Bug fixes for 2.20027 without paying $95!
Comments
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Jeffson,So you're saying since no human being is perfect there never is any justification for complaints to a manufacturer for shoddy or incomplete work. With the logic you've used I believe you've expressed BricsCads philosophy on business: "Buyer Beware!".
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Kevin.....I am not saying shody work should be accepted as the norm....As consumers we vote with our dollars and buy something else if we do not like what is offered.I also do not think IC falls into the classification of shody just because it is not perfect...... we find bugs in every software package our offices uses on a daily basis including Acad....I am saying perfect bug free software is impossible for any price....we can only select those products that are not deffective in the areas where we need them to perform and find ways to work around the problems until we can buy a newer or other products that solves said problems ....and I do agree with you this world is Buyer Beware!! I think the 30day money back guarantee is very fair time frame to determine if IC is perfect enough for anyones use. Especially considering the availability of forums like this to see others opinions about the software, prior to parting with out limmited monies.Acad does not have such a 30 day return evaluation policy offer, nor do many other software packages we have evaluated.To paraphrase the famous Mr bug king from MS"... software only needs to be good enough....not perfect......"
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I don't care what Autodesk offers, says or does or doesn't do. I bought Visio Icad98 and bought Bricsnet's Upgrade to Intellicad2000. All I'm asking for is a bugfree version of Intellicad2000 that I PAID for. As yet I haven't recieved it. Jeffson, do you make your clients pay twice for work you promised to do in the first place? Yes, this is an imperfect world with imperfect products. That's why they have recalls. Just give me what I paid for. Bricinet/Bricscad didn't advertise the software as having bugs that we would have to pay to have fixed. BricsCad, just do the right thing and give the free patch to fix the bugs.
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I agree with Kevin. The bottom line is that there is a difference beetwen bugs and enhancements. What makes me mad is paying $95 for bug fixing. Maybe IC, to be more fair to their customers, could have opted for free bug fixing for versions prior 3.2 and if you want enhancements you pay the $95. That way I thing is the right and fair way of doing business. Like many software companies, they offer free bug fixing patches to their old products with no extra charges.Marcelo
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I agree of paying but for a product that works well.I tested for a while the 3.1 version of BricsCAD and I found that it was very unstable. Because of that I´m using the 2.0 version again. I want to know if the 3.2 version has solve all the bugs after paying for it. Could someone tell me something about it?
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There is nowhere on the Bricsnet or Bricscad sites any implied or expressed commitment to continue to provide bug fixes for out of date versions of their software releases!! If you have found such a listing please let me know?If you "assumed" this to be the case (shame on you)....please see above discussions about Buyer Beware!
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KevinIn response to your question about my company, Pefessional Architects and Consulting Engineering Corporatioins drawings and specifications are not treated as Products nor as part of the Product Liability laws in the comercial leagle system. They are treated as services not requiring perfection and as such must only comply with the average standards of practice normal for the profession.Perfection is not guarenteed nor required under the law for services supplied by a Professional Corporation or Practionor. Software also falls into this same classification.There is no leagle system or liability law presently applied in the world that requires perfection in software nor entitles the consumer to unlimmited software updates to fix bugs in old versions of software! Perhaps we need to change the laws?But until then, our only recourse is to vote with our dollars. If you do not like a company's software policy or the the sofware performance, buy a different software package. If you did not do sufficient research before parting with your hard earn monies (Buyer Beware), but you do not get my support because of your lack of due dilligence.
