However, PTC is careful to acknowledge that Mathcad users come from a wide variety of disciplines and areas of study. As some have pointed out, Mathcad Prime has been developed to attract new users and it interoperates with Excel and Creo Elements/Pro, which is Pro/Engineer.

The people who love the new Mathcad Prime highlight its clean new look and interface - they are the people who do not loathe the ribbon and some who even like it. Other missing features that have been highlighted by users include 3D plots, symbolics, math styles, and animation. The new Mathcad Prime is not backward compatible with Mathcad 15, though there is a converter allowing users to convert their old Mathcad worksheets over to the new program. They can then run the calculation for clients or colleagues with bothering them with the horrible details or without revealing the details to protect intellectual property. The primary demand is for collapsible calculations to enable users to create complex calculations and then be able to hide all the details. PTC says it will take several versions for the new MathCAD to incorporate all the features of the old and suggests users keep Mathcad 15 around. More serious are those who find the new version Mathcad Prime does not have critical features they need. First, there are the Microsoft ribbon haters - they still hate the ribbon and they hate it in Mathcad, complaining that what used to take one click now takes several clicks. If this is the sort of thing you really want to do, you can do it with Mathcad The company has fired up the blogs, and both Mathcad new and old are getting plenty of attention from within and from outside the company.

As it turns out PTC was hard at work rewriting Mathcad and this month PTC has introduced version 1.0 of Mathcad Prime.

Mathcad 15, released in June, 2010, has been described as a light upgrade to Mathcad 14 and users complained about PTC’s silence around Mathcad. Many users worried about PTC’s commitment to Mathcad. The new application represents a break from the venerable Mathcad program, which PTC got in the acquisition of MathSoft in 2006 for $63 million. PTC’s newest app is Mathcad Prime 1.0, the company’s engineering calculation software. Mathcad Prime shows PTC’s more ecumenical way of thinking in the Creo era.

Ptc mathcad 15 vs prime