PTC Visit – Revisited

Rick Stavanja left a comment on my post titled “PTC Visit” letting me know that he missed the “meaty unfettered opinions” that he is accustomed to hearing from me. He found it odd that the PTC executives had not discussed the role I would be taking as a visitor before I arrived there.

I know all this sounds quite odd. In fact it is. But I think I need to clarify a few things here. PTC did not pay for my travel or stay. I am paying for all my flight tickets for this entire 25 day US-Europe trip. Marc insisted that I stayed with him while in Boston, but that is more of a personal thing and has nothing to do with PTC. I guess the only thing PTC is paying for is the tickets to the ball game 😉

I think yesterday’s meetings/presentations at PTC were originally designed for a blogger/press. But they as well as I knew that it would be quite a challenge considering the kind of mix I am. As I see it, PTC’s aim was to change my perception of the company and its products and that objective would never have been met if they treated me as press. I know far too much to be fooled by the crap that CAD vendors feed the press these days. That is why I believe they ended up showing me stuff that they would never show the press at this stage of development.

This situation in not uncommon for me. CAD vendors are faced with this problem all the time. They really don’t who they are dealing with – a blogger, an analyst, a developer, a partner. I wear all the hats at the same time. I cannot take one off and wear another. That makes me kind of a moving target.

So although I may not be allowed to blog some (or rather most) of the stuff, I believe this visit was a good thing for me personally. But I do intend to write at length about some of the stuff after I get back to India. I asked the PTC executives some real tough questions and I was quite surprised to get back some real frank answers. Nevertheless I have asked them to supply me with the “official” positions so that I can mention them in my writings for whatever they are worth.