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O.K. What we can all agree on is that it is not unreasonable to charge for "enhancements" and that $95 dollars is not an unreasonable price.Where we see conflict is really about bug fixes. Those things that do not function as they should or cause crashes, etc.There are some who say that Intellicad makers are under no "legal" obligation to fix bugs for free (or at all) or provide such support to older versions of their product and that bug fixes bundled with enhancements is good enough and after all the manufactures need the money (poor babies). it is also legal to not clearly post at any time any and all known bugs before or after purchase and that it is the buyers job to search the internet and magazines and such to find this information. "buyer be ware".This may be true.Others feel that the manufacturers have an ethical obligation to provide bug fixes for all their products free of charge especially when the product was advertized in effect (using sujective words like "alternative" and compatible" and "easy") as being trouble free (Having the delete command occasionly crash the program isnt trouble free). "Truth in advertizing"?This also may be true.Being legal keeps you from being sued. Being ethical encourages contiued business.Personnaly Im hardly salivating over those 3.2 enhancements. Im paying my $95 for the bug fixes. And I sure Im not alone. But what I really want is a verson thats "No Enhanements" and "All Known Bugs Fixed".JT
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Whoraa JT!!!
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One other note if i mMy company is located only 60 miles North of CADOPIA's main office in California....but we still are using Bricsnet and and Bricscad as the better services.....anyone with an opinion on CADOPIA?
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Jeffson,I'm sure your company carries professional liabilty insurance for errors and omisions that may occur in your "product". This tells me that the legal system holds you to a minimum standard of care in you profession. Now you can check for yourself but I'm sure that you could nullify your coverage if it can be shown that you didn't do all you reasonably could to catch and correct all errors and omissions. Aren't bugs just errors or omissions to the software. Aren't you saying to the public and your clients in particular we know that we can make mistakes but we"re taking every precaution we can to prevent them and just in case one or more get by us we have insurance to help make restitution for our mistake or omission.
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My company builds a product within the various codes and guide lines of local, natonal and destination goverments as required by law. Most of these (like OSHA) are designed to keep people from getting killed or injured and dont care if the the product actually functions (safer if it dont).Actually working right is between us and our customers and its understandably assumed to work as advertized.We sometimes build things outside our particular expertize and for these we work on an understood "best effort". We dont garrentee it works and we still get payed. So why do we actually give it our bets effort instead of sitting in the break room and eat donuts? Because we have a business ethec and integrety that knows getting a reputation on par with a used car salesman means we'll soon be out of business. Was it Demming who said "Make a good product, sell it at a fare price, and you will make money."
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Kevin,Thanks so much for your well thought out replies, it makes it a pleasure to have intelligent discussions.Indeed we do have Professioanal liability insurance. The insurance coverage and the leagle liability laws do not require a Professional Services firm to apply "ALL" efforts or not even "BEST" efforts to avoid omissions or remove "errors" . The insurance will only "pay-off" in a lawsuite where it is proven by the plaintiff that the Professional faild to meet the minimum average standards of practice prevailing for all other similar Professionals.The liability laws and our insurance require that we put forth the "standards of practice" that any "average" firm performing the same work under the same basis would perform. In otherwords "BEST" or "ALL" do not even enter into the leagle deffinition. Indeed, when a typical client is quoted the cost to enhance the design effort beyond "standards of practice" or to obtain 100% insurance coverage for a "PERFECT" design, in an attempt to attain perfection of the design, the additional cost "always" results in a rejection of the added cost by the client. Just like in CAD softwear, clients only want to pay for lowest cost, not the best if it costs more! Of course, with our firm our clients get the best service as well as the best price .... my marketing departmnet assures me of this ! Liability laws for software companies follow a much different criteria standard then Professional services and especially product strict liability stanards !!! Again, please remember softwear is presently leagely defined as a service not as a product. Product liability law is much stricter then service liability law. Just read the shrinkwrap limited warentee, at the very best all you get is a new disk if the disk itself proves deffective and sometimes not even that!
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Jeffson,My intent for bringing up professional liability insurance was not to compare apples to oranges. The engineering profession does indeed provide a service to its clients and the drawings produced are tools copyrigted by the engineer and used to produce a product for the client. My intent was to show that while perfection cannot be attained and perfection is never called for in any product there is always a minimum standard for every industry. While software may legally defined as a service in reality it is a defacto product much like a hammer or a calculator; it is used by the consumer to produce another product. This is the way the non-legalese types percieve software and perception is everything. The bottom line to all of this is whether we call BricsCad Intellicad a service or a product it doesn't work the way it supposed to because it has major bugs in it. Again, we are NOT talking about enhancements or improvements. We just want the bugs fixed for the product or "service" we bought.
