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Autodesk To Follow Adobe's 'Rent Our Software' Business Model?
dryriver writes "Autodesk will detail in October an 'evolution' of its business model that includes more options to rent its software, rather than buying it, CEO Carl Bass said in an earnings conference call yesterday. Bass promised an array of new rental options by the end of the year that he said will give customers more subscription options and increase the predictability of the company's revenue over time. Bass stressed that Autodesk wasn't upending its existing model, but augmenting it. 'Recall that, just 10 years ago, we added subscription maintenance to our revenue stream,' he said. 'That was a big change at the time, and there was no shortage of skeptics. Today, that's a billion-dollar business and represents over 40% of our revenue. Suffice it to say that transition was a huge success.' Analysts on the call immediately started drawing comparisons with Adobe's move earlier this year to a subscription-only pricing model for its Creative Cloud software. Bass said that Adobe's success made Autodesk more confident about the feasibility of rental pricing, but suggested that Autodesk's move wouldn't be quite as aggressive."
No surer sign of a lack of imagination.
Companies using AutoCad are used to having reoccurring annual license fees, unlike those using Photoshop. However, I wonder how/if this will effect their customers who need to use multiple versions of AutoCad. The engineering company I did IT work for years ago used the latest version for some projects but most required the previous version (generally government projects).
Do not stand for this !! It is a crime !!
First of all, before many here start mentioning Blender, Autodesk already has this kind of pay-per use business model with medium to large companies, where they provide software per seat, render farms and support.
Blender has been ready for mainstream usage for a long time now, and plenty of small studios around the world already use it for short films, game development, commercials and special effects. It's actually the lack of this kind of support and corporate presence what is avoiding it to get more adoption in larger companies.
So, this is not a chance for Blender, quite the contrary, Blender needs to do more like Autodesk.
I will be sticking with Photoshop CS6, and I won't be 'renting' any software... Adobe has managed to get away with this, as PS is/was the only game in town.. And no, GIMP is not competition (and I have been using that, since the late-90s).. I wonder how many realize that GTK actually stands for Gimp ToolKit?
Waddya gonna do when the company goes belly up? You'd better take screen shots while you can...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The small civil engineering company I work for has a subscription for two network seats of AutoCAD. Major gripes include:
1) The network license software looks like it was made in the 1990s (FlexIM, not sure if anyone is familiar with it)
2) There is literally no discerable difference between versions of AutoCAD, except for
- The name (eg AutoCAD 2014 vs 2013)
- The icons (which IMHO have been getting uglier since ACAD 2012)
- The default file save format (even though all recent versions prompt to save-as 'AutoCAD v 2010 or later' by default, if you try to open something save in 2014 in 2013, you're SOL)
Although sages tell me there are new features each year, no one I know has ever used them let alone needed them. So, for our purposes, new versions of Acad are basically a problem, because the file-format versioning nonsense forces everyone to upgrade if one person upgrades (upgrading, btw, takes probably an hour out of your day, and forces petty BOFHs like myself to dick around with the FlexIM network licensing).
All this is a long way of saying: you're better off getting a new version of autocad every five years, at most. It's a product that was completed years ago and is firmly into the Acrobat-like 'milking the customer for flashy useless features' phase.
There are situations where you only want the software for a couple months. And that might make the software price more reasonable to some buyers. But I suspect the big institutional buyers don't care either way so long as the net cost is about the same.
This has no impact on pirates... Lets be honest here, the pirates will crack the software in about 2 hours and release it.
The only way to really stop the piracy would be to offer the software as a cloud only service. But then the institutional buyers would see that as a deal breaker for various reasons. So they have to release software packages which can and will be cracked.
Its all much a do about nothing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Currently you can buy a version outright (say AutoCAD 2014 - you can use that version forever). Alternatively, you can get it on subscription (you pay 20% or 30% of the full cost, but pay it every year), which allows you to get the new version every year plus more support/features. Renting is simply the third option - the other two aren't going away. Their subscription model is a predictable cash cow at this point - there is no way they are giving that up.
To rent software. If it's installed on my computer it's mine to use when and where I see fit. But Autodesk as another problem - their software is too pricey to begin with. And a lot of their wares are pirated like crazy.
And no, GIMP is not competition (and I have been using that, since the late-90s).
The fact that I use it instead of Photoshop shows it is. I suspect that as Photoshop start moving more and more to the cloud and users have to pay a subscription, more people will suddenly find Gimp very competitive.
I work at a moderate sized structural engineering firm. We use both AutoCAD and Revit. AutoCAD updates their file format every few versions. For example, the AutoCAD file format was updated in 2000, 2004, 2007, and 2010. A new version of AutoCAD can always save down to an older format though, so as a firm you can get by without always updated AutoCAD as long as whoever you're collaborating with on drawings knows to save their drawings in a format you can open. There's also some free DWG version convert software out there that can help with collaboration between different versions.
