Solidworks Licencing Options

[Cache]

I've been asked to look into Solidworks since it seems to be the latest big thing to use in technology and the main replacement for Prodesktop (which has done my head in recently with various random error messages when nothing has changed!), I was wondering how are people licencing it and where from?

Thanks

[Sylv3r]

We bought ours from TechSoft ~ The Educational CAD/CAM Specialists ~ Home Page. 10 user licence but you can install it on as many as PC's as you like as it uses a dongle to limit it to 10 sessions only. We purchased a good 3 or 4 years ago now so can't remember the exact cost I paid, but their is annual subscriptions you can pay if you wish to have the latest versions and support - we haven't bothered up to now, but may look at upgrading next year and continue to do it every couple of years as their doesn't seem to be many big changes year on year.

[difinity]

The new version doesn't use a dongle and the licence only covers machines on the network and 1 stand alone machine IIRC. Teachers with local logons to their laptops would therefore need individual licences.

[Gaz]

We use solidworks and Prodesktop, we have a 3 year contract with NT CADCAM.

We've got the dongle version but it only uses it for initial licensing and after that it uses the server to run x amount of sessions. As has been said, you can install it on as many as you like but you can't exceed the amount of licence sessions.

Just make sure your machines are capable of running it. We have Core2Duo E7400's 2.8Ghz 2GB ram and its pretty poor. Its wanting for 4GB min and a fast quad core.

[3s-gtech]

SolidSolutions supplied here, nice new version of Solidworks 2011/2011. No dongle, just upgraded the license server. Quite a bit of additional software needed to make it run (comes with it), Service Packs have the most stupid licensing model I've ever seen. Nice software overall though.

[Gerry]

We're with NT CADCAM too, but use server-based licensing which doesn't use a dongle. I'm not sure about the details as I'm not involved with purchasing the license, but we pay a lump sum for a "site" license. The license server supports "borrowing" for 3 months IIRC. We also have a student license key we can use (we had to check with NT CADCAM - weren't sure we had the option) so students can install it at home for 1 year.

[Cache]

Thanks for the info guys, I've been in touch with a couple of companies now and got prices and all match up, so just need to wait for technology to come up with some money and then hopefully my Prodesktop problems will be gone!