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Kevin,Software and Professional Engineering services are not products, wether it's perceived or not perceived by the customers is not leaglely important. There is no stated or implied warantee about being bug free, or about unlimmited bug fixes for free. There is a business judgement that is made by every company about how far to extend beyond minimum leagle requirements.Bricscad has very clealy and plainly made it's policy statements. They have no leagle requirement to continue the previous policies of the old Owner Bricsnet. The new Bricscad is free to make whatever business customer relationship policies they choose. We as customers can like it and buy their products or lump it and go buy some other company's product.At this point and for the past 4 years my company has operated with 21 Intellicad licenses very successfully, because we carefully analized the weakness and strengths of Intellicad witthin our CAD needs. That represents over 168,000 manhours of Intellicad use.The areas where Intellicad lacks features, fails to function reliably or is buggy are either not funtions used by our CAD operations or we have found acceptable work arounds.What I do not understand, if after your 30 day evaluation you found IC to be such a terrible product, is why your proceeded to purchase it?
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Jeffson and to all concerned,Clearly this forum is working out for BricsCad. Here we are argueing amongst ourselve while BricsCad remains silent. I'm not in business to see what my legal limitstions are, I'm in business to serve my clients and thus earn a living. I purchased Icad98 from Visio and when they offered the Intellicad package to a consortium who then could develope their own versions of Intellicad I was approached by Bricsnet and was offered an Upgrade version of Intellicad2000 with a permanent license for all support and upgrades for Intellicad2000. I bought the license and as yet do not have a working version of Intellicad2000. Now, you say BricsCad has no legal responsibility to honor the commitment made by Bricsnet. I disagree. Since they have allowed me to have all 'bug fixes' or upgrades prior to version 3.2.0001 for free they have established a precedent in accepting Bricsnet's commitment. And I can only assume that what you say is true, It doesn't matter what the customer thinks or percieves. Boy, has the business world been turned on its head.
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We, like most small companys using ACAD, found the product reliable enough and, being so dominant, found drivers and such easilly obtainable. If ACAD didnt come with them then you knew every plotter, printer etc would have them because you had to to stay in business. What we didnt like was the way Autodesk did business. Pay, Pay, Pay. Expensive product. Expensive upgrades. Overpriced and often unsupportive support. We saw the company go from tech driven to MBA driven (and NAAUG cons go from $75 to $1000) so we moved to ICAD where the support was responsive and the price was right. If ACAD halfed its prices we'd still be there. If ICAD doubled theirs, we would not be here. I think we all left ACAD for much the same reasons. Within the first 30 days they seemed like they planned to fix every bug they were aware of and wanted as much feedback as we could supply to aid them. Years later they havent fixed them. 30 days may be enough time to evaluate "as is" software but not enough to evaluate the relationship with a vendor that by its nature needs to be long term. Firms dont switch software pacages (or phone or housekeeping or accounting services, etc.) every other week. We want to be a valued customer and want them to be a valued vendor.JT
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Kevin....You have a deffinite advantage since you have a IC permenent license certification from the manufacturer in your hands ....I do not have that advantage....I would suggest you please make that document available to all fo us....perhaps our combined effort with your written document as evidence will have a more positive affect...can you possibly post it for us to see and copy...it would be a great advantage in exerting leverage on the IC software suppliers?JT....so many bugs ?... and yet we are all here still using a softwear package that some seem consider to be shoddy and unuseable....what does that say about us as "intelligent" consumers and business people?
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J. Templeton just said it all.As for me, I'm still using Icad98 because it works and I use the Iintellicad2000 to open Acad2000 drawings and save as R14. It's been shown to me what Bricscad thinks of me and its other clients. I'm going to use another vendor.
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Well said Kevin...that's the best and most significant method available to each of us...short of lawsuites....to influence vendors with our voting dollars and not pay them for products that do not meet our needs !!!
