I don't know how SolidWorks arrives at the cost for yearly maintenance, but there is some disconnect with the end user as to value!

I have used Alibre/Geomagic Expert, prior to purchasing a seat of Solidworks Standard and the software cost was 1/2 and maintenance/support cost was about 1/5 the cost of the total software package per year. Alibre Expert was loaded with all kinds of included great addons for motion, rendering etc..!!

I only use software updates for Solidworks, so they should offer a maintenance package for just that @ 1/10 the cost of the software!!

Now I am forced to go back to Alibre/Geomagic and possibly get into open source FreeCAD for my solid modeling platform!!

Very Un-Happy disappointed Solidworks USER!!