Why are you removing the Perpetual License model?

[JohnnyRandom]

Complex question I know, I am listening. Please do not white wash it, with something ridiculous like "it is better for the user". Straight facts, why are you removing the perpetual license model? I personally see this as I am losing the freedom of choice, the choice to reward autodesk with my continued support, only to be replaced with pay to use it or lose it.

[rkmcswain]

My personal answer to #1 is that it's your job to make sure your 3rd party/other software is compatible with whatever version of AutoCAD you are considering using.

If you're on maintenance subscription, you have the current version + the previous 3 (or maybe more under special conditions). So you're free to test and experiment with the current (new) version while not disrupting your production.

If you're not on maintenance subscription, then you can download and run a trial version for testing your other software, for 30 days.

Autodesk is not going to make any assurances about anything other than its own applications.

If and when such time that everyone is forced to be on desktop subscription, I don't think it's been defined how upgrades are going to work. Will they just quit authorizing use of "AutoCAD 2018" 90 days after "AutoCAD 2019" comes out? IDK, and anyone who does can't say.

These are good questions and I'll be watching for more opinions and facts here.

[Anonymous]

I'm shorting Autodesk.  Besides the new ripoff masquerading as a "subscription model," the software has turned into a bloated cumbersome and extremely slow collection of code.  In my last year of the Autodesk subscription I saw no less than 4 software updates to address the numerous bugs, each update resulting in substantial time wasted learning the changes in software that we neither wanted nor needed.  The 5 minute+ time period needed of an I7 processor with 32gb ram to run huge bloated program is then followed by another 2 to 5 minutes of checking license.  Then there isn't any support of 4k monitors -

I have to laugh at the "company man" stating that they had to end perpetual licenses because they basically don't want to be behind the times.  Yeah, like 4k hasn't been around for a few years?  I still get more done quicker in the old 2007 running xp mode than the new 2015.  Bye Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

I would like to make a reply to the first question on this thread when JohnnyRandom asked the pretty simple question of "Why are you removing the perpetual license model?" The ANSWER is found in Autodesk's Perpetual Licensing Changes web page found at this link where it answers "Our customers have long asked for greater flexibility and more value from their software, and the shift to Desktop Subscription allows Autodesk to deliver both." So there's the answer -- we, the customers, wanted this change and asked for it.

What? You disagree? Well, you need to listen to Autodesk. They are experts at telling us what we want. What? You say you think that Autodesk should listen to their customers tell it what they want in lieu of the customers listen to Autodesk inform them of what they want? Ya' big silly. That isn't how this works. You're supposed to shut up, send them money, and be happy with what they give you in return.

[Anonymous]

One thing you see over and over again from Autodesk: revenue recognition.  And one thing you do NOT see is anyone here grokking any of that.  

Many software companies have been sued by the US government for improper accounting, and Adesk would like to stay out of the crosshairs.  A lot of the reason why software companies have gone to subscription only is that it really simplifies their standing on the legal front.

Most of us hear 'GAAP' and immediately lose interest, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act just doesn't seem like it could be relevant.  But it is.  If you want someone to blame, blame it on corrupt accounting principles.

Further reading:

http://www.nickhodges.com/post/Revenue-Recognition-and-the-Software-Development-Industry.aspx

[chrisell]

I asked a couple of the Autodesk guys at SIGGRAPH about the licensing change this week, as well as other Max users (and there were plenty of us) and it seems clear this is being pushed down from the top, not up from the bottom. The marketing types think this is the best thing ever. The engineers and users - not so much. A lot of the users I spoke to seemed to be echoing the same sentiment. Buy the perpetual license before the end of this year then sit on it for a few years. Most of the small business types and independent artists I spoke to simply can't afford to shell out year after year after year.

[JohnnyRandom]

It is obvious these decision come from top down. The sad reality is when you are that high up you can't hear the people at the bottom, the ones that actually make the world go around.

[Anonymous]

Like many I've seen post in the section of the forum, we are a small business. We've use 3dsmax since ver 1 (I still have an old 486 machine that runs 3ds on dos). We have been subscription users to keep our seats updated. Unfortunately this change signals the beginging of the end. We were going to add a seat this year and next but these changes have caused us to change course.

Besides not being able to add any new seats after Dec you can bet you will see the following coming down the road....

While they say you can keep your current licenses as long as you keep your subscriptions current, they don't tell you what that subscription is going to cost next year, or the next etc. Expect and ever increaseing price to keep pressure on you to change and keep up with what they are charging desktop subscription users.

They also don't tell you how long they will keep letting you subscribe to updates. Expect this to stop after a few years after the have they other lic model firmly in place.  keeping the pressure up

Then they will alter the code enough so that 3rd party plugins require significantly differnt code to work with "non-current" versions thereby make 3d party developers make a choice of supporting non current releases.  How many of you using max would be able to work at the level you do now without your 3rd party plugins ?

It's all coming....

