Keep perpetual licenses

[Anonymous]

Heres a great idea. Why don't we have software that you continue to own and be able to use even after you have paid for it?

Firstly I will say that I am a fan of Autodesk software and I do think they make some great products. I think desktop subscription is a great idea to allow it as an option and will no doubt help a good number of companies access CAD software where otherwise they would not.

That said, I am not a fan of having all new purchases forced onto desktop subscription. Our company is of the size where most of our licenses would be perpetual maintenance subscription purchases if we were given the choice.

Software is an asset to a business. Changing the licensing model is removing that asset. Once I stop paying I effectively have nothing.

The new licensing model is clearly designed by the Autodesk sales team as an effort to drive a consistent and dependant revenue stream. It gives them the power to raise the prices even higher and users will have to pay it or lose access to their software. I do not like being held to ranson and the new licensing model stinks of that.

One of the first things I did was look up FREE open source CAD software and for at least a small number of our users this is what I will be recommending at our next review meeting

[Anonymous]

I agree. I feel very betrayed by the way rental licenses are being introduced by autodesk.

I am not against rental licenses in general. I just don't like being forced into them and being coerced into paying extortionate fees.

I have an office 365 subscription at home and am perfectly happy with this. It was my choice to move to subscription, I could have had a perpetual license if I wished and the subscription fee seemed reasonable.

The subscription fee for office 365 if around 2% of the perpetual license cost, while the subscription cost of Product design suite is 5% of the perpetual license cost. Bear in mind that these companies expect to make larger profits on subscription models and you find youself asking how they can justify the cost. Add to this the fact that we have subscription or nothing and you will simple decrease the number of users willing to take on software. If autodesks products were reasonably priced and subscription available as an option I am sure the reaction would not be so strong and many customers, myself included, would be looking into taking subscription products.

I do not see Autodesk as being like microsoft in the case of subscription products. Microsoft for once had the foresight to predict their customers reactions and introduce the products in a way that has been largely accespted by the user base.

[DaveWortley]

Another Vote here from another user (beta/charter tester, used max for 15 years) at studio (Taylor James) against subscription only model.

I really do want to be able to rent 3dsmax/maya on deman at a week/month rate that I can spin licenses up when we staff up for bigger projects.  Being able to rent licenses will make it easier for us to get bigger teams as we know the costs and we don't have to have those licenses in perpetualness.

What is annoying is that without perpetual licenses we've got no guarantees we can open old files in the future, this is a major issue for us as we have client coming back to us years after projects have finished to do new versions.  If for some reason we move away from Autodesk Software or for some reason (a real possibility due to rental only licenses), then we can't open files. This is fine if we can rent a license then and there for a week, but what if times are difficult?

During the 2008 recession we had almost 6 months with no work, we kept our staff, kept training them and doing internal projects, if we were on subscription model with the monthly out-goings for software at these prices we'd probably have to cut off the subscriptions and therfore let the staff go.

What about in the future say if Autodesk went bust? I know it's highly unlikely for a company of that size, but we've seen the downfall of major players before and who says it won't happen again. What happens when we can't rent licenses any more? I can still install an old copy of 3dsmax 2.5 I've got on a disk somewhere and it will work. Imagine if Softimage had been subscription only and then when it got EOL'd you couldn't get any rental licenses any more and you would be locked out of your software.

Unless Autodesk drop the prices massively for subscription licenses forcing everyone on to them then I can see a lot of people going back to piracy to solve the problems subscription brings.

That all said, I totally recognise the problems with the legalities around software updates/bug fixes and what you can and can't give away. It will be nice when the 3dsmax development team is free from these restrictions. I asked about putting the '+' button back in Max for the layer manager and was told it wasn't a bug so it couldn't go into a service pack and would have to wait until an extension pack or next release version.

The only thing is that we've got 2 extension packs a year for max now, and to be honest, that's enough! We struggle to keep up and I know from the developers side this is enough pressure on them to get fixes and new features done in a time-frame. I'm not sure how more often we can cope with new updates to roll out.

And then there's the whole slow-adoption rate of 3dsmax users, upgrading is a hassle, we always wait till 20xx EXT1 before updating so we know that the major bugs have been fixed but even then we're still on max 2014 even though we're on maintenance as 2016 has some bugs (slow groups being the big one).  Smaller, less complicated software can benefit from quickly spewing out updates and fixes, but with 3dsmax there are so many plugins/scripts/custom tools that with each update we have to be sure that nothing is broken and we have to wait until VRay, ForestPro etc have updated their plugins before we can update anyway!

