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.

[Anonymous]

I am also curious to know this answer as well.

jL

[CatsChaiTea]

There are a few drivers for us (Autodesk) to make this change.  I won't whitewash it, but you may still be skeptical of the reasons.  We are acting now in anticipation of changes we strongly believe will disrupt the way our customers work in the future and also because of disruptions in the software industry. 

Some of the visitors to this forum believe we are doing this solely for our own bottom line and for the shareholders and accountants out there that just care about numbers.  There is a self-survival aspect to this change.  Software companies in general are shifting to more "software as a service" models.  If you search the web for "software industry trends" you will find reports by accepted consulting firms on this transition.  And we are taking a cue from history.  There are many documented examples throughout technology's past that companies that fail to recognize substantive changes often become casualties of the change.  We would really like to be here for you five years from now, ten years from now.  Do the shareholders love that our strategy ensures they see continuing profits from our operations; of course they do.  But that doesn't mean we are doing it for them. 

The more compelling and interesting reason behind our change is what is happening to design in all industries.  Mobile computing is driving an expectation of productivity anywhere, anytime and from any device.  Cloud computing is providing cheaper and faster alternatives to perform intensive computing processes.  Distributed teams, not all of which work for the same company or in the same geography, require collaboration capabilities to be integrated into software.  Big data is feared by many, but it is ultimately driving demand for more individualistic experiences by consumers.  These trends are impacting design in most industries, but you can find even more industry specific trends when you look closer at manufacturing, civil engineering, gaming, etc.  These are the real drivers behind "software as a service", because integrating these capabilites into our solutions for our customers requires our software to really behave like a service, and a connected service at that.

So, why does this result in our discontinuation of sales of perpetual licenses?  Here are two reasons.  One is again taken from a study of technology's past.  Companies that are slow to recognize and respond to disruptive changes are more likely to be overtaken by small, nimble and emergent competitors that they didn't even see coming.  By the time they do, it is too late.  We don't want that to be us.  The second reason gets into software accounting rules.  A perpetual license sale requires us to deliver all value and recognize all revenue at the time of the order.  That makes it very hard to offer continuous access to services or even to design our software to be more of a service.  Services recognize revenue over the time the service is provided.  One of the most common methods to achieve this is through a subscription model.  As long as we sell perpetual licenses, we cannot fully embrace the design advantages of mobility, cloud, collaboration and customization into our software.

Anxious to see your reactions. 

[JohnnyRandom]

Wow, you obviously won't see my reaction. I just spent an hour responding to this and I just received an authentication error which in turn trashed my response. When I cool down I may choose to write it again... in notepad.

[neilyj666]

My 2c ...... people buy their perpetual licence and stick with it for years because it performs the tasks they require translating into no new sales for Autodesk. Get people on a subscription and you have a continuous income stream.

If the software moved on with killer new features and bugs that were fixed promptly then people may be more supportive of this "software as a service model". From my own experience of Civil 3D each release brings new bugs to features that worked with no issue in the the previous version and bugs reported 5-6 releases ago are STILL present. All the resources seem to be being poured in Cloud and 360 products.

[Anonymous]

Well, I knew that would happen someday...and no, I don't like it at all.

To be honest I doubt this will bring Autodesk more costumers...in the game industry Maya and 3dsMax are the industry standard, but if you calculate the cost of the service model, you will probably notice that this model will save you some money in the short term but is certainly much more expensive over a few years and "sometimes" even gamedevelopers have to be careful with their costs.

I can only speak from the point of game development, and yes...most of us don't need an update every year...since even the fanciest new features are useless for us if they are not supported by the game engine the studio uses or has licensed

I don't think that studios will immediately switch to other products from other companies, but I guess it's just a question of time until studio owners start to search for alternative products.

I'm really sad to see you doing this, people didn't praise Adobe for this move...I don't think it will be different here.

Well, I wish you the best for the next 5 or 10 Years. Good luck

[JohnnyRandom]

