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Autodesk's "generous" offer

Pattnmaker

Stainless
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Location
Hamilton, Ontario
I just received an email from Autodesk, and am somewhat pissed.

"With our move to subscription, one thing has become clear to us—managing two business models (subscriptions and maintenance plans) is quite costly. To continue supporting maintenance, beginning May 7, 2017, renewal prices will increase by 5% in 2017, 10% in 2018, and 20% in 2019. Also, you should be aware that maintenance plans can now only be renewed for one year at a time." "Beginning June 2017, you’ll be able to move your products on a maintenance plan to a subscription for up to 60% less than the cost of a new subscription. This discount will decrease by 5% in 2018 and another 5% in 2019, so the earlier you switch to a subscription, the less it will cost—and the more you’ll save compared to those who wait to move, or choose to stay on maintenance. When you make the switch, you’ll also be able to lock in your discounted price for up to three years and continue to receive discounted pricing for as long as you renew."


How about give me my $10,000 that I paid for the software back and then I will go on your subscription while I look around at options to replace the software that has remained pretty much static since I bought it?

Or maybe I will just have to do an update just before my maintenance runs out and just run the software. Maybe they have done me a favour in the money I will save over the next few years.
 
What they meant
"We gave our recently departed CEO a golden parachute, and we realized
we cannot fund it at current income levels."
 
I just received an email from Autodesk, and am somewhat pissed.

"With our move to subscription, one thing has become clear to us—managing two business models (subscriptions and maintenance plans) is quite costly. To continue supporting maintenance, beginning May 7, 2017, renewal prices will increase by 5% in 2017, 10% in 2018, and 20% in 2019. Also, you should be aware that maintenance plans can now only be renewed for one year at a time." "Beginning June 2017, you’ll be able to move your products on a maintenance plan to a subscription for up to 60% less than the cost of a new subscription. This discount will decrease by 5% in 2018 and another 5% in 2019, so the earlier you switch to a subscription, the less it will cost—and the more you’ll save compared to those who wait to move, or choose to stay on maintenance. When you make the switch, you’ll also be able to lock in your discounted price for up to three years and continue to receive discounted pricing for as long as you renew."


How about give me my $10,000 that I paid for the software back and then I will go on your subscription while I look around at options to replace the software that has remained pretty much static since I bought it?

Or maybe I will just have to do an update just before my maintenance runs out and just run the software. Maybe they have done me a favour in the money I will save over the next few years.


Not surprised at all. I have said for a while they will begin to ratchet up the pressure. When mine came due I never got so much as a phone call about it. I knew it was time to let that ship sail.

Development is at an all time low and what they are working on makes no sense to many. So many holes and bugs yet they keep on putting new stuff in there like the plasma, laser, waterjet stuff.

They will soon be killing off HSMWorks also IMO. The first step in that plan was giving all SW/HSMWorks users access to Inventor and InventorHSM included in their HSMWorks plan.

They concocted this story about how HSMWorks would never survive unless they got it converted over to the IronCore platform that InventorHSM and Fusion share. They never updated it.

This was a well thought out long term plan. I give them credit, it appears to be working. They are successfully "extracting" money from users. Which is probably easier and more cost effective than developing a product people want to pay for.
 
What is worse or maybe better is I bought into the deal on the 3 year maintenance when they converted to the subscription based program. So I guess I am supposed to throw that money away as well as the money to initially buy the software.

I have 2 years maintenance left so I guess at that point I will have to stop upgrading my Solidworks to the latest version until I start having issues opening imported files.

I actually considered upgrading my perpetual seat of HSMworks to the 5 axis version because I am hoping to get a 5 axis machine in the next few years but I am really glad I didn't waste that money now.

What ever 5 axis software I eventually buy will not be an Autodesk product.
 
What is worse or maybe better is I bought into the deal on the 3 year maintenance when they converted to the subscription based program. So I guess I am supposed to throw that money away as well as the money to initially buy the software.

I have 2 years maintenance left so I guess at that point I will have to stop upgrading my Solidworks to the latest version until I start having issues opening imported files.

I actually considered upgrading my perpetual seat of HSMworks to the 5 axis version because I am hoping to get a 5 axis machine in the next few years but I am really glad I didn't waste that money now.

What ever 5 axis software I eventually buy will not be an Autodesk product.

I am some what in the same boat. I won't be able to install SW2018 and still run my perpetual license of HSMWorks in it. So my choice is to either install and run 2 version of SW, don't upgrade SW or find a new software that will run with SW2018.

Not much fun dealing with a company that you can't really depend on from one year to the next about what policy they want to adopt.

"If you want to keep your perpetual you can" they said, what they failed to tell people was what it would cost them.
 
Does anyone know what flavor of popcorn was ordered by Dassault, and was it a pallet or an entire truckload?
 