We use photoshop heavily here but as of yet we haven't updated to CC as CS6 allows us to do pretty much everything we need to and we've got tools and add-ons that help us do anything else, yes there are a few little gimmicky feature that would help maybe once a month, but as a whole going to CC subscription makes no sense for us as we're not seeing value in the updates.  I can see my manager saying the same thing about 3dsmax, and we'll be stuck on 2016 until there's absolutely no way of doing something without the very latest version of 3dmax, even then I would probably have 1 seat, and use something like XMesh to save the mesh out in a way that it would be rendered with max 2016.

We rely so much on the excellent work from 3rd parties like Thinkbox, Chaosgroup, Itoo Software that we could work with max 2008 and still achieve most things we do on a daily basis, infact the interface still runs faster in max 2008 than max 2016. I develop our own tools which do a whole host of amazing things that aren't in the package and aren't on the roadmap for 3dsmax's development either.  3dsmax has such a huge user basis that pleasing 100% of the users with each update is impossible, thus on subscription there's going to be a large percentage of people unhappy at the latest update that they're paying for and not using.  

If the price isn't going to drop then the investment in software development needs to increase so we see better quality updates that sustain existing features as well as adding new high value sales features. Too much of max has been left to rot after initial implementation.

Rant over, the only way to vote would be with our feet, with VRay for Modo and the rate of developments from The Foundry I fully expect Modo to out-perform 3dsmax in many areas once it's caught up with the feature list.

[CatsChaiTea]

Let's explore the comparison with Microsoft a bit more.  Based on an unofficial review of a Microsoft price list I found online, Microsoft has roughly 111 product families.  I want to be clear, this number has not been provided by Microsoft and I haven't taken the step of asking them to verify it.  By comparison, when I review an Autodesk price list we also remarkably have around 111 product families.  But Microsoft employs 128K employees (per E-Trade) compared with Autodesk's 9K.  And Microsoft's 2014 Operating Expense (per E-Trade) was $59MM compared with Autodesk's 2MM. 

Discontinuing perpetual license sales is about making difficult choices to apply our resources most effectively.  There is so much this company wants to accomplish for our customers like new product features, improved interoperability, seemless feature updates, more support, etc.  We want to focus our investments to deliver more real value for our customers.  There are very legitimate issues raised here by many customers that we are taking seriously.  We created this forum so we could hear those concerns and offer answers once we have them.  That we don't have satisfactory answers for every issue right this moment only means we are still in this transition.  Not all fears are real issues.  It takes time to understand real issues and deliver right solutions.

Thanks everyone for your continued feedback.

[Anonymous]

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@brotherkennyhmuskwrote:

On to my concerns;

1. If i do not continue to pay Autodesk then my company will lose the ability to do even minor work to existing drawings.

2. Our onging costs increase. Some people prefer to take the one off hit while funds are available rather than increase their ongoing commitments. Software is an asset, rental is a liability.

3. We use network licenses to share 4 suite and a number of single product seats accross a number of users, but desktop subscription needss ot be attached to each individuals login. This means we will no longer be able to share a pool of licenses. I appreciate that having current products means that my own company will not be affected, but the changes will affect other like us and no doubt will affect me in the future.

4. The new subscription model makes users feel compelled to keep paying the subscription.

5. The cost of desktop subscription is relatively expensive compared to other subscription based products.

6. If I give a subscription login to a contractor how do I prevent that contractor form using the license for other companies, or even competitors?

7. When we have new staff start they share the existing license pool and we purchase new licenses if we keep running out of licenses. By which point they will have passed their probationary period. Under the new model we will have paid for a subscription that would then need to be cancelled if they do not pass their probationary period.

8. How are installation/deployment and upgrade managed. The system is not great now, but what says it will be with the new licensing model? What about users who do not wish to upgrade mid project.

9. what happens to Vault server products when we move to desktop subscription and how do we manage upgrades?

10. At my company we share a license pool of different products. How do we share this pool when we move to desktop subscription?

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After catwolf told us she would try to address our concerns earlier in this thread, she kindly answered numberous questions and concerns asked by others.  Is Autodesk planning any type of respose to the issues the orininator of this thread brotherkennyhmusk neatly outlined on page 3? 