Thanks, I appreciate the reply. While again I spent another hour writing this, I don't feel it conveys the same as my original response. I am aware of Software as a Service. For good or bad your response reminds of something I heard from the Gartner Symposium. I have heard the same rhetoric from our CIO. I personally think Autodesk is being a little too aggressive with the license model changes. Here is one reason why. Out of all of the applications Autodesk owns license too and maintains literally only one that I know of is a true SaaS, that is Cloud Rendering. Cloud rendering is and can be a great thing, although it is also a narrow market. To my knowledge Autodesk cloud rendering does not support 3rd party engines such Vray, finalRender, Maxwell, Corona, and countless others. Not supporting Vray alone it has excluded a large sector of Arch-viz and VFX markets. All of your statements appear to be based on one or at most a few of the 100's of tools Autodesk licenses and maintains. That has a weak standing in any court. Then you try to support that with even with even lesser arguments. Where is the proof? You can try and sell me the best car in the world with words and pretty pictures, when I see that car broken down on the side of the road, the pretty picture you have painted for me is inconsequential. That is why "A perpetual license sale requires us to deliver all value and recognize all revenue at the time of the order." is an important trust Autodesk has built over the last 20 years. We trust you to deliver, that won't change with a rental only model, it will be worse if you don't, service or not, as cancelling a subscription is far less detrimental to an entity that has the purchased a full license+maintenance. The nimbleness and "cheapness" of "cloud" I have not truly seen. All this talk is nearing a decade old. For goodness sake I haven't seen anything, even far less drastic than a complete SaaS distribution system. I have a license I should be able to log into any workstation around the world that has the software installed, at any time, if my license is not currently in use, I should have access to use it, yet I do not. Why? This is exactly one instance that if you want to boast "it is great for the users", Autodesk needs to prove. We the users have yet to see really anything convincing out of all of this. Without any success stories what you are doing is simply regarded as a move to collect more capitol from users, period. There is no cost savings, it is far more expensive over the working career of a user, 20-35 years. After fours years there is no longer a cost benefit for Desktop Subscribers over Perpetual+Maint. That is simple arithmetic. You don't think companies will see that? The typical budget planning is cast five years out. At my current place of employment we have roughly 2500 users, all have multiple devices in which our IT department maintains. The failure of subscription? It is expensive, it is expensive per user, and in some cases expensive per device, all in perpetuity. Such is the case most of our users are still using Acrobat 8 and the organization is still running on Exchange 2007. The CIO touts SaaS, the future of the way we will develop software and do business, yet we can't even afford to pay vendors for it ourselves. It really shows me the disconnect from what people are telling the executive decision makers and the true reality, expense, and consequences of the situation. Rental models are a great ancillary system NOT a primary. A great tool that can be used to dynamically scale current need, this alone should bring you notable gains without destroying the current model. It should compliment not take over. Autodesk currently receives subscriptions for most of its products. I imagine that is a substantial revenue stream. Basically what you are telling me is Perpetual License sales and Maintenance Subscriptions are not enough. That Autodesk fears a revenue drop. Any smart company should. That is the consequence of not delivering regardless if you are a market leader, selling licenses/maint., or rental only. Do you think that being on a rental only model will solve this? I personally don't. I can give you an idea of what I think will happen. I see companies having a binge cycle for few months then keeping a minimum license set (yes one or two seats, hey that's great for users too! no steady work) and forgoing the subscription for ten months while the cycle finishes other processes, rent for more two months, then cancel again. What will that do for Autodesks revenue stream? I want Autodesk and Max to be around long in to the future. I have invested over a decade and a half of my life learning and using Autodesk tools. That is quite a big investment of time and trust in Autodesk (through some tough times I dare say). Making big changes such as this without seriously taking the users thoughts and perspectives into account is short-sided and frankly a bit insulting. After all, we the users are paying your salary as well as everyone else that works for Autodesk. Why would you want to bite the hand that feeds you?

[JohnnyRandom]

Someone needs to work on this forum. I pasted and edited my response and submitted. Again Authentication Error. I copy and paste yet again, submitted and it destroyed my formatting. C'mon now. I can't even edit it.

[Discussion_Admin]

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@info wrote:
Someone needs to work on this forum. I pasted and edited my response and submitted. Again Authentication Error. I copy and paste yet again, submitted and it destroyed my formatting. C'mon now. I can't even edit it.

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You should be able to edit you post for 30 min or until someone replies.

Most likely this is an time out error.

You are automatically time out after 30 min of inactivity so if you were inactive 30 min working outside of the platform and then tried a cut and paste you were not logged in and unable to post as is requirement to do so.

If this was not the case there are a few things to check on if using IE please make sure you are not in "compatibility" mode as it is not supported.

Also make sure you are not blocking scripts from Lithium.com, Autodesk or Addthis.com they are need for all features to work.

also please make sure you are using the latest releases of the supported browsers below (with JavaScript enabled😞

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Discussion_Admin

[JohnnyRandom]

Hi, Thanks for the help 🙂

I was using the latest version of Firefox. JavaScript is enabled by default. I use BluHell Firewall ad/tracker blocker. It is a ludicrous proposistion for me to disable an ad-blocker/tracker to post to your site. Particularly without notifying the user that they are being tracked.

