Subscription ONLY starting soon

[hawk911]

I imagine you also received the email.  Sounds like Autodesk is going the way of Adobe and it's going to be subscription only soon. Here is part of what the email says in case you haven't heard:

"If you have a network maintenance plan or multi-user subscription, at your first renewal only, after May 7, 2020 trade in one seat or subscription for two subscriptions for one named user each at a cost consistent with what you pay today. 

For standalone maintenance, at your first renewal before May 7, 2021 you can trade in one seat for one subscription at a cost consistent with what you pay today.

Subscriptions with multi-user access and maintenance plans will retire on May 7, 2021 and cannot be further renewed.

The last version of the Design and Creation Suites will be released in April 2020 and the last date to renew Suites will be April 16, 2020. At your first renewal, before May 7, 2021 trade in and move to an industry collection and enjoy the enhanced named user experience."

How many of you are on subscription already?

After being an Adobe customer since 1999 I stopped when they went rental only.

So, if I understand it correctly, someone on Maintenance plan will be able to pay one more time and get Max 2021 and then that is the end of the road for them unless they go subscription? 

[kate.merriman]

Thanks for your questions.  Yes, we are retiring plans based on serial numbers and launching plans based on people. The dates you note are also correct.

Please check our FAQ on this topic for more detail: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/subscription-changes/transition-to-named-user-faq-read-before-you-pos...

[Ognyan]

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@kate.merriman wrote:

 Yes, we are retiring plans based on serial numbers and launching plans based on people.

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I know you are a employee, but at least try not to use that phrase as its .....  in the eyes of the consumers.

By the way, I expect that email sending response codes for offline activation request codes will continue to exist for a long time.Its the equivalent to the Microsofts phone activation which is working for decades now.

[Noren2]

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@hawk911 wrote:

How many of you are on subscription already?

I can only speak for myself and I'm not (and will never be). Personally I also know more people and studios who are either still on maintenance or have an older perpetual version than those who are on subscription, but that's mainly smaller shops. Some have transitioned  or are transitioning to Blender, but I'm still too lazy for that. It's probably different for bigger studios.

After being an Adobe customer since 1999 I stopped when they went rental only.

Same here. Will act the same with Autodesk.

So, if I understand it correctly, someone on Maintenance plan will be able to pay one more time and get Max 2021 and then that is the end of the road for them unless they go subscription? 

Depending on the renewal date, most should be able to get 2022, but not all the updates, so that's quite a gamble. If your renewal is right at the cut-off time, you might even get 2023 and all the updates for 2022, but that's even riskier. ( @kate.merriman could you please confirm or correct the statement above? Or anyone else from Autodesk.)

Personally I'm convinced I have the right to use any older version I previously used in the EU, maintenance or not, but that's my opinion for the time being and not something I'd recommend, so you might want to decide what your last version will be accordingly. Major releases have been known to introduce bugs and the fixes for those bugs were not always provided in hotfixes, but as paid benefits via subscription or maintenance and Autodesk seems to think that's up to their discretion, according to past discussions in this forum.

[Noren2]

To make my question clearer:

As I understand it, renewal of maintenance plans ends on May 7, 2021. So in an extreme example, a plan renewed on May 7 2021 will run until May 7 2022. Already active maintenance plans aren't cut short on May 2021. Correct?

Also in regards to the dates mentioned in the first post: The dates for transitions to named user have been postponed from  May 7 to August 7 because of Corona (not the ability to renew maintenance, though, to the best of my knowledge, so that's probably not relevant, here).

[kate.merriman]

Yes, that is correct: already active maintenance plans are not cut short on May 2021.

[Noren2]

Thanks!

[hawk911]

My last maintenance renewal was 7-2019 so that means it's ending 7-2020.  Can it be renewed then to go one last time to 7-2021?

Not sure I'll do it if it can since I'll lose activation access to 2017 (which is absurd) and I expect they will hike the price even more, but it would provide one more year of shelf life before I ultimately move away from 3ds max

[Noren2]

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@hawk911 wrote:

My last maintenance renewal was 7-2019 so that means it's ending 7-2020.  Can it be renewed then to go one last time to 7-2021?

Should be no problem. Just be careful not to take any of their offers that cost you your current rights.

Not sure I'll do it if it can since I'll lose activation access to 2017 (which is absurd) and I expect they will hike the price even more, but it would provide one more year of shelf life before I ultimately move away from 3ds max

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Just to avoid any confusion:  You'll (officially) lose activation access to 2017 either way in 2021. They'll increase the price a further 20% and you can use your last Max version forever (and should also get it reactivated one way or another, at least in the EU, but that's my opinion.)

[hawk911]

Thank you. Ahh yes I forgot all previous version access dies either way.

Yes I'll be sure not to accept any of the email offers I keep getting trying to convince me how great it is and how much I'll save etc etc etc by doing the smart move to subscription.

I appreciated the nice helpful Autodesk people helping on this forum.

But I wonder down the road if there will be any software companies left who do not follow with the greedy subscription only mentality that many are embracing.