I saw this subscription-only shit coming and bought the last versions of Adobe CS4 InDesign and Photoshop that you could actually "own," and froze Solid Works at 2014 and Mastercam at X6--versions that are mutually compatible, and for which I have the installation disks. All of this runs flawlessly on Windows 7. Next step is to buy another computer and install Windows 7 so I have a backup. I will have one built if necessary. I will keep my SW subscription up to date but screw Mastercam. I have felt for a long time that repeated use and familiarity with a given software version makes for higher efficiency than the endless merry-go-round of learning a new bunch of icons and pull-down menus.

Now to hear from the "You'll fall behind and your business will fail if you're not in the cloud" crowd.

:popcorn:
 
I have to keep somewhat up to date on Solidworks as I import a lot of files from customers. That being said a lot of them come in as dumb solids not SW files. Once my maintenance expires I will have to use SW 2018 or 2019 for all my cam work and anything I import with a newer version of SW I will have to save as a parasolid or step and then open it with the older version of SW.

If I were not a job shop and only made my own products it would be much easier to get off the maintenance merry go round.
 
HOw does one tell the difference between paying 'maintenance' and 'subscription'

Oh, you get to own something you cannot sell

yeah....

Here is how I will buy software:

I buy it, they fix problems, for free, forever, or they write it correctly the first time, their choice

I have had some software for years, pretty much bug free.

OR:

pay for cloud service at a rate I think is fair.

Face it, maintenance is a con, always has been. They get to charge you for fixing their mistakes, and then the change the format so every one has to pay.

Screw that.

there are 20 different types of CAD, so people end up sending IGIS or something, sure it is nice if everyone could send one compliant file, but it is never happening

If you cannot make money selling a 10k piece of software, you do not deserve my business.

Fusion is a pretty good deal, my only complaint is there is no book.

I would pay for a book,grinding through forums to answer a question is bs.

I have a windows 2000 computer with a bunch of old software works better than all my newer ones.

software is the only thing you get paid to do wrong, then paid again to fix it.
 
There are 20 different types of CAD, so people end up sending IGIS or something, sure it is nice if everyone could send one compliant file, but it is never happening

BINGO! In all the years I have been importing files from our EU customers and vice versa, the transfer always uses STEP or something else not version-sensitive. Nobody ever even asks what software the other is using, it's just assumed that there will be problems with any native format and time will be wasted. As long as the format is specified up front, there is nothing to prevent communication. Once I realized that, it was like a first glimpse of freedom. What a concept: customer freedom is a reseller's nightmare. Breaks your heart, dunnit?
 
I’ve got maintenance paid up until 2018 on Inventor HSM (now HSM premium) and I’d heard rumours of this maintenance increase but to see it on paper is now pretty disappointing and I feel like they’re sticking a finger up at me – thanks a bunch Autodesk.

I’m a small one-man-band who invested in this software and if anything, I think they should be giving me a loyalty discount by DECREASING my maintenance costs every year…not the other way around!

I for sure will be freezing my software when the maintenance expires in 2018 and then will jump ship if/when the software becomes unusable…..shame as I’ve been an Inventor user since 2004.
 
Yup I stopped maintenance when they went subscription only. Saw the writing on the wall.

The more products Autodesk wants to buy and then transparently try to squeeze the customer base, the more people will stop using their products.

If everyone went sub only, there is no cost to change each year. What's that? The only reason to make a software product subscription only is when you have stopped updating it meaningfully so nobody would buy the new one? Someone is always doing something exciting and new...

In short, screw Autodesk.
 
These software outfits realize that the major investment in software cost is not the cost of acquiring it or its maintenance, but is actually the time it takes to use the software proficiently. In that light, they have all users over the preverbal barrel. Jumping ship at the point of frustration, no matter how nice it sounds, is usually and unfortunately more painful than paying the increased cost and they know it.
 
Carls words on the subject of getting rid of all perpetual licenses

“If you look out to fiscal year 2020, we want to be in a place where, first of all, we have a single kind of offering with a single back office and infrastructure to support it, one that will be a combination of product subscriptions as you see them plus a consumption model on top of it. That’s where we see the business heading.
“Along the way, it’s how do we motivate customers to move from one model to another in the program, what are the price points, and how does that transition work? In our mind, getting to a single model is really important. It will give the best service to our customers, it will be the most affordable for us to have, [and] we can start getting rid of some of the systems that were designed for a different era and concentrate on giving a world-class experience to
 
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology has been a godsend for me, I can edit dumb solids just like native files.

Edgecam pisses me off on a regular basis, but then I know that a power user nearby with a huge investment in it gets treated just as bad as I do, so I know I just have to deal with it, there's nothing to do but leave.
 








 
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