Of course disabling this gives me the full feature set. Users should not be bound by this in order to spend their valuable time sharing with this platform.

[CatsChaiTea]

Thanks for taking the time to retype your post.

I can respond to a few of your posts.

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 All of your statements appear to be based on one or at most a few of the 100's of tools Autodesk licenses and maintains.

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We have a few pure cloud-based services at this time, but my post was not made in reference to only these offerings, but to the direction we are headed where this will become the dominant way to use software.

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To my knowledge Autodesk cloud rendering does not support 3rd party engines such Vray, finalRender, Maxwell, Corona, and countless others. Not supporting Vray alone it has excluded a large sector of Arch-viz and VFX markets.

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I am not sure about the above.  I will inquire with a rendering expert.

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I have a license I should be able to log into any workstation around the world that has the software installed, at any time, if my license is not currently in use, I should have access to use it, yet I do not.

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The above license behavior does exist today with our Desktop Subscription option for product licensing.  You may install the software on any device you like, anywhere and use the software with a login. 

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At my current place of employment we have roughly 2500 users, all have multiple devices in which our IT department maintains. The failure of subscription? It is expensive, it is expensive per user, and in some cases expensive per device, all in perpetuity. Such is the case most of our users are still using Acrobat 8 and the organization is still running on Exchange 2007. The CIO touts SaaS, the future of the way we will develop software and do business, yet we can't even afford to pay vendors for it ourselves. It really shows me the disconnect from what people are telling the executive decision makers and the true reality, expense, and consequences of the situation.

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I understand what you mean.  At Autodesk as well, we manage subscription licenses closely and try to ensure every user truly needs a license.  For our own customers we are building the reporting mechanisms that will allow IT departments to see usage and manage licenses more effectively.  It requires a change of behavior, but it may be more cost effective over the long term to pay for software as needed instead of just in case.

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That is the consequence of not delivering regardless if you are a market leader, selling licenses/maint., or rental only. Do you think that being on a rental only model will solve this? I personally don't.

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We don't either.  Rental models have their appeal, as you have pointed out, but renting itself is not a value to the user.  It can be a value to the purchaser.  The value we want for users of our products are capabilities like automation of integrated rendering in a design workflow that can infer the user's next logical step would be to render.  Or simpler things like accessing a product anywhere from any device.  Or delivering incremental software updates instead of large full-version updates that conflict with previous versions.  Subscription isn't a destination for us.  It is a means to a larger objective.  We do need to give you the proof.  You are seeing some of it already with services like rendering, and we are working on more.

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I see companies having a binge cycle for few months then keeping a minimum license set (yes one or two seats, hey that's great for users too! no steady work) and forgoing the subscription for ten months while the cycle finishes other processes, rent for more two months, then cancel again.

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This is a part of the licensing flexibility that we are touting.  We expect this will be what some customers do for some users; jump on and jump off.  It is up to us to continue to deliver the value that creates more users and more uses of our software.

I do sincerely appreciate your post.  I hope you will stay with us during this transition.

[meb58]

...I'm old and dropped hand drawing for business but 3 years ago.  I cannot go into the detail provided by the previous poster...though I do share some of those thoughts.

I can think of one frustrating experience that is likely eliminated with a pay as you go; in theory other related professionals will be using the same version.  Imagine trying to incorporate a 2000 version model from a surveyor, into my 2015 version model.  I share drawings with Architects, engineers and surveyors as part of my daily grind and I am constantly frustrated by the different capabilities found within the different versions.  In theory this frustration goes away...

I am however, concerned...the long term the license is likely more expensive, if one chooses to stay on and not hop off - discounting the cost of my my above experiences.  And the more 'electronic' systems become, the less reliable they are...that's just been my experience.  The connection with the cloud and differing devices, to my way of thinking, present in the near term at least, a frustrating experience...one with interrupted service...

Drawing on a sheet of paper is a tactile act...storing a sheet of paper is just as tactile.  There is comfort knowing a thing is stored in a drawer and can be viewed and reviewed at any time.  The cloud seems to take us ever farther from this romantic version.  I would hate to lose business based upon the new format...reliability/functionality are critical to your success and mine.

[spacefrog_]

@info:

Big thanks to Info for the most elaborated and compentent post possible

@CatsChaiTea:

in my eyes your reasoning ( or better say the Autodesk reasoning ) is based on far too many hypothetical factors. The advantage you expect to gain by totally adopting the current hype on all mobile and cloud everything will spread thin in reality later on. Your cloud based services will be constantly beaten in cost and features by lots and lots of eager, young startup companies acting far far more agile than any company the size of Autodesk ever could. Not even to speak of Autodesk's well known heaviness to adopt.
To be honest, regarding innovation, you are beaten within the current model already, it think it's only your long history and customer loyality which keeps you alive (and of course your strategical purchases of complex software , which bring you customer loyality the "forced" way ). I really think your vision of the change coming will not hit home.