Revit is a different story, though. There is no backwards compatibility. Once a project has been started in or upgraded to a new version of Revit, it is impossible to save it down to a format that can be opened in an older version of Revit. The result is that any firm that does any meaningful work in Revit HAS to upgrade every year, since if you don't, you can't collaborate with anyone who has upgraded. It also means that you usually have to have latest two, three, or even four versions of Revit installed on all your workstations, since if you have any construction projects that span over multiple years, you'll likely have to be able to open up files that all need a different version of Revit in order to maintain compatibility of those files with the various other firms you're collaborating with. Sometimes its a complete headache, and the only reason AutoDesk gets away with such poor functionality is near total lack of competition. The know they control the market for construction related BIM software, and they don't seem the least bit afraid to milk as much money out of that market as possible, even if it means ignoring features that would be extremely useful to users.
You have to remember that Autodesk is that company that sold it's software with hardware dongles, because of piracy. Autodesk is one of those companies that buys up their competitors at a drop of a hat, so you can bet your ass that Autodesk will do everything they can to maximize their profit.
Likewise Adobe never had hardware dongles (AFAIK) and had huge amounts of piracy, and yet is still here.
The problem with the software rental model is that the software is no longer useable on laptop without 24/7 internet, much in the same why gamers were rightfully pissed off about the Xbox One requiring it.
I'm not sure what year these companies think it is, but mediocre internet access is not available everywhere. I'll demonstrate
Board the East-bound Empire Builder Amtrak in Seattle, all the way to Chicago. I had exactly one program that needlessly required 24/7 internet to operate (EA's "The Simpsons Tapped Out", also "offline" modes of various internet streaming radio programs like Spotify and Rdio) If you try to use any of these games while the connection is degraded to Edge, or "no service" the games simply sit there for up to 5 minutes before timing out. In order to play the game I had to wait until we were within one mile of any town. Except in Montana and North Dakota, where some stops had no data, and others only had 2G. Rdio on the other hand wouldn't start playing if it was stopped unless it had internet. This is because it stored the playlists... even for offline songs, online. It won't even start playing if it can't go online to check that you've subscribed.
So by extension, if I were to try and operate Adobe, Microsoft or Autodesk software that won't operate in offline-mode whatsoever, while on the train with no internet access, I'm out of luck. What if I were to go to a country with even worse internet access, like most of the countries in Africa?
The point is that subscription models can not be the only model. The perpetual licence is still required for parts of the world where the internet has been balkanized (eg China, various Arab countries) or where even our own ISP's fail to provide reasonable internet (most of the mid-west.) Don't even get me started on "cloud saves/storage", while I play the Simpsons Tapped out at home, it takes like 2 minutes to load, when I play it on a cell connection in North Dakota I'm lucky if it even loads, and it will usually sit there for 5 minutes at a time at the loading screen only to fail or "be logged out"
Your comment is bad and you should feel bad.
I work for a Medium sized GC and we have the pleasure of using their Building Information Modeling (BIM) suite.
13K PER SEAT for the product (BDS Ultimate) ... and the installer damn near filled UP the stick. This year, they decided that all of us Subscription having clients wanted to download 32GB - all to save the cost of sending media, even if we've historically requested media (That's what I pay for your cheap @#(*^(@&*^)
Crappy compatibility with previous versions (which are released yearly) - Everyone on the design and build teams basically all need to be on the same version.
Does not like running Side By Side older versions so it's not like you can plant them all together.
Holy Megabloat - Last year's installers came on Autodesk-monogramed 32GB USB3 sticks
Frustrating at times - today I'm trying to install the 2014 version on a $6,000 Precision Workstation spec'd for Revit - I started at 10AM, it's still installing - very slowly, but moving along. Same on our M6700 workstations.
Not the least bit surprised that Autodesk software gets pirated ... they gouge the legitimate license holders outrageous fees for this stuff....I can't imaging how Ma & Pa Construction Company could afford this.
It hasn't been 22 years since I was troubled by the fact that I didn't
have the dough to please Autodesk (TM).
So autodesk went out of my frame of thought. Note the small 'a'.
Yes, yearly software maintenance fees are de rigueur for high end professional software and have been decades. That /. finds this practice to be surprising is laughable.
I agree.
I am unfamiliar with the story you link to, but am synpathetic to the suggestion that
Ovama is one of the biggest criminals of our time. He is.
Isn't a seat with solidworks esprit and logopress expensive enough already.
Are you doing network images for the BDS install? My Precisions can usually get through the install from a network image in about an hour. The USB media is dog slow for some reason. I tried building a network image off the USB stick - it was faster for me to copy the BDS installer off the stick to local disk and build a base image than it was to run the image builder from the stick.
