tema Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses? en Subscription Changes

Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

mserapiglia — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:08:18 GMT

I am! I haven't wavered from the position on my Current Ownership, A Standalone Perpetual License w/ maintenance plan with the software that I have used now for 36 years. But it's apparent that Autodesk does not want owners anymore:o( And when did Subscription become Maintenance. Subscription used to be our annual renewal fee, right?

Hmm, my guess I'm not alone in pondering my future maintenance with this software.

Signed, a sad old timer.. that's still wondering why did Subscription become Maintenance?

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

tcorey — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:24:12 GMT

What was previously called Subscription was changed to Maintenance Plan about four years ago, when Autodesk made the offer to allow you to have Annual Subscription "Switched from Maintenance." Those licenses that have been switched will continue to renew at reduced prices until 2028.

The why of the name change was so that Autodesk could differentiate between the two programs.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

mserapiglia — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:59:06 GMT

Thanks Tim

The question I asked "Why & When did Subscription become Maintenance?" was a rhetorical question. I'm more interested in knowing if there are others who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses? And why they are doing so? And if they are hoping "Like I" that Autodesk will rethink their decision to expire Perpetual Licenses?

Perpetual: adjective
never ending or changing.
occurring repeatedly; so frequent as to seem endless and uninterrupted.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

neilyj666 — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:17:50 GMT

They are doing it to enhance the customer experience....

Yeah right - they are doing it to provide a stream of revenue and don't really care if people move to the next release or not.

If they concentrated on bug fixes/usability/no "Not Responding" messages etc rather than the Cloud/BIM 360 fixation then users might feel they are getting value for their subscription.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

AllenJessup — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:42:39 GMT

I'm not. Right now on Multi-user Network subscription. Next year it will be the Single-user model.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

AllenJessup — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:44:55 GMT

Small bit of trivia. Before Subscription was called Subscription it was called the VIP Plan. That was probably in the mid 1990s.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

mserapiglia — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:55:31 GMT

Thanks Allen, I do remember the VIP plan :o) I felt very important..

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

pendean — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 21:43:50 GMT

Perpetual is dead: semantics aside, if 'you' did not see the writing on the wall 4-years ago I've got a bridge in London to sell you, cash only deal, you pick up

We all want more and steady revenue, same for Autodesk: they found a sure fire way to do it like many other software vendors with 'must have' offerings.

Remember all public corporations answer to shareholders (that's us too unless you live hand-to-mouth BTW) and super customers ($1million plus accounts): everyone else is a bonus if they get them but not a big loss if not.

https://twitter.com/upFronteZine/status/930590879412310017

https://www.fool.com/amp/investing/2019/12/03/autodesks-cash-surge-shows-no-signs-of-letting-up.aspx

HTH

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

mserapiglia — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 22:18:02 GMT

Thanks PENDEAN :o) Ohh yeah the writing was quite large too!!! Hard to miss, that's for sure :o)

Well as I tell my wife it's only money, it comes and it goes :o) There are many more important items to think about than Autodesk!

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

tcorey — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 00:40:39 GMT

Re, your actual question, "if there are others who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses". Up to this point, there have been some, mostly the smaller firms, who have held onto the perpetual licenses, "just in case". I spoke with a few today and they seem mostly resigned to coming in from the cold, joining us in Subscription Land, now that Autodesk has forced the issue.

Unless a person is planning on staying on 2020/2021 version, they should make the switch to subscription when their renewal comes around. If you switch to subscription, renewal will be slightly higher (5 percent or so) than your Maintenance Plan was last year, but also won't go up more than 5% every two years until 2028. You will still be far below the cost of a new subscription.

If you renew your Maintenance Plan, instead of moving to Subscription, it will be your last renewal and it will be approximately 20% higher than last year. That would get you to version 2021 or 2022 as a stopping point, depending on release dates.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

rl_jackson — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 01:54:55 GMT

You hit a good point Tim. In fact my current employer has a single seat that perpetual. I recommend that he move it to subscription/maintenance before the next release (v2018)

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

lynn_zhang — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 07:10:48 GMT

Hello @mserapiglia , thank you for posting!

Your topic is related to licensing and subscription, so I've moved your post to our Subscription Changes forum where you can find more information on our recent business model change. I'd recommend you read below posts to start with:

Transition to Named User FAQ (Read Before You Post)

More Resources for Transition to Named User

Feel free to post in this board if you have any questions not covered in FAQ or if you need any clarification.

PS. @tcorey @neilyj666 @AllenJessup @pendean @rl_jackson thank you all for your insights and discussion!

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

JezEmin — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:54:01 GMT

Just remember you guys switching from Perpetual to Subscription, once AD have you hooked, you'll have to keep paying if you want to open your work files.

Stop paying and you won't be able to (in my case that's 3DS Max, and its propriety file extension, .max - not AutoCAD and .dwgs, for which I moved over to BricsCAD and have never regretted since).

For information, I stopped paying for my perpetual for 3DS Max and didn't move to subscription last year (3DS Max 2020) - saved myself £1200 so far.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

pendean — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 13:11:32 GMT

Just remember Autodesk's 3-versions back rule they started pushing hard last year and goes into full effect March 2021: your current "savings" is short-lived with your next PC upgrade or with an unfortunately timed WIn10 update

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/simplecontent/content/previous-version-support-change.html

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

JezEmin — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 15:35:18 GMT

Link doesn't work.

Not sure why you put my savings in quotes ? (they *are* savings, I can assure you).

There are plenty of solutions - I'm quite up to date hardware-wise and don't plan on upgrading that for quite a few years.

I also don't plan on remaining in 3D forever - at least not professionally.

Then there's Blender....

And then there's Indie (though I won't hold my breath on that one).

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

pendean — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 18:53:26 GMT

They tweaked that last link https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/simplecontent/content/previous-version-support-change.html?st=previous%20version%20support

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

JezEmin — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 01:49:36 GMT

Oh yeah, I knew about that.

As I say, I don't plan on upgrading for many years, maybe my GPUs but not the actual boxes themselves.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

chriswade — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:39:08 GMT

Perpetual licenses are dead, despite Autodesk's assurances that those who had perpetual licenses would always be able to renew their maintenance if there was no lapse.

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

igee — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 19:54:14 GMT

I am holding onto my perpetuals - they should work for me until my firm is up and running with alternative software.

Large firms seem to be OK with the killing of perpetual licences. I think it is because of the bulk discounts they get that the irritating small players don't qualify for. Kill perpetual licences and you kill the small players - Yey!

Re: Who is still holding onto their Perpetual Licenses?

JezEmin — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:24:27 GMT

I don't know about that - I'm no fanboy of Autodesk, but even I had to applaud them when they introduced 3DS Max Indie version, at just £294 per year (instead of, I think £1500 per year).

I do still hold my perpetual licence, but that Indie version is a massive step in the right direction (for those who qualify).

It'd be nice if they also did it for some of their other products, eg AutoCAD or Revit etc, but somehow I can't see those also getting the Indie treatment.