[Anonymous]

So the question is for me if I switch to a subscription from my maintenance program and we go into another long-lasting recession (like the one we just had) and cannot pay the subscription cost then I lose the ability to use the software right? In other words, I lose the ability to work. If I do not turn in the maintenance software then I still can use it even if I cannot update it and it goes out od date. This is the only reason I cannot turn it in if that's the case. The last recession lasted years. I have a small 2 person architectural company and went from making a good income down to $17,000 in one year. I could not pay the subscription after the second year, so if I did not have my maintenance seat (even though it was out of date) I would have lost the ability to work as several of my friends did. They lost everything.  Some had to leave the profession. Way to look after the small guys. So I guess I will keep one seat as maintenance and keep the other as a subscription. Am I right in my assessment?     

[Noren2]

Just to be clear:

"I could not pay the subscription after the second year, so if I did not have my maintenance seat (even though it was out of date)"

So you had one maintenance seat that you then didn't renew? So you have one additional perpetual licence now? Because that would already be a fallback of sorts depending on the exact software and version (and the exact recession you are referring to).

Or did you mean perpetual? 

Other than that it seems like a solid plan to me. Perhaps activate your perpetual/maintenance version on two machines as a fallback if you can afford it or have one standing around. (I think you can activate perpetual versions on two machines as long as you only use one at a time, but maybe try to get that confirmed by someone from Autodesk.) Just in case Autodesk actually refuses to activate it later on.

[hawk911]

Sounds like you have an old perpetial license from an expired/ended maintenance plan.  So as long as you do not convert that to a subscription you will retain access to that license of whatever version you ended with. So as you said, even though it will be an older (out of date) version, at least you do have the ability to use it and work.

Whereas if you were only on subscription and failed to keep paying then you lose the ability to use Max at all. You won't be able to work on new projects or open previous projects:  You completely lose use of the software just like with Adobe.

The problem with keeping the old perpetual licenses is that once enough years go by, the old version becomes less useful. You can still create new projects from scratch but you can't import newer files from others or buy newer models online since the old version won't open them.  

But at least you still CAN USE Max wheras with subscription you can lose everything.

They (Autodesk) put us (the little guys) in a tough position with their greed.

You can install perpetual (old maintenance) license on two machines but only allowed to use one at a time.  Don't know how long Autodesk will keep allowing reactivations though when you need to move license to another machine or upgrade a part of your old machine that breaks the license and requires re-activation.

Their goal is clearly to move everyone off perpetual licenses and onto subscription. Right now they are offering incentives to try to convince us to give up perpetual licenses for the rental.   And as soon as you do that you are locked onto subscription forever unless you stop paying and then you are locked out of max forever. Nice deal, huh?

I personally have over $10,000 invested in 3ds Max. While that is peanuts to Autodesk, it is a lot of hard earned money to me. Going to subscription and then stopping at some point would mean after paying all that money (plus more for subscription) I end up with nothing.

I expect they will keep pushing for us to convert our perpetual licenses to rental the next few years.  So I don't see why you have to make a decision right now unless you need the newest version every year.

[Anonymous]

Sorry if I getting the terms mixed up, they seem to change over the years. I currently have 1 subscription seat of "Architectural Engineering Construction Collection" and 1 maintenance/perpetual seat of "Building Design Suite Pro" (they killed that awhile back as well). The maintenance/perpetual saved me when the recession hit, I was still able to work. As it is Autodesk next year will only get half of what I paid this year because I'm keeping my maintenance/perpetual seat. I assume someday Autodesk will kill off my ability to install my maintenance/perpetual seat, so I have had to make a business decision to learn new software (I'm glad I'm an old nerd). I don't have a choice business-wise. It kills me since I have been using AutoCAD since version 10 on dos computers (28 years). Like any big company, they have to get rid of the old guys.  

[susanlasecki]

How can you "Retire" something I bought?  Essentially, what Autodesk has done amounts to theft.  You have given design professionals two choices "convert to subscription (which actually means you no longer own what you bought)" or "go out of business".  Seriously, since allowing someone to keep their "perpetual" license without the option of obtaining new releases completely makes them unable to continue to work.  This is because of the design of Revit that does not allow for saving new work in an older version.

A good company would look at their market with less of a "one size fits all mentality"  A good company would see that having options for single member businesses, sole proprietors and nearly retired professionals that is fairer financially.  I have found that my overhead as a micro business Owner is actually larger because I have all the same licensing costs (business, professional, software etc) and can spread those costs over only a single person rather than a firm with a least six people where the income is six fold.  In a larger firm, a single license of an analysis software may be utilized by an entire team since they each only use is a few times a year.  If you think about someone like myself, I use Revit maybe 25% of the time I am working versus a CAD tech.  As a single person firm, you have to do everything which means the utilization of each piece of software is very small. 

It would just be nice for software companies to comprehend the costs of doing business on a sliding scale and represent their pricing accordingly.  Also, companies like Autodesk might want to realize that a retired engineer may want to continue to use their tools to benefit community projects and other non-profits after they retire.  I know this is the direction I will be headed in since I already do a significant amount of “free work”.

I have been working on Revit for seven years and in AutoCAD for 30 years and I am still willing to learn a new trick.  I hope another software developer creates something amazing and blows Autodesk out of the market.

[rkmcswain]

@susanlasecki wrote:

How can you "Retire" something I bought?  Essentially, what Autodesk has done amounts to theft.  You have given design professionals two choices "convert to subscription (which actually means you no longer own what you bought)" or "go out of business".

That's the way the world works these days. The vendor has a product they know you need, so they have chosen to maximize their investment. You do have a couple of more choices, legal action against this vendor, or purchase your product from another vendor.