Catwolfsf's words in the last post (with my interpretation how it's read):

We created this forum so we could hear those concerns and offer answers once we have them.  That we don't have satisfactory answers for every issue right this moment only means we are still in this transition. (We can't give you a good answer to your concern because there isn't one).  Not all fears are real issues. (As the end user, you don't know what you're talking about).  It takes time to understand real issues and deliver right solutions. (We are very much trying to address your concerns and want to do right by our customers).

Not answering his post after numerous other quick responses mean one of three things based on what was just stated:

1) Does the lack of response mean that there are zero satisfactory answers for every concern?  As the "transition period" ends, can we be assured you WILL have satisfactory answers? 

2) Or does the lack of response mean that all of the concerns are just fears that aren't issues? 

3) Or, what I prefer to believe, is the lack of response due to the fact that Autodesk is taking the time to understand the real issues and are working on an appropriate response to deliver the right solution? 

To sum it up, we would like as many answers as you can give regarding the above mentioned concerns.  Among others I'm sure, these are concerns we are all wondering about and would appreciate an answer.  For me, the lack of response just raises more questions. 

[CatsChaiTea]

You are right.  I never specifically addressed the bullet point list the BrotherKennyhMusk included in a prior post.  Let's give it a go.

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brotherkennyhmuskwrote:

On to my concerns;

1. If i do not continue to pay Autodesk then my company will lose the ability to do even minor work to existing drawings.

1-A.  With hundreds of different software titles, it is hard to offer an absolute to this question.  But it is unlikely that the majority of our products will offer a way for people without a current license to modify exisiting work.  However, there is recognition that we need some capabilities to persist when a subscription is inactive. As a simple example, if our software is installed on your machine we should ensure it is keep updated even if you have let your subscription expire.  When you want to reactivate your subscription, we want you to be instantly productive. This is a desire.  The capability isn't built yet.  There will be other capabilities we determine need to be provided while in an expired state.  The list is TBD.

2. Our onging costs increase. Some people prefer to take the one off hit while funds are available rather than increase their ongoing commitments. Software is an asset, rental is a liability.

2-A.  It will be harder to take a surplus of cash or budget shortfall in a given period and use it to stock up on licenses.  This is a key reason we have given many months of notice about this change.  Most companies can adjust their cash management / budget practices given time. 

3. We use network licenses to share 4 suite and a number of single product seats accross a number of users, but desktop subscription needss ot be attached to each individuals login. This means we will no longer be able to share a pool of licenses. I appreciate that having current products means that my own company will not be affected, but the changes will affect other like us and no doubt will affect me in the future.

3-A.  We are working on a subscription-based shared licensing model.  You can read more about it here.  There will still be an option to share licenses.

4. The new subscription model makes users feel compelled to keep paying the subscription.

4-A.  This is an understandable feeling and if we were only making a change to our business models, I would join you in your skepticism and concern.  But what we really hope compels you to stay on subscription is an experience that gives you continuous and meaningful value. 

5. The cost of desktop subscription is relatively expensive compared to other subscription based products.

5-A.  All I can say here is that many market forces combine to drive pricing.  We evaluate our pricing strategy continuously.  We also generally offer promotions that lower the cost of our licenses.  Lastly, we conduct the majority of our sales through a two-tier channel and we aren't allowed to set their pricing.

6. If I give a subscription login to a contractor how do I prevent that contractor form using the license for other companies, or even competitors?

6-A.  There are a few ways that exist or are coming.  First, you have the ability anytime, to reassign that license to another user.  As soon as you do this, that contractor can no longer use the software with their ID.  This is a clear distiction from serial number activation where you must physically remove the license file from the user's machine to get it to stop working.  Second, because of our new named user licensing, your contractor could pay for the subscription and then allocate only a portion of that cost to you if they do work for other clients using the same Autodesk software.  Lastly, we are currently working on usage reporting that will help you monitor your own license usage and the usage of other licenses you manage through our Autodesk Account portal.

7. When we have new staff start they share the existing license pool and we purchase new licenses if we keep running out of licenses. By which point they will have passed their probationary period. Under the new model we will have paid for a subscription that would then need to be cancelled if they do not pass their probationary period.

7-A.  I can think of a few options.  First, we will introduce a shared licensing model that will work with any existing shared perpetual licenses you own.  If you shift to this model, then your practice does not have to change.  But also, as I mention above, you can reassign a named user license at anytime to any other user.  So if a new team member doesn't pass the probationary period, you can easily reassign that license to the new inductee.