Despite everything they say it's all about the money and only about they money. The autodesk beancounters have determined they can make more money going this way and are gambling that they have enough of a grip on thier user base to make it work.

If your really against this move then the only thing they will hear is if you vote with your pocketbook cause that's the bottomline for them. While they might like to satisfy customers, Improve and advance products etc etc the bottomline here is maximizing profits for shareholders. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, it's the american way. But the flip side of that and also the american way is we don't have to particiapate or be a party to it if we don't want to. We do have choices. it might not be the choice we like or is most convient, but we have a choice, and if enough customers vote with there pocket book the stockholders will hear and then and only then will something be done about it. We have updated everything as far as we can and cancelled all subscription and will use what we have until the doors fall off. We did the same when adobe turned on their users base and actual found that we haven't lost one single job not being able to use the newer adobe releases. CS6.5 versions of PS, Premiere, and AE all work just fine and will keep working as lone as we want. the same will be ture with max. In the mean time we will look for a 3d company that is still actualy responsive to what the user needs/wants.

We can discuss and complain till we are blue in the face but its not going to produce change we want until it affects something we all actualy care about. money.

Joel

[chrisell]

jdhughen : I think you're right and it seems that Autodesk haven't really grasped the economics of software piracy. By making the licensing expensive and restrictive, they're going to drive more of a black market in illegal versions of their product.

Make the entry cost low and the upgrade cost only come along for major releases and I guarantee you'll end up with more users than going the way they're going.

I'll admit - I started out with a pirated copy of Max 2.0. It was so good that when Max 4.0 eventually came out, there was a sale at some point and I hopped on board and got myself all nice and legal. I've been legal ever since, but that's because I can only afford to upgrade every three or four years. The annual subscription model is prohibitively expensive for small businesses and independent artists. Meaning after the 2016 perpetual version, I'm not sure what my options are. Do I go looking at alternative software? Do I pirate newer versions? How do I try to restructure my entire business model to take a 15-20% hit in the bottom line just to stay current with software that I used to be able to own and use in perpetuity? Or do I just give up the business completely and do something else? That's the reality of the situation for a lot of people.

[matthew.d]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for your feedback! There are a couple of thing I would like to mention on this:

Please note in regards to adding a seat: "After Jan 31, 2016, customers who have perpetual network licenses for individual products may need a way to add network license seats. As such, we plan to introduce the option to purchase licenses for individual products on a term “network subscription” basis."

There are no announced plans to end maintenance subscriptions. If you do decide to end your maintenance subscription, you will still keep the version of the software that your perpetual license is on.

You also have made mention of 3rd party developers for older versions. Please note that this is my personal opinion: everything in computing develops and progresses, why don't developers make or support Windows 2000 products anymore?

Autodesk currently supports the three versions back and this will not be changing. However, even if your product is not supported, we will always do our best to help our customers get up and running, whether you have submitted a case, chatted, wrote in on forum, or been on a phone call.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate your reply but network license options isn't going to fix the main problem for us and while Autodesk hasn't yet "announced plans to end maintenance subscriptions", I don't think there is anyone here that believes that it's not next shoe waiting to drop. So, in affect, at least for us, Max is now a dead end product. The whole desktop subscription model is a very bad deal for small businesses and free lancers. Anyone doing the math can see it's an almost doubling in cost AND if business is down and you stop paying you are left with NOTHING. You are DOA, out of business. We can't afford to place ourselves in that type of situation so we are going to have to use what we have until we can find a replacement software we can own, not rent ( please lets don't get into the semantics about software "ownership", everyone here know what we're talking about ).

The only way we, as long time users of Autodesk products can do anything about it is to just say no, in mass, and if enough do it soon enough someone will pay attention.

What do you think the stock holders would do if just 50% of maintenance subscription users just up and said NO, don't renew ??  What if 75%. Maybe the beancounters would go back and count their beans again  ??  No faster than real improvements in the software are coming each year I think everyone here would agree that doing without 2 or 3 years of "upgrades" isn't going to hurt them or their business. Can Autodesk say the same thing if they suddenly lost 75% of maintenance subscription users for 2-3 years ??   Autodesk is showing no love to those loyal users here and obviously has no problem setting us up to be trapped into over priced rental software. Why should we have any problem doing it to them ??

We have made our decision. We are not going to support or get trapped into anyone's Rental Software. There is just no upside at all for us. There is a market for user perpetual license software and someone will step up and fill that need. It's just a shame that after supporting a product since it's inception that we get treated this way.

Joel

[JohnnyRandom]

Why rent a car when you can buy it?

I mean if you drive it enough but not so much you are going to wear it out before its paid for, it makes far more sense to buy and pay maintanance than to rent it. Right?

[rkmcswain]

jdhughen wrote:

What do you think the stock holders would do if just 50% of maintenance subscription users just up and said NO, don't renew ??  What if 75%. Maybe the beancounters would go back and count their beans again

If there is one thing I believe in, it's that the financial people at Autodesk have done their homework and believe they have made the right decision. You don't get to be a company like Autodesk is today in this world without making decisions like this consistently.

