**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST Announces PTC Collaboration Software Sponsorship!

[Madison]

I've been looking it over a bit this morning and it seems interesting, if a bit overwhelming at first. It seems to allow online project management in the same sense that Microsoft's Sharepoint does -- the software we've begun using this season -- but it is also tailored specifically for CAD file version management. The installation of Windchill we're being provided includes support for both Inventor and Pro/E, though because my team uses Solidworks, I'm not sure if it'll be helpful for us. For teams that use Inventor, this should become a great resource.

Also included are licenses of Pro/E Schools Edition and MathCAD. I'm not sure if there's a limit to the number of seats available of each per team, but it initially appears as if there is not. This is a nice gesture, certainly, and necessary to get the most out of the Windchill software, I'd guess. I don't know if we want to deal with the headache of trying to adapt to Pro/E, though, and I'm concerned about what'll happen to our data at the end of the season. With our Sharepoint setup, at least we're in control of our data.