I suspect Gimp is used much more today, but even 10 years ago Gimp Forks was used in the Media Industry (Diclaimer I have heard of these :)
Elf (2003)
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Duplex (2003)
The Last Samurai (2003)
Showtime (2002)
Blue Crush (2002)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
The Harry Potter series
Cats & Dogs (2001)
Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)
Little Nicky (2000)
The Grinch (2000)
The 6th Day (2000)
Stuart Little (1999)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Stuart Little 2 (2002)
Spider-Man (2002)
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
The Last Samurai (2003)
Stuart Little (1999)
Are you doing network images for the BDS install? My Precisions can usually get through the install from a network image in about an hour. The USB media is dog slow for some reason. I tried building a network image off the USB stick - it was faster for me to copy the BDS installer off the stick to local disk and build a base image than it was to run the image builder from the stick.
We tried that too, AC - Installing from our 1Gb backbone network was bad - and copying the image locally seemed to take anywhere from 30-45 minutes plus the painful install time.
Still fighting with that install I started, what, 6 hours ago. It's made it through Showcase, almost.
I wonder if we do business ;)
Another gripe - must remember to strip off all your ANY runtimes if you need to install an older version, for the older versions (say if you have a project that requires say 2012) nothing like getting almost to the end and it starts its rollback and peering through the installer logs to find out that you have VC 2010 SP1 installed and it won't even talk to it - it wants unpatched VC 2010 to install ... or it fails.
THIS IS WHERE YOU FAIL, BASS!
Buy one thing from them now and expect threats of audits ten years later. They never managed to improve their software from the cheap CAD stuff that you only needed a PC for they just managed to squeeze out the competition for a while. Now there is plenty of competition so their stuff that has progressed little since the mid 1990s apart from GUI changes is no longer worth considering.
AutoCAD has been going downhill for years, we used to use it pretty heavily. But they have been actually degrading the product with each release. We've been sticking to AutoCAD Map3D 2006 as much as possible because it has more capabilities than any of the subsequent versions that we've come across.
People actually still use AC? I'd rather pick-up a pen or pencil and do it by hand. Whenever a vendor or supplier ask's for a part to be converted into AC file format (they always ask that we do it, sigh), I automatically downgrade their abilities in my head. I imagine if I go to their shop that they'll be running it on a PIII with Windows ME. Besides, any program(s) that I can type in a command that I learned in 1987 is really advanced.
Renting software means they screw over the average consumer, while sucking the blood of coporations that depend on them.
From a business perspective, I don't see how this is a huge deal. Most software companies charge an up front fee plus a subscription if you want to keep current. I realize it isn't the exact same model, but companies are still paying out the ears for "support" and upgrades down the road. The only beneficiaries of this are the software company and the fact that the IT crowd doesn't have to go begging for a big check every 4-5 years for the latest and greatest version. (Accounting is much nicer about smaller, annual checks for some darned reason.) For a home user, though, this stinks. Imagine a world where every company "rented" their software. You'd have bills coming in just for the right to use your computer! Not me.
This old model will slowly come back. Since software these days does everything you want, why buy upgrades? Going to get worse as things move towards cloud hosting and not local installs.
So often 'new features' are just rehash of old features or just marketing.
They have to keep the cash cow going somehow.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ummm if you haven't noticed blender is opensource, it came from being closed source where it sat languishing until the community ( me included ) bought the source and its development/use exploded.
Openness is NOT the problem here. Marketing however, is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah Autodesk's installers have been getting progressively worse every year. Building the network image takes forever - I usually budget a week every year for building the new images. The local install, once the network image is built, seems to hover around an hour or so for BDS.. Oh - one of my users had a Dell OEM Windows 7 image with Skype preinstalled. The Skype preinstall apparently broke something very badly in the registry and I could not uninstall AutoCAD 2013. I ended having to reimage the whole system. Awesome.
One thing I will note is they finally have fixed that Express Tools randomly not installing properly issue even though you built the network image with Express Tools set to install. Only took 12 years...
One thing to look at - in the install logs I have noticed that sometimes it just waits around for certain operations to time out and usually it is related to their service packs.
They see the light at the end of the tunnel meaning not must more can be added with todays Technology and they have stretched out the so called "New Version" as much as the market will bare. We are under no obligation to keep them in business by renting software which will mean it will be run from some server somewhere on a computer running more copy's of the software then it should and also copy everything made for the NSA or whatever government department that needs free graphics or free graphic software. Do i sound cynical? Ive seen this coming ages ago the cloud was the first step second step rent cloud software. Problem they are untrustable wither its spying for the NSA or Spying to give you some advertisements along with your rented copy of whatever.
:}
They were not counting on them getting caught spying for the NSA and anyone saying that the so called cloud can be trusted has been brainwashed or payed to say its safe or loose a ton of money when people really start getting a clue
Jack of all trades,master of none