Mentor Graphics Demanding Money with Menaces

That's obscene! I won't be hurrying to switch to Mentor any time soon now that I've read that...

Regards,

You can often get excellent support by posting questions on the public PADS forum. Often questions get answered within the same day. You should post your situation there. Most people on that forum dislike the Maintenance/Support scam, and many have opted to let it expire (as I have). Their newer software releases have been riddled with bugs and problems. The forum can be accessed with a newsreader as listserver.pads.com/talk. You need to register, but it's free. There is also a web based browser that you can access from the Mentor website

There is a MARLUG conference

Paul

I had a similar experience once with a different supplier. When we were setting up a new company we used a team of off site contractors to get the software off the ground quickly. We purchased three seats of a software package in *our* new company name for their use (some £30K worth I think). When it came time to move from the contractor pool to our own in-house (newly recruited) team, we found that the software supplier would not permit us to move the floating licenses from one server to another. It was apparently a 'site license', and we wanted to move the site. They wanted the full price whack again!

Lesson learned. We don't use that companies software any more.

Yup. We jumped ship after Mentor bought PADS, at v5.0, 2002. Since that software is perfect, why pay for support and future damage?

John

The Mentor EULA even requires a formal site change if you move the site more than 1/2 mile from the original installation. So anyone who uses it on a notebook computer while traveling, or moves the dongle from work to home, is in violation. I don't know if they've ever enforced this requirement, but it seems way too restrictive. In the good old days of PADS, the corporate people were very nice, and they would allow transfer of license at no charge. And they gave me the opportunity to upgrade from my old MSDOS version that I got from a company I had worked for, to the latest version at that time, for only the maintenance charge of $500 for one year.

The EULA basically says that Mentor still owns the software you have purchased, and you are granted a license to use it for some period of time. If you buy the software, it is understood that they will grant a 5 year license if you are not on maintenance, or a 15 month license if you have purchased support. This was to remind you to renew the maintenance before it expired. This sounds like a renewable lease, rather than a purchase, and I think someone successfully sued Mentor for misrepresentation of the terms of purchase. They do also sometimes lease the software, and for that the expiring license is reasonable.

I think the 5.x version of software has a non-expiring license. So far I have been able to get a 5 year license for my software, but there is still some concern that they might change their policy, or even go out of business, and then you would be stuck with unusable expired software. I'm also concerned that my next computer may not have a parallel port for the dongle, and I would have to swap it for a USB dongle. And apparently their software does not run under Vista, and they are only planning to support that OS with their latest version of software.

Soon it will cost me as much to reinstate maintenance (which includes all back maintenance as well as a 40% penalty), as it would for a complete new seat. I think the break-even point is about three years.

There's also a cracked copy of 5.x available from Eastern Europe, and there will probably be a new cracked copy of the newer software when and if it becomes stable enough to use. At least with my PADS2004sp2 I can still revert files back to 5.x if I need to. The newer version does not allow that, at least for the schematic package PADS-Logic. And in PADS2005 they introduced TrueType fonts, and they changed the format for their library files, but they did NOT change the file extension or even the version number in the header, although the two are not compatible.

Paul

Sounds like an admin stuff up. Sending in "the standard blurb on the name change", with no covering details, was probably not the best idea. [but hindsight is a great thing :) ]

Write to your distributor again, and emphasise this :

• Same Building

• Same desks

• Same guys operating the Sw, and same point of contacts

• same carparks

• same canteen

• Same phone no's - (same emails ?- good if they still work )

-etc-

Corporate renaming/rebranding is not uncommon, and is usually free.

Unfortunately, the corporate types that initiate this rebranding often over-state the scope and effect....

-jg

I sincerely hope you don't include ORCAD in that statement!

Or just tell them f*ck off and go to anyone who is nice and charges a low price. There are a lot of schematic and PCB packages out there.

I have to use the torMentor (Veribest) crap at my current job. It is garbage. torMentor will send someone out to take notes, and then no action. That is all they have done for the last 20 years. torMentor is terrible, and someone has to pay me to use that Veribest junk. If I was choosing, torMentor would not be on the list of possibilities.

They sell companies on their "enterprise solution." In english, that means once they get into your company, they are like a virus that you can't get rid of due to switching costs. Gary is lucky it is only Innoveda/PADS, since that is not their "enterprise" software.

Cadence ruined OrCAD? It was okay, simple to use, and cheap. Try using torMentor (Veribest) Design Capture if you want a crap schematic editor. You'll be happy with OrCAD then, even up to v9.

Yes they did.

It's still (mostly) okay, I suppose, and simple to use... just no longer cheap. Not by a long shot. I guess that's what really galls me... I don't mind paying large amounts of money for high-end software that works well, but ORCAD is only just a bit more sophisticated than the hobbiest class of schematic capture software, and yet they charge "enterprise" level prices for it. Incredible.

I like your definition of "enterprise software," BTW.

---Joel

EVERY app has "cracked versions" available, and geographic location has nothing to do with it.

alt.binaries.cd.image

Tell em to F* Off and that you will use Cadence tools.

Mentor Graphics tools are 15 years behind anyway.

Cheers

PeteS

Note that I do not work for Cadence (and they have their own customer problems), but at least their tools are reasonably up to date.

Cheers

PeteS

FIX YOUR GODDAMNED PC CLOCK, YOU FUCKING RETARD!

Late at night, by candle light, Spurious Response penned this immortal opus:

Works fine with Grab-it usenet downloader or just e-mule it.

- YD.

Nothing to do with anti-trust. No monopoly power here.

Perhaps they hired ASCAP's or BMI's lawyers?

Pay the money.

Yep! ModelSim (Mentor bought MTI some time back) only licenses their software for employees and on-site contractors. ...like I'm going to buy a license ($5K a year, last I checked) for off-site use. Others can't even access their help resources.

Seems like it, but thanks for the head's up (PNI).

Who wudda figured Dimbulb to be a thief, as well as an all-around idiot.

What is easy to figure is that you would be such a presumptuous bastard.

Dimbulb, it's not a presumption to note an admission, particularly so thinly veiled.