50%, 75%?

Uh, try more like 0.05% You are the first I've heard from that says they are dropping Autodesk for a competitor. They knew they would lose a handful of customers, but what they lose is probably replenished (and some), every day.

BTW: Am I in favor of this move? No. I think they should let the customer decide which model to use.

[spacefrog_]

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@rkmcswain wrote:
 

Uh, try more like 0.05% You are the first I've heard from that says they are dropping Autodesk for a competitor. They knew they would lose a handful of customers, but what they lose is probably replenished (and some), every day.

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There are many voices especially in the M&E and freelancer space which stating exactly that: they will switch to competitor products. Your view ist most likely similar to Autodesk's global decision maker's view, and blind to the granularity that exists in it's userbase - at least in the M&E section (many freelancers, small shops). Granted - this section only makes up a few percents of AD's revenue ( i think about 7-8% ), but nevertheless, Autodesk has gambled alot on that userbase's trust already in the past, the switch to rental may very well finally constitute  the tipping point for many to ultimately switch over to competitor products. But Autodesk seems to be not aware nor care about those small-scale customers which made products like 3ds Max succeed, nore seem they be aware of the fact that customer's trust has to be earned and maintained.

Carl Bass (Autodesk CEO)  himself stated that they expect a decline in revenue for the next 1-2 financial year(s) because of the license model transition

I sincerely hope that that decline is that siginificant , that they reconsider reintroducing some non-pure rental option. If not, they have lost me as customer for sure, and many others too...

[Anonymous]

"You are the first I've heard from that says they are dropping Autodesk for a competitor"

I have no doubt that your figure is most likely closer to what is happening. My point was a "what if" people stopped complaining and voted with their pocket book. If enough did, then and only then will something be done.

Unfortunately for small business / freelancers this is going to force them out of the product cause what AD is asking for makes absoultely no good business sense for them. But as you've pointed out Autodesk has calculated they can live without us. In the case of Max and Maya, all the big Animation houses and gaming companies can absorb the outragous resulting price increases this change is bringing and pass it on to clients. We can't do that in a market like todays. I assume the same is true for those using with the CAD/design apps also.

You don't have to just take it. you do have a choice, a vote.

[chrisell]

I like PIxar's current business model - the software is now free for individuals and businesses that earn below a certain threshold (Renderman) 🙂

[rkmcswain]

jdhughen wrote:
My point was a "what if" people stopped complaining and voted with their pocket book. If enough did, then and only then will something be done.
You don't have to just take it. you do have a choice, a vote.

I totally agree. I would love to see a huge chunk of customers rebel and threaten to move to a competitor, but it's not going to happen (IMO).

And Autodesk knows this. You have to hand it to them, their business model is one to be admired.

[dgorsman]

There may be a number of individual license holders, but the total number of licenses held by major companies is much, much larger than this.  It should also be noted those are mostly using network or token-based licensing which are unaffected for the moment.  I think it was noted elsewhere that most single license/small count perpetual license holders are sticking with a perpetual license well past end-of-use and aren't on maintenance support for some time.  That means even if they switch to another product there won't be a financial impact to AutoDesk.  As a political statement, thats a null result.

The only "real" impact felt by AutoDesk would be those in between, businesses holding a few dozen licenses.  But for them the financial stress of re-engineering work pipelines along with converting legacy data obliterates minor cost increases which are to be expected anyways.  With the ability to ramp up and down license counts to suit work load as well as the fact they keep up with both maintenance agreements and version (not necessarily every year but certainly not past end-of-life) that makes switching purely for reasons of making a political statement questionable practice at best.

[KimBrunz]

You've lost me as a customer.  I will never upgrade again.  Those who continue to upgrade will have to save down to all of us that are tired of mediocre improvements that we pay good money for annually. Then to top it off we can't even own the mediocre improvements.

When AutoCAD went annual the quality went down.

Obviously most of Autodesk management do not own a car.  They must lease because they think it's cheaper that way.

Good luck,

Kim

[rkmcswain]

mikydnas wrote:

Those who continue to upgrade will have to save down to all of us that are tired of.....

We don't save down for our subs. If they cannot work with our native files, then we'll get a different sub who can/will.

Another risk those in your situation will have to weigh.

[KimBrunz]

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@rkmcswain wrote:

We don't save down for our subs. If they cannot work with our native files, then we'll get a different sub who can/will.

Another risk those in your situation will have to weigh.

---

And that is your prerogative to conduct business that way.  Most people we deal with are several versions behind us.

If these perpetual licenses are such a bad thing or an unnecessary inconvenience to us users or whatever excuse Autodesk has, than why are the resellers offering rebates on future subscriptions if you "hurry and buy a perpetual license before time runs out."?

If their new pricing model is so much better you'd think they would make the change wilthout warning and drop perpetual licenses without giving us a chance to buy them.