8. How are installation/deployment and upgrade managed. The system is not great now, but what says it will be with the new licensing model? What about users who do not wish to upgrade mid project.

8-A.  This will be an evolution over time.  Right now, the methods available to update software licenses on subscription are the same as a perpetual licenses.  But this is an area where we are making considerable investments because as you say, the current system isn't great.  And this is an area where having all of our cusotmers on subscription will make a big difference in our ability to deliver.  Update and upgrades are disruptive historically, and most of our customers have become very leery of updating/upgrading mid-project.  But I'm sure there is software you use today which is updated regularly by the manufacturer and you barely notice.  This is where we would like to get to, and as a result we hope customers will no longer delay access to new features for fear of the unintended consequences of ugrading and that our customers can share files without being frustrated by version compatibility issues.

9. what happens to Vault server products when we move to desktop subscription and how do we manage upgrades?

I may need to consult a Vault expert.  I believe Vault family products integrated with the network licensing we use in our other products earlier this year.  That means they will be well positioned to leverage the netwok license changes we are currently working on.  These changes, as mentioned above, will introduce a way to be on subscription and share a pool of licenses.

10. At my company we share a license pool of different products. How do we share this pool when we move to desktop subscription?

10-A.  Definitely sounds like you should read this document about our network licensing changes.

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[Anonymous]

Thank you again for the lengthy response.

I have to say this really is a debate that should have taken place before the changes were agreed and I do not feel that Autodesk has fully considered the operational consequenses from the changes, having only considered the profits. It sounds like the only discussions to have taken place before the decision was made were between the sales and marketing teams.

If I can respond to the specific items I posted previously and I have added a couple

1. In truth the only way you can satisfy coustomers in this area is to offer perpetual licenses. So this is really a question of how much Autodesk wishes to upset it's customers. Being in a positioin to simply reactivate rental does not solve the issue. You are just comfirming the reliance on paying subscription fees for users that want to maintain access to even historical drawings.

2. This is Autodesks opinion, but not the opinion of many customers. In real terms you know very little about the busnesses you serve so are not in a place to comment on our purchasing decisions. Even for the businesses that can adjust their cash flow. Some companies may not want the ongoing liability as their workload fluctuates. smaller businesses in particular will be reluctant to take on new licenses. How are you going to ensure smaller businesses are catered for without putting them at increased pressure?

3. I have read up on this, thank you. This is a good solution to this problem. In fact I see no reason why perpetual network licenses or indeed, network subscription licenses, could not be used with a cloud based network license manager. This would remove the need for customers to setup their own network license manager and would genuinly add value. Of course most users would still need a server as many don't have a server dedicated specifically to NLM duties, but the reduction in admin required in maintaining network licenses would be useful.

4. This is not just a fear, it is a fact that Autodesk will have an increased hold on their customers and no doubt this will see prices increase. Subscription rates are already unreasonable. I expect you will simply drive more customers into piracy. For those that avoid software piracy they will seek alternative solutions.

5. It is hard for me to argue this without access to a large amount of autodesks accounts and customer data. However, if you look at the cost compared to other software providers Autodesks software subscription looks much more expensive for a subscription option in comparison to a perpetual license. I am not questioning the value of the software only the balance of perpetual license price vs subscription price. If all of you customers moved to subscription pricing today then I am sure Autodesk would see an immediate increase in income. If the prices were comparable then this would not be the case.

6. excellent.

7. network subscriptions will solve this problem.

8. Again, you have the opportunity to make changes, but they do not specifically require a subscription model. Again, look at the microsoft 360 installer.

You could do something similar with your own installers. The downloads these days are massive. If you had the option to stream the installation and allow users to use the software before the installation has finished, this would be a big help and make instalaltion much less painful. You could also have features only install/stream as they are first uses, which will limit the dowload amount to specifically what the users use during their work. If you have any stream requests dowload to a server location then you can save each user from having to download seperately.

9. I guess the question of what happens with the vault client software is also valid here?

10. again network subscriptions sounds like a sensible option.

11. On subscription licensing can we also use previous versions? I personally have always used the most recent version, have never had problems (except a few minor bugs) and have always been happy with the new features that were added. There is no reason why you cannot change you update model/terms without going to subscription only.

12. What happens should Autodesk go out of business or discontinue a product?

I would again urge Autodesk to reconsider the subscription only option. Continue to offer it as an option at more competitive price point around 2% of the perpetual license cost and you will see that the subscription is popular option. It is the current price that is making is objectionable to users and the primary reason they are not taking the option.