The licensing chances and -as it seems - changes in the corporate-wide self-awareness, are  like placing a bet using customer loyality as your currency -

[JohnnyRandom]

Thanks for weeding through the lost formatting of my reply.

@meb58 thanks for your input, it is nice to hear from someone else from a far different industry than my own.

I have a license I should be able to log into any workstation around the world that has the software installed, at any time, if my license is not currently in use, I should have access to use it, yet I do not.

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The above license behavior does exist today with our Desktop Subscription option for product licensing.  You may install the software on any device you like, anywhere and use the software with a login.

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Sure, why doesn't it work this way for the users that have supported Autodesk throughout the years? Instead of just new users?

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This is a part of the licensing flexibility that we are touting.  We expect this will be what some customers do for some users; jump on and jump off.  It is up to us to continue to deliver the value that creates more users and more uses of our software.

I do sincerely appreciate your post.  I hope you will stay with us during this transition.

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License flexibility is one thing, this is not it. This is flexibility in scaling usage. You are offering one option, use or lose. That is not flexibility, period. This is using ones monopolization of multiple industries standardized tools for maximum return with the least amount of investment. Sorry, it is the truth, no matter how you spin it. It is the way accountants like to work, with predictable numbers with very little environmental variables, not artists, designers, or creatives. In some countries you can buy one hundred different brands of cars, in others you can buy one. I think you can guess where I am going with this. It is why so many of us are unhappy with these "transitions".

As I stated earlier, in this users opinion it is a bit too soon, with too little to show for the grand design. Until it actually is Software as a Service Autodesk should not be treating it like it is or billing it as such. They way we currently use software and into the foreseeable future is the dominant way we use software and until that changes Autodesk should be maintaining the licensing as if. Just saying.

[rkmcswain]

The more compelling and interesting reason behind our change is what is happening to design in all industries. Mobile computing is driving an expectation of productivity anywhere, anytime and from any device. Cloud computing is providing cheaper and faster alternatives to perform intensive computing processes. Distributed teams, not all of which work for the same company or in the same geography, require collaboration capabilities to be integrated into software. Big data is feared by many, but it is ultimately driving demand for more individualistic experiences by consumers. These trends are impacting design in most industries, but you can find even more industry specific trends when you look closer at manufacturing, civil engineering, gaming, etc. These are the real drivers behind "software as a service", because integrating these capabilites into our solutions for our customers requires our software to really behave like a service, and a connected service at that.

That is a stretch at best. We are a small civil company in the central U.S. None of our employees, partners, subs, etc. are using, or NEED to use, any of your products on Mobile devices, nor do we need or use any of the "cloud services".

Later on, you said "most industries", which is a better way to phrase it. But then you indicate that civil engineering is one of the movers and shakers in this "cloud, mobile" revolution. That couldn't be more incorrect from my standpoint.

What we do need and would love to have is a stable platform for creating construction drawings (that still need to be printed on paper/mylar at the end of the day so that Engineers and agencies can sign them). @neilyj666 nailed it when he said "...Civil 3D each release brings new bugs to features that worked with no issue in the the previous version and bugs reported 5-6 releases ago are STILL present."

Even if everything Autodesk thinks is true, is really true - why not give your customers the choice? If we want to rent, we'll rent. If we want a perpetual license, let us have that. Why not let the market determine what fits, instead of only leaving one option?

[chrisell]

As an independent game add-on developer, I wanted to have my say but keep it short.

Right now I'm using Max v9 - not 2009, version 9. The reason? I can't afford to upate every year, or every two or three years.

Worse, the upgrade path didn't go back far enough so by the time I AM ready to renew my perpetual license, there's no cheap way to do it.

I would typically be on a four to five year update cycle for the core software, but Autodesk upgrades from previous versions typically only go back three years. Since February this year, upgrades were removed completely.

The third issue is compatibility. I cannot afford for an update to be pushed to my software that breaks it. With a perpetual license, I know that the software will continue to work the way I expect and need, and I know there's no risk that I'll boot up one morning and not be able to use the plugins, scripts, third-party add-ons and other tools I rely on.
I'm really, really not a fan of this change - I think it cuts off small businesses and independent developers. What would be far more beneficial for people in my position would be to offer longer upgrade paths - as much as five versions or more. That would encourage developers like me to be more current. Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I keep using v9.0 or do I risk my business for this financial year and buy the last perpetual license opportunity available to me, not knowing if it's even compatible with my workflow and tools? That's a really expensive gamble to take.

