
Well, I first
bought smartcam production mill in 1989. I upgraded periodically,
and in 98 bought up to freeform 11.5. All in all, I have about $12,000
invested in smartcam. Then, I was owner of a 6 man job
shop, now I am a sole owner/operator of my company. I don't
particularly want employees anymore.
I don't use
macro's, mostly because I was never shown how, and I am busy enough as
it is to not spend the time learning. I guess they are great, but
I am just a ham handed programmer that mostly uses the program to do
multi-position jobs and small parts.
I am happy that
SmartCam is once again going to progress, however I sure don't need to
automatically have a bill show up for the priviledge of still being on
this group list. These guys are tremedously helpful for the
questions I seem to have periodically. This program does all I
want right now, and has for the last 4 years. I sure don't need a
$1200 bill for "maintaining" my old product.
Don't alianate
your user base by starting with charges. I wish you good luck on
this project, and I look forward to seeing future
progress.
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, December 17, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
I'm sure some
of you were wondering if I really existed or whether I was just a
product of John Gent's imagination.
Its been
great to see the response on this mail list, and I thought the
first thing I should share with you are my thoughts on the list
itself.
I've seen a
couple questions on what's going to happen to this
list?
Well
... eventually MRS is going to have to take over responsibility
for the list So at the very least, its going to necessitate a
server change at some point. But we'd like to take it further
than that. Currently there are only 333 subscribers to the list
and not all of them are even SmartCAM customers. Even so,
that's only a tiny fraction of the number of people we
estimate who are still using SmartCAM in the world today.
What we'd like to do is make it a membership based list that's
for active customers and subscribers and other key SmartCAM
community members. That way we will be able to share more
confidential support information and business planning
information with the list than I feel we currently can give
out, given the current list membership. (I'm sure
the gentleman from Gibbs who is a current member of the
list would understand.)
I
see membership in the list being included if you're a part
of the 'current' customer base. That means if you're
on active maintenance or
have a current version from MRS that includes
maintenance you would automatically have free membership.
If you were a customer but not active, in other
words, you have an older version and you're not on
maintenance, then you could join the list for a small admin fee.
If however you're not really a customer, dealer or some other
trusted member of the community (but say a competitor for
instance) you would not be allowed membership to the list.
I understand that things we publish to the list will eventually
get out if someone wants it bad enough, I just don't want to mail
it to them directly.
I'd like to
see the list continue to carry the kinds of technical discussions and
Q&A that it currently does, but I'd also like to develop it as
primary vehicle for delivering company and product announcements, tech
tips, support info, etc. For it to be truly effective however we
need to expand it to include a much larger segment of the
customer base. This can have both positive and negative
effects. It makes for a much larger knowledge pool to tap into,
but it might also have the effect of lowering the standards for
communications on the list.
That leads me
to list etiquette. This list has always operated at a very
high level. If the list membership begins to expand, we would
like to count on the original membership to set an example and help
maintain that high level of integrity. We see the members of
this list as probably being the most representative of the type of
customer we want to have and keep. Surprisingly, when we
conducted our survey last year, we discovered there are still a
small number of SmartCAM users who are completely unconnected
with no internet or email at work OR at home. Unfortunately we
may have to leave some of them behind. We aren't going to have
the resources to do onsite visits. We will need to conduct
a lot more business (product and services) over the phone and
internet.
Finally, I
saw a comment in one of the earlier responses to 'buy
American'. I want to remind
everyone that SmartCAM is a worldwide product, and the membership
of this list reflects that. We all need to remain
aware of that as we post here. Now, having said that, I
think I understand the sentiment behind the statement, so given
the global nature of SmartCAM, I think the
phrase 'support a living
wage' conveys that same sentiment and
honors the global nature of this forum, and is something we support
here at MRS.
Thanks again
for all the encouraging responses,
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