[wolfgang_nickl]

Please stop to give up perpetual licenses.

Why, because in that case my company will not use Autodesk anymore.

We are working with Autodesk for more then 20 years. We started with Autocad and now mainly use Inventor on 14 seats. We have a lot of know how in using Inventor, for example we have our own add-ons.

We agree with the most reasons around perpetual licenses mentioned here. In our Opinion the following reasons are the most important.

1. What is when Autodesk get insolvent or give up CAD, impossibly but think about NOKIA and Symbian. We had a 3D CAD System with a “desktop subscription” like license and the supplier got insolvent. It is not nice to know at the end of the period in 3 month you can't read your own data. We never want to have a situation like that again.

2. A CAD System isn't a simple program where you can switch easily. We have made automatic assemblies and have a lot knowledge in our Inventor data. If we have desktop subscription and then stop it, we can't use our own data anymore.
So we have to pay for Inventor even if we have migrated to another CAD-Program because we're in the trap of Autodesk.

3. Even if we are a small company, we think, the most effective way to tell Autodesk that something went wrong is to resign subscription. They get no money and ask what went wrong. In desktop subscription we have to pay and pay even if Autodesk takes a development that hinder us.

I know that for existing licenses we can get further perpetual licenses but what is if we grow and need more licenses? Sooner or later we have to completely switch to 'desktop subscription'.

We have adapted our planning on the decision for desktop subscription by Autodesk.

First we have extended the subscription for 3 years. Also we purchased an additional Inventor licenses if we need an additional seat. If Autodesk doesn't change its policy, we will start with the migration to another CAD in 3 years.

Best Regards
Wolfgang Nickl

[CatsChaiTea]

Responses to your additional questions:

11. On subscription licensing can we also use previous versions? I personally have always used the most recent version, have never had problems (except a few minor bugs) and have always been happy with the new features that were added. There is no reason why you cannot change you update model/terms without going to subscription only.

11-A. That actually isn't true.  We are not permitted to give customers new features and functionality if they purchased a perpetual license without any maintenance or subscription agreement.  If you buy perpetual the functionality available at that time is all we are allowed to give you otherwise we have to defer a part of the revenue from that purchase.  Subscription and maintenance agreements allow us to give out new features and functionality anytime, because the revenue is already partially deferred.

12. What happens should Autodesk go out of business or discontinue a product?

12-A. There is no way to anticipate what options would be available should Autodesk "go out of business".  I'm not qualified to really speculate about that outcome, but my guess is we would most likely be acquired by another company that would have an incentive to keep our current customer base happy.  We do discontinue products from time to time.  In nearly every case I can recall, there were one or more logical migration paths to other products in our portfolio. 

Thanks Brotherkennyhmusk for all of your questions and suggestions. 

[CatsChaiTea]

For companies that want to leap-frog our transition, the option to extend current maintenance agreements the full length of 3-years is a good move.  A lot can happen in three years.  I expect we will have more choices for you and more solid reasons to switch to our subscription-based licenses in 3 years.

[arizawilmer]

Hi

In our case is a big disappointment 

We had a Autodesk simulation mechanical license and pro suite license to get inventor and AutoCAD. this two software do not change to much over time. the support for a problem can take over 6 months and we are not talking small problems.....usually in finite elements software do you buy the perpetual license and you update each two years to the last version. You need the software permanently in our desktops to be used to work with it . You need to practice all day and you can not rent the software for a single project. with the new model if we lost our subscription we will have to expend more money and increase the price of the service. if you want to rent the software is not just a call ,you have to contact the supplier and the license takes two weeks to arrive.....on that time usually I finish a project. How can I advice a company to buy simulation if the price is not competitive with the other companies that have perpetual license.

[matthew.d]

Hi @arizawilmer,

Thank you for posting your concerns. To clarify, Simulation Mechanical is not listed on the product list that will experience changes to the perpetual licenses found here. Additionally,existing perpetual licenses will not cease to exist, meaning that if you already have a perpetual license you keep it. Please note that you can keep a current perpetual license up to date with a maintenance subscription, which would likely be much more cost effective then repurchasing a full perpetual license every two years, as you currently do.

[arizawilmer]

Hi

The suppliers are not saying that?

[Anonymous]

To be fair here. The suppliers could be wrong, they are humans as well. On the flip side however I have no doubt Autodesk will eventually look to move all of it's products to a subscription model. If they prove that it is profitable, then I am sure we will have another announcement about licensing changes for the other products.