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What we do know is that very few topics come close to generating the number of posts or so passionate as this one. BricksCAD (and probably the others) are reading this even if they are not commenting. If they are wise they will not assume that only the few that post here have any issues and that all the rest are happy as clams with the product/service. What they do with it is anybodies guess.As for switching provider, with the others honor the $95 upgrade or do you pay another $200 or so and are they really any better. Ive seen the web sights and they say basically the same thing (so does every car salesman) and whats at issue here is the nature and philosophy of customer service (not the law). Every company everywhere said they are commited to the customer first yada yada yada. Just like every politician claims to be an environmentallist whos tough on crime. The truth is in the track records. Is CADopia just another word for BricksCAD? Could BricksCAD be the most customer responsive of them all even if its not what some of us think it should be? Ive not heard stellar reviews of any of them outside their own sights.
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JT....Some seem to be upset with the bigboy CAD suppliers ie. Acad, Microstation, Datacad, Chiefarchitect etall....because their softwear is so reliable, so perfect and so heavy with advanced features that too many people/companies are able and willing to pay any price ($2000 to $3000 or more per license) to obtain and use these super CAD products ! While others of us ecpect or think it's a natural right to recieve the same level of services, performance levels and perfection from a $200 IC CAD product !! (wishfull thinking is allways an interesting concept, let us not give up on our fantasies)...so far I only know of a single historical occurance of David verses Goliath, unfortunately that was several thousand years ago in the past.I think as long as we have more than one IC vendor competing with other IC vendors there will be steady improvements...but not instantaneous gratification. After all, second tier is still second tier.
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I agree for the most. But theres more to it. ACAD is like a Mercedes. Overpriced, over engineered and happy to be that so long as people keep paying. Yes its better than ICAD and Mercedes is better than my Nissan but not $3000 better or $40,000 better (ACAD and Mercedes drivers with the extra dough would disagree Im sure). Its not just the money that smaller companies like mine mind. 12 stations (or 21) dont by you the respect that 120 do. The bigger Autodesk has got the less respect they give the small user. Nothing new here. IBM and BofA are the the same. More profit in high rollers than us nickle slot boys. Smaller more hungry companies tend to be different. ICAD has to be so inexpensive to compete (not solely because of bugs but as the unknown new guy) ICAD will continue to appeal the smaller companies and the self employed. Its probably worth more than $200 and if they fixed the bugs it would be worth even more. Maybe the $1000 that ACAD should be charging.As for IC vendor competition, if (as they say) all ICAD vendors sell the exact same program (bugs and all) and each shares the improvements with the others (via Consortium) then it comes down to price and service not product. Am I wrong?
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JT....I think your on the right track....My company originally sarted with IC-98....when it went open source...we switched to Bircsnet because at the time they were more aggressive then anyone else about bug fixes and feature additions....Now it would seem that because of the switchover to Bricscad ownership....it may no longer true that this is the most aggressive source for IC...We are presently evaluating Bricscad 3.2 verses CADOPIA 3.04 to see what the differences may be if any and determine which way we will go when we upgrade to the next IC version from which vendor? We are still in the "hopefull wishfull" classification that we will not have to spring for $60,000 of new licenses for Acad and drop IC altogether.
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One last time.I'm not upset that Intellicad doesn't perform like Acad(whatever), I'm upset that Intellicad doesn't perform as it was promised. Bugs are problems or mistakes and I don't care what anybody says they are not willing to buy mistakes and then pay to have them fixed, I don't care whether we're talking about a pair of shoes , a car, a set of engineering plans or software. You don't put out a product or a service that is Knowingly flawed and then expect people to PAY to have it fixed, and if you do then you are a thief. By the way thief means to steal from or rip-off someone.
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Also one more time....for $95 we can get a full years worth of bug fixes.....it's that simple....if the policy is not acceptable....then we should each exercise our consumer rights and spend our money elsewhere...it's softwear not a car
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Sounds like a heck of a plan. Keep puting out softWARE with flaws in it a feep collecting your $95 . Guaranteed income. Not a bad idea.
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Kevin,Now you have exposed the dirty little secret of all softwear companies...good for you!!
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