You have to admit - removing the upgrade path and going to annual licensing is going to cost all your customers a lot more in the long run. This does look like a cash-grab 😞

[rkmcswain]

chrisell wrote:
Do I keep using v9.0 or do I risk my business for this financial year and buy the last perpetual license opportunity available to me, not knowing if it's even compatible with my workflow and tools? That's a really expensive gamble to take.

I suspect they have assessed the risks and are willing to lose some percentage of their user base over this change, with the obvious upside making up for those lost customers.

On the other hand, if you're holding on to a perpetual license of an old product, you're already NOT contributing to their sales anyway... so nothing lost.

[JohnnyRandom]

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@CatsChaiTea wrote:

I hope you will stay with us during this transition.

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 Thanks for responding. This says to me that Autodesk has already made the decision. I will more than likely remain as long as I can keep my perpetual license and maintenance subscription.

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@rkmcswain wrote:

I suspect they have assessed the risks and are willing to lose some percentage of their user base over this change, with the obvious upside making up for those lost customers.

On the other hand, if you're holding on to a perpetual license of an old product, you're already NOT contributing to their sales anyway... so nothing lost.

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Adobe did the same. I also suspect that percentage was higher than they anticipated. As I had mentioned previously, my employer was quite liberal with purchasing licenses, since the rental model was released that all ceased. Our creative department still runs CS6 and it appears we will continue to do so at least into the foreseeable future.

Well there are a lot of us, you may be one of them, that do contribute, not only with our subscriptions but also hundreds of hours a year beta testing and providing feedback for these products. We support what we care about. We get nothing in return but a better product. It does feel very one sided when a company makes a decision like this based on hypotheticals and theoreticals instead of proven.

[chrisell]

The Adobe decision hurt the company I work for badly. We used to bundle Photoshop with our workstations but their new licensing agreement means we can't any more because we're not allowed to bulk buy then re-sell to our customers. If Autodesk do the same thing - restrict re-selling - they're putting themselves in a pretty bad spot. I know it's not much in the larger scheme of things but the Adobe change cost them about 1,000 seats/year from our company.

[Anonymous]

Comments, Concerns and Questions.....

So I want to buy AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT for use at home I need to do it before the years end, otherwise I am stuck paying every year depending on my license year. Seams harsh to a personal user, not a company. I would like to have AutoCAD at home to use personally time to time with out needing to pay every year to have it. Microsoft is the same way and it sucks.

In our engineering department we use AutoCAD 2006 with Microvellum backed on it for programing. They are stuck with 2006 as our library built in Microvellum will not transfer to new versions Microvellum. The sole reason for not upgrading in our engineering department is it would take us about 6 months to rebuild our library to the latest version of Mircovellum just to have newer version of AutoCAD. The upgrade would not be beneficial cost wise to us. We are looking ot all options at this point as we are looking to upgrade and have been discussing it for a little over a year.

The added cost of upgrading multiple software just because the main one (AutoCAD) came out with a new "and improved" version may force us to look at other programs and completly alter our drafting and engineering departments. Not a cheap venture to say the lest.

We prefer to purchase and use until we see fit to upgrade dependant on our clients needs, not the softwares. We are currently on AutoCAD 2009 and don't have any issues with computability with others. We did the 30 free trial of 2015 AutoCAD and it took me 10 days to get most of the bugs worked out with how we operate. Having to do this every year would get old fast.

This seems to be a way to balance out the cash flow fluctuations coming into AutoDesk without allowing smaller users to purchase and upgrade as they see fit or can afford. AutoDesk is telling their customer when to upgrade, seems backwards.

Question #1:

If we upgrade our AutoCAD in the engineering department to the new license format what assurances is AutoDesk going to make that the other software used with AutoCAD are going to be compatible with out requiring an upgrade to the other software????

Question #2:

If we have the new license format and receive and upgrade do we have to upgrade if the other software used with AutoCAD is not compatible with the newer version?

If yes you have to upgrade, What are the steps AutoDesk is willing to take for the added cost to its customer by forcing them to upgrade other software because AutoCAD is not compatible???

Requiring us to upgrade do to the uncompatibility of other software with the newer version of AutoCAD should be at the cost of AutoDesk due to the no option license after Januray 31st, 2016.

My $0.3

Matt

P.S.

Not a smart move on a good softwares part.