Software as a subscription takes another step forward

[Hacp]

We've identified the root cause!

Guess what? If you're seen as a shareholder unfriendly company, people like Dan Loeb or Carl Ichan will swoop in, bring in new leadership, and cut costs until you are a shell.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I find it increasingly difficult to believe someone willing to spend $650 for Adobe suite is going to resort to pirating it because it "jumps" in price to $50 a month.

more like it jumps from 650 to 1800 dollars over 3 years of ownership.

Yeah there will be increased piracy.



over a 6 year period that cost would amount to 3600 dollars

VS someone who pays 650 and then pays the upgrade price which would be something like 300-400 dollars. for a total of 1050 dollars.


That is 2550 dollars. for a 6 year ownership cycle with 1 product upgrade.

A price jump of 2550 bucks is a strong incentive to pirate for some people.

 

[smackababy]

more like it jumps from 650 to 1800 dollars over 3 years of ownership.

Yeah there will be increased piracy.



over a 6 year period that cost would amount to 3600 dollars

VS someone who pays 650 and then pays the upgrade price which would be something like 300-400 dollars. for a total of 1050 dollars.


That is 2550 dollars. for a 6 year ownership cycle with 1 product upgrade.

A price jump of 2550 bucks is a strong incentive to pirate for some people.

That is for someone who doesn't upgrade. Guess what? CS2 is free. If upgrading every 3 years is "your thing". Also, Adobe cloud can be prepaid for a year for $600. And, from what it sounds like, even if you cancel your membership, you can continue to use Photoshop and Illustrator, from how it sounds, just only the free version. While the price MIGHT increase for a very small set of people, in an already tiny segment of home users who purchase individual licenses already.

 

[MrDudeMan]

I can not stand subscription based software as it ALWAYS means I have to pay more and it also means that as soon as you stop paying you lose the use of all you files. It's a shame we live in a time when business can do whatever they wish and the customer is f'd.

I've been a Photoshop user since 2002 and have typically purchased the upgrades about every 2nd version or about every 3rd year. At a nominal $190 for 36 months that's $5.28/month. The subscription plan starts at $9.99/month - -nearly double what I've been paying and there's no guarantee the price will stay at $9.99. A year or two down the road the price is likely to be $14.99/month and, once again, when you stop paying all your images are worthless.

There's a name for this -- extortion!

Brian

It doesn't always mean you have to pay more. It depends what software you're using.

I just moved two companies to subscription based versions of Office, AutoCAD, and Quickbooks. They are saving thousands of dollars and getting MUCH better service and features.

Office 365 support is seriously the best support model I've ever seen. I can submit a ticket and get a real, working solution delivered to me via email with a follow-up phone call in 24 hours or less. Every user can also install office on up to 5 computers plus use the extensive set of apps on iOS, Android, etc. that integrate very well with the 25GB/user of free cloud storage. It's incredible and all of that comes at a price of $12/mo per head. Exchange email is really the only kind of email service that isn't pure shit if you need anything other than email and even then it's not as robust, so most companies use exchange in some capacity. The cheapest you can get that is usually $5/mo, so we're paying $7/mo for Office, Lync, Sharepoint, Onedrive, etc. The payoff period just to match a single copy of Office is roughly 2 years. This is all completely trivial in terms of absolute dollars compared to the support and efficiency gains.

AutoDesk 360 support isn't as good, but it still saved a ton of money and moved everyone to the newest version.

Quickbooks online saved a ton of money, but it was a huge step backward in terms of support and reliability (for now - it will improve). Regardless, everyone is still happy with all three moves.

I'm not saying it's always the right solution. Sometimes, though, it is.

 

[smackababy]

^And the revolving license we have with IBM for tens of thousands of dollars a year lets us be lucky enough to get a response to a support ticket we put in for WebSphere. =(

 

[irishScott]

I can not stand subscription based software as it ALWAYS means I have to pay more and it also means that as soon as you stop paying you lose the use of all you files. It's a shame we live in a time when business can do whatever they wish and the customer is f'd.

