Just noticed this yesterday, but it is actually somewhat older news. It still might be of interest though:
In a newsletter by German reseller 3D Cyberdream the following was mentioned:
(Quoted from here)

Rough translation:


On the 3d Cyberdream page they mention a special offer for people upgrading now, but it’s unclear if this is a world-wide offer, a German offer or just a local offer of this one reseller alone… If you want to find out, contact your own reseller!

Maybe they try to get the people that are still using the 'old' versions in line with the latest updates.
So basically the people who didn't go for the upgrade+maintenance package when AD took over after v7.

It could be a good deal to upgrade from so far back with a special offer.

And 70% for an upgrade if you decide to step out of the upgrade race for a while is a bit high. But that's me.....

you'd have to have at least 7.5, the first Autodesk product.

It's true, although 7.01 could possibly be viewed as an Autodesk release also.
Kind of twilight zone release in that it already carried the name Autodesk, while running on the old Avid licensing system.
It's sort of a pointless discussion, though, as non of us are lawyers (AFAIK) versed in the obscure topic of what truly constitutes an Autodesk version, but of course we had one already here
(which obviously wasn't pointless to the OP I hasten to add, only pointless in the sense that - us not being lawyers -
it was yet another issue impossible to resolve - which, however, shouldn't stop us from trying anyway)


edit: just found this: even Jason Brynford-Jones hailed XSI 7.01 as the "first Autodesk release of XSI" (in this Mailing List post)
and if we can't even trust him anymore, well then the future seems a lot less bright...
(this last part was an admittedly bad joke, BTW )

This is all part of a current campaign Autodesk are starting in the light of the pricing and policy announcements that they have made. There's a current thread on Cgtalk.

Yes, technically XSI 7.01 is an Autodesk release, but is was simply a re-badged version for legal purposes, it still used the old licensing system. Softimage 7.5 was the first proper Autodesk release, as it had a new name and used the Autodesk licensing system. However the point to remember is that it is no longer supported in accordance with Autodesk's standard support policy. Autodesk only supports the current software release and 3 versions back. We communicated the retirement of verions pre-7.5 here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?id=13621063&siteID=123112
If anyone had any sense, they would of moved their old 7.x versions, or upgraded because we can no longer support those old versions.

In terms of the announcements, well no one likes the idea of prices going up, so I'm not expecting the news to be well received. But I do think that the deals that Autodesk are offering are good. One of the reasons for being on Subscription is that it's the cheapest way to always stay current with your software. If you drop it and let it go too far, the cost of upgrading can get expensive. So, imo, the 70% deal isn't as bad as it sounds, that's more than half price (the purchase price of a corresponding new license) and just short of three quarters.


(you're right Hirazi, that was a bad joke )

Yes, I almost felt ashamed whilst writing it down, but I couldn't help myself, sorry

Back to topic: As you mention the CGTalk thread: is a mail similar to the one mentioned
by the OP in that thread still forthcoming to all customers world-wide?

I believe that these announcement and deals are global, but there will be some exceptions but I don't know the full details. I'm sure resellers will contact their customers accordingly and it appears that some already have.

just to clarify, this isn't a legal topic. this stuff is what sales decides is elligble or not. sales can decide that you can only upgrade if you wear yellow pants on a Tuesday, if they want

[IMHO]
It seems Autodesk more or less intentionally has these kind of things backwards IMHO. As you might remember, when the Europe price raise happened a while back, many of us didn't get mails from their respective resellers. In that case, still being on the mailing list of a previous reseller was the only thing that alerted me. (And technically I am still waiting for that specific mail from my own reseller, BTW)
Big changes in policy and/or pricing scheme should be announced by Autodesk to all users (mail is cheap), not by the resellers. Such a mail can easily end with the famous words "contact your reseller" BTW, that's not the point.
But as not every reseller seems to see the need to distribute such information, Autodesk should make it a point to do it themselves, I would say...
[/IMHO]


@luceric - I think you might have misinterpreted my words ever so slightly.

edit: removed slightly ambiguous smilie

I think its better to go through the resellers, as this is where many customers purchase their software and resellers are pushed to do things. Though they might not spam everyone, but instead target the customers to whom the offers might perhaps appeal to the most? Which is perhaps why, some people get communications and others don't.

As for emails in general, well they're not as cheap as you think, not to send a big mailshot out to lots of customers and I'm not sure I would appreciate being spammed like that as well. And in fact many people filter stuff out, so its never certain that the message will get through. Online/social media seems to be a better way now for companies to target their customers and many (including Autodesk) are doing this.