The solution here is simply to bouycot subscription only products. I am not against subscription in general, I just don't agree withh having it forced upon me. At the company I work for I am sure that down the line we would have a mix of perpetual and subscription licenses, given the option. For 2D CAD there are already decent open source options avaialble. 3D parametric modeling is a few years away from being able to support a significant number of users. The software just isn't as capable yet as we would need it to be, but it is quickly improving. Here we are already considering giving several new users open source 2D CAD. While the open source route is not perfect it does have a really low risk of feeling betrayed by the people supplying the software.

I am a technically minded person, both in engineering and in the IT industry. Autodesk have mentioned many benefits of going to subscription based licensing, but so far I cannot see why these benefits cannot apply to perpetual licenses. This leaves me to conclude there is a single underlying motive for the changes - Profit.

[jdhughen]

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@Anonymous wrote:

......This leaves me to conclude there is a single underlying motive for the changes - Profit. .....

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This is in fact the bottomline here regaurdless of how they try to package the motives. 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 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

[wolfgang_nickl]

Joel you're absolutely right.

Where is the fair partnership if a company with a profit margin like Autodesk can't get enough.

Company's like ours have in Germany an average profit margin lower then 5%.

If in the next year their is no clear statement from Autodesk for perpetual licenses, we plan the migration.

And we will begin this migration in three years. And that despite our knowledge in Inventor.

What a shame.

Best Regards
Wolfgang Nickl

[Anonymous]

HI,

Another point that has occured to me that was not on my original list.

What is going to happen to the price of mantenance subscription? We are told that customers with existing maintenance subscription will be able to keep their maintenance subscription as long as they keep it active. I suspect we can expect a big rise in the price of maintenance subscription in the coming years.

[NilsWille]

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@Anonymous wrote:

HI,

Another point that has occured to me that was not on my original list.

What is going to happen to the price of mantenance subscription? We are told that customers with existing maintenance subscription will be able to keep their maintenance subscription as long as they keep it active. I suspect we can expect a big rise in the price of maintenance subscription in the coming years.

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Yeah, I'm stressed out about this too.

I'm about to decide whether to get a Perpetual License of 3ds Max with maintenance subscription in the coming years, but it is really difficult to figure out whether this will be a bad financial move compared to desktop subscription or not.

As the prices are right now, they will cost about the same after 4-5 years, which is ok for me, as I will have a perpetual license to keep, if I let the maintenance subscription lapse.

But if maintenance subscription is killed off (or getting more expensive) after, say, three years, I would have made the wrong decision that hurt me.

We simply doesn't have enough information about what will happen in the near future. Autodesk has only stated that they will keep maintenance subscription for a "forseeable future". But what is meant by that? 3 years? 5 years?

Best regards, Nils

[spacefrog_]

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@NilsWille wrote:

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Yeah, I'm stressed out about this too.

I'm about to decide whether to get a Perpetual License of 3ds Max with maintenance subscription in the coming years, but it is really difficult to figure out whether this will be a bad financial move compared to desktop subscription or not.

As the prices are right now, they will cost about the same after 4-5 years, which is ok for me, as I will have a perpetual license to keep, if I let the maintenance subscription lapse.

But if maintenance subscription is killed off (or getting more expensive) after, say, three years, I would have made the wrong decision that hurt me.

We simply doesn't have enough information about what will happen in the near future. Autodesk has only stated that they will keep maintenance subscription for a "forseeable future". But what is meant by that? 3 years? 5 years?

Best regards, Nils

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It'S clear that you can't buy into maintainance subscription in 3 years . You have to jump onto maintainance subscription wagon before february 2016 . After that point in time you cannot buy into it any longer, only renew if you are already in. And you can only buy into maintainance subscription with fresh newly bought license, not for an existing license - this has been the case for ever ( at least as long i can remember )

It's more a question of how long they will allow to renew existing maintainance subscription later on, after Feb. 2016 ...

[NilsWille]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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It's more a question of how long they will allow to renew existing maintainance subscription later on, after Feb. 2016 ...

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Yeah, that is my point of concern. 🙂

[Anonymous]

I have been using 3DS Max professionally for 15 years. However, I will not be signing up for a subscription-based license; even though my employer would pay for it. I will use my current version for as long as possible before finding another solution. Boo Autodesk, and ditto to Adobe.