I've been a Photoshop user since 2002 and have typically purchased the upgrades about every 2nd version or about every 3rd year. At a nominal $190 for 36 months that's $5.28/month. The subscription plan starts at $9.99/month - -nearly double what I've been paying and there's no guarantee the price will stay at $9.99. A year or two down the road the price is likely to be $14.99/month and, once again, when you stop paying all your images are worthless.

There's a name for this -- extortion!


Brian

You think this is new? Remember you've only ever been "leasing" software, it just felt like ownership because for a long time there was no way to really enforce the lease or digitally distribute massive applications. With the advent of widespread broadband and digital distribution stuff like this was only a matter of time.

 

[iCyborg]

Autodesk is evolving its business model to achieve a stronger and ongoing relationship with its customers's money, ...

Fixed Autodesk's comment.

 

[Aldon]

Can anyone tell me how the fuck this subscription business model started or who started it?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

In some ways this change will create more innovations and demand for free, open-source software. so...

I agree. I'll never pay a dime for software extortion, so if a different company offers something comparable to the other software and makes it open source or buy once and use forever they've got a big leg up.

 

[drebo]

Sure, that's from Business perspective (which is irrelevant to you and me unless you own stocks or are an owner).

Back to customer perspective.

A lot (read: most SMB customers) of customer prefer subscription models. It helps with budgeting and other accounting. No more assets to depreciate, no more large captial expenses, etc.

It's why leases are so popular for computer equipment purchases in business environments.

 

[master_shake_]

Can anyone tell me how the fuck this subscription business model started or who started it?

i'm not saying its ea, but it's probably ea

 

[PlanetJosh]

Trying to hang on to my older version of Adobe CS until I feel I have no choice but to sign up with their cloud plan.

 

[norseamd]

Libre CAD offerings are pretty weak. I've been fooling around with LibreCad, and while it does what I require, it's no Autocad replacement. I'm a little surprised tbh. I'd expect a lot of people with knowhow(engineering/science types) would try to get it in a more usable state.

I have thought about messing around with Blender again. Ever use it? Are there any open source architectural programs?

 

[norseamd]

You think this is new? Remember you've only ever been "leasing" software, it just felt like ownership because for a long time there was no way to really enforce the lease or digitally distribute massive applications. With the advent of widespread broadband and digital distribution stuff like this was only a matter of time.

Exactly.

 

[norseamd]

Thinking companies like Oracle, Autodesk, and Adobe should be broken up via antitrust concerns.

 

[Wyndru]

Adobe is now 10k a year for our school district,and we only have about 2000 students. Once the year is up and you don't pay they disable it. Taxpayers love to hear about these changes.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Eh, it depends on how you use it. It is one thing for something you use daily or even weekly. It is another if (like photoshop) you may not use it for 6months or a year before you need it again.

Welcome to the Rent to Own (well never own) World! Why make them pay 1 easy payment of $1000 when you can make them pay 100 easy payments of $20!

 

[Phoenix86]

They end support after 3 years anyways, just move to the subscription model and eat it. It sucks.

 

[momeNt]

So I understand this correctly, perpetual license basically means you'll always have the license to use the product, but support and upgrades are subscription based. Correct?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Libre CAD offerings are pretty weak. I've been fooling around with LibreCad, and while it does what I require, it's no Autocad replacement. I'm a little surprised tbh. I'd expect a lot of people with knowhow(engineering/science types) would try to get it in a more usable state.

Yeah sadly I find myself always going back to AutoCAD in a VM when I hate having to depend on proprietary stuff. Would be nice to see a comparable libre program. I don't imagine it would be THAT hard to make for someone good at GUIs and math. There's probably tons of math so I know it's not something I personally could easily make myself though. In fact GUI coding I barely know, I should learn though. I'd like to look at enhancing gimp, some of the workflow in it just pisses me off, and it would probably not be THAT hard to change.

