I have nothing against a subscription model. if done well it can work really well. However subscription only works well if you have the following.
a) Getting value for money (percieved or actual) b) There is an openness about what is coming up in future releases Without that there is zero incentive for people to put money down on something that is a big unknown. An easy way to fix point a) is to have more releases a year. There is no reason you cant have two or even three releases a year. Currently you have one and its pretty much a crap-shoot as to whether you get anything worthwhile. Well the way to fix point b is pretty obvious. When you have a subscription model you cant hide behind we are a listed company bullshit anymore. Its a very different thing to having people buy something they know about, to making your customers take all the risk of putting money down in the vague hope of getting something useful. If you want subscription to work you have to have a roadmap its simply a non negotiable thing. ________________________________ From: Mirko Jankovic [[email protected]] Sent: 17 October 2013 12:16 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Autodesk´s Sales model Actually no-one as I'm aware of ever mentioned problem with price of subscription but subscription it self. Tool that is worth thousands but earns you even more than that is good investment. An $1 screwdriver that you will never ever use is waste of money and bad investment. Throwing any kind of $$$ at subscription and not getting anything back .. what basked does that goes for? On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 12:02 AM, Raffaele Fragapane <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: This pretty much hits the nail on the head IMO. A number of factors converging has made it so that people have been slowly conditioned to think DCC software and its sales and updates right now are OK to be as cheap as they are on the frontload expenditure (a couple to three and half grands for software with some of the largest and most varied and complex sets of functionalities ever), and something worth "subscribing" to. The truth is subscription, in any sane world, would require a vibrant, lively and worthy eco-system of user base, community and software support. At present time subscription means you get the occasional SP/ext, which is usually borked beyond repair and will take another couple fixes to be fixed, or will be fixed in the next major (Maya 2014 ext had a bucketload of features but turned out unusably broken due to a ridiculously nasty shapes bug). At one point upgrading becomes a game of what bugs you can live with, the old ones you know, or the new ones introduced elsewhere while fixing those. Solid releases exist, of course, at least within restricted domains of functionalities one might be interested in, and that's why often times people stick to a release for five years. It's not that they don't want to upgrad, it's that it's the ONE safe spot in a bloody mine field of bugs and disasters that are behind you (older versions that didn't work), and around you (new versions that break a different piece every time). There is no community support worth mentioning, the Area is a wasteland of despair where the only noise is that of noob souls wailing in despair, the "app shop" useless (the few contributors are all giving up on it when it takes weeks to months for AD to clear a free minor update to their stuff). There is no such thing as a quick fix, let alone weekly or forthnightly builds. The support itself is useless to anybody but the most superficial user. Training/educational content of any depth is scarce to unavailable (a few smatterings of superficial stuff again, at best), and there is no effort in sight to change that. Lastly, being on subscription provides with no added network or interaction at all. There IS a thriving eco-system around some of the softwares, but all of it, and I literally mean ALL of it, is down to your social network, reputation, and putting in the hard miles to connect and keep track of who's who and what websites to follow. Beta testing, friends on the inside, the right blogs and websites, third party software and training providers... those often work and work to levels you simply wouldn't expect a completely anarchic system to, and they are free, and usually absolutely unsupported by AD, which instead keeps throwing money or hours at the big studios that steer their main horse the most. This isn't bad, and I'm not having a go at AD, my current situation is actually quite alright in fact, but I find that when I really look at it from a distance there is simply no incentive for me to wish to pay money on a regular basis to AD. The best is all free, or user driven, or both. I'm not against subscription model, not at all actually, but AD and Adobe are putting the cart before the horses, changing their business model well before they are anywhere within a light year of being able to foster and support the eco-system , sales and dev models that such business model requires for users to be treated fairly. Right now it's a lose/lose situation AFAIC, and a huge demand on my trust ahead of time when track record past is diametrically opposite to what one would consider encouraging. On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Matt Lind <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: When I hear the word ‘subscription’, I think of magazine subscription where content is provided on a regular and continuing basis like a stream and it’s the customer’s prerogative to jump into the stream or bail out. Applied to the case of software, I would intuitively expect builds and point releases provided on a regular intervals throughout the year. A download manager would be able to ‘diff’ what you have with what’s available and patch your install appropriately. New builds should be available weekly or bi-weekly or monthly at worst case, and perhaps a point release every 8-10 weeks, with a major release once per year. The current model of getting one release per year and maybe a service pack or two later does not qualify as a subscription in my book. Service packs are “damn, we screwed up. Here are the fixes to our mistakes and the things we didn’t finish”. The fact I have to download a service pack should be viewed as an inconvenience to the customer and avoided at all costs, not the customer pining for relief saying, “thank god I can now get work done and go home at a decent hour”. Yes, as stated in earlier posts, the logic and business mindset has been conditioned to be topsy-turvy. <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="width:100%;"> <tr> <td align="left" style="text-align:justify;"><font face="arial,sans-serif" size="1" color="#999999"><span style="font-size:11px;">This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. </span></font></td> </tr> </table>