I cannot stand the concept of subscription software, it's sickening that this is the new trend. The existing licensing (per user/per PC) was already bad enough.

 

[ThinClient]

Just got notice that Autodesk is no longer going to offer upgrades for old versions of their software in an effort to push more people to their subscription model


Just one more reason to think that they are assholes.

The reason AutoDesk is doing it, in part, is because of the industry itself.

With content-creation software, having to buy licenses for a large group of people who aren't going to be on board for the entire project, it's cheaper to buy a contract that can change or cover the fluctuating employee numbers to save the company money in the long run.

Additionally, there are constant software updates to maintain interactivity with third party content creation software and the support is higher.

For the entire Adobe creative cloud, it's $40 per month. Any content-creator can make $40 in a month without blinking. If you end up in another office somewhere, you can use that license anywhere. If a company needs you to work in different places or different companies, you still have the license and that makes you more valuable as an employee (like a freelance artist).

It's all about budgeting.

It's not about price gouging the community of creators.

 

[Phoenix86]

The reason AutoDesk is doing it, in part, is because of the industry itself.

With content-creation software, having to buy licenses for a large group of people who aren't going to be on board for the entire project, it's cheaper to buy a contract that can change or cover the fluctuating employee numbers to save the company money in the long run.

Additionally, there are constant software updates to maintain interactivity with third party content creation software and the support is higher.

For the entire Adobe creative cloud, it's $40 per month. Any content-creator can make $40 in a month without blinking. If you end up in another office somewhere, you can use that license anywhere. If a company needs you to work in different places or different companies, you still have the license and that makes you more valuable as an employee (like a freelance artist).

It's all about budgeting.

It's not about price gouging the community of creators.

You had me until this point.

As you mentioned it's about budgeting, on both ends. Ultimately your "any content creator can creat $40/mo w/o blinking" is exactly correct. Autodesk wants their piece of the pie, only with autodesk, people aren't creating web pages, photos, videos, etc. They are often in manufacturing where creating $400/mo w/o blinking an eye is also correct.

 

[Exterous]

A lot (read: most SMB customers) of customer prefer subscription models.

Citation needed

They end support after 3 years anyways, just move to the subscription model and eat it.

They may end the support but that doesn't mean we can't still use the product. We have quite a few on 2007 running just fine. Really the only time we ever need to call support is when their activation process fucks up

With content-creation software, having to buy licenses for a large group of people who aren't going to be on board for the entire project, it's cheaper to buy a contract that can change or cover the fluctuating employee numbers to save the company money in the long run.

This is hardly a great reason to get rid of the old model because it is actually possible to have more than 1 licensing scheme. Hey some companies are doing this and it makes us more money so lets fuck everyone else

Additionally, there are constant software updates to maintain interactivity with third party content creation software and the support is higher.

I can see you don't have a lot of experience with Autodesk

It's not about price gouging the community of creators.

Yeah - yeah it is. Autodesk wants to squeeze as much money as possible out of their customers and this is a way to improve their cash flow at the expense of many of their customers

 

[PliotronX]

subs require machines to be internet-connected, at least whenever it checks for a valid license. What if you or your business cannot have it connected for whatever valid reason?

I think there are "phone" options and doesn't this lead to easy cracks?

Worser still, if there is some kind of communication error, name resolution issue, or their licensing servers are just plain down guess what? You don't get to use the software you pay for. It's a dumb business model for users. I used to think Exchange Online was a good idea until a VP of a company is having trouble directly related to the cloud and we have no control over logging or tweaking and Microsoft is clueless.

 

[PliotronX]

Can anyone tell me how the fuck this subscription business model started or who started it?

I recall Microsoft musings about it a long time ago but I think Adobe was the first big name to put it into action.