Autodesk going all rental?

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MauricioPC
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Autodesk going all rental?

Post by MauricioPC » 27 Aug 2014, 20:27

As posted from 'jonmoore' at C4DCafe.com.
The end of democracy: Autodesk thinking of eliminating perpetual licenses, too
Paying duty becomes a duty



With upgrades due to be eliminated early next year, next up on Autodesk's chopping block is the perpetual license. Here is the exchange from a recent conference call with financial analysts (reproduced with permission of Seeking Alpha):

Matt Hedberg (RBC Capital Markets): Carl, I'm wondering, when might you eliminate perpetual sales? And maybe more generically, what is the framework for eventually pulling this license option?

Carl Bass (Autodesk): I'll ask you Matt, what do you think is a good timeframe to do that?

Matt Hedberg: I would certainly probably depend on the products, but the market generally wants it-- seems to be wanting it sooner than later.

Carl Bass: We’ve been looking at considering it seriously, and we’ll talk again a little bit more about this in October [at Autodesk's annual conference for financial analysts] what our plans are. Right now, we have a fair amount of transition going on in the business with the elimination of the upgrades and certainly inspiring people to action. But as we move into next year, we’ll have more to say on that.



The advantage goes to CAD software companies like Bricsys, whose new marketing campaign emphasizes choice.
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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 27 Aug 2014, 20:49

Wow, that would make the decision whether to prolong my subscription contract next year all that much easier... :-h
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by BenR » 27 Aug 2014, 21:23

That does it! I'm not renewing my Softimage subscription!

Actually the whole earnings call is a pretty interesting read.

Another quote from Carl Bass:
Three years from now it will be surprising to me if anybody is really running very much perpetual desktop software.
It's also interesting that Bass bounces the question of when to eliminate perpetual licenses right back to the stock analyst. And when the analyst says that the market wants it sooner rather than later, "market" means NASDAQ investors.

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MauricioPC
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by MauricioPC » 27 Aug 2014, 22:10

I don't understand why we can't have options ... Rental and Purchase.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by BenR » 27 Aug 2014, 23:13

MauricioPC wrote:I don't understand why we can't have options ... Rental and Purchase.
Apparently it's because the market doesn't want us to have options.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by Bullit » 28 Aug 2014, 01:09

Because companies, unions, individuals pretty much everyone when get/grow to a certain position, status want to maintain that position forever so need to corner the market.

Political donations to get politicians make regulation to stifle new companies appearing, overreaching patents are just some other tricks.

Apparently it's because the market doesn't want us to have options.
Shareholder market. Funds, Pensions etc want a perpetual income certainty.


The aim is to have security. While free market is the contrary of security. Anyone can disrupt what exists with a new idea, a new product.

The thinking behind renting is very shortsighted for the shareholder market because making market(client) change more difficult will not show problems until they are already big or even too big to be dealt with.

-------------
Like i have been saying it is much more wise for studios with a certain dimension to invest in Blender or if they can in proprietary.
There is no reason to trust big companies.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by McNistor » 28 Aug 2014, 12:00

What surprises me is that people still seem to be taken by surprise when it comes to monopolistic behemoths, particularly Autodesk in our case.
The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by MauricioPC » 28 Aug 2014, 14:32

McNistor wrote:What surprises me is that people still seem to be taken by surprise when it comes to monopolistic behemoths, particularly Autodesk in our case.
I am not surprised ... I understand why they don't give us options, I just think they are stupid on doing so. I would go to Max probably in the end, but it this new rental thing is like Adobe, I might just go somewhere else.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by Bullit » 28 Aug 2014, 18:30

McNistor wrote:What surprises me is that people still seem to be taken by surprise when it comes to monopolistic behemoths, particularly Autodesk in our case.
Yep.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by angus_davidson » 29 Aug 2014, 08:55

MauricioPC wrote:
McNistor wrote:What surprises me is that people still seem to be taken by surprise when it comes to monopolistic behemoths, particularly Autodesk in our case.
I am not surprised ... I understand why they don't give us options, I just think they are stupid on doing so. I would go to Max probably in the end, but it this new rental thing is like Adobe, I might just go somewhere else.
The main problem is by doing this Autodesk have just confirmed my view that they favour investors over customers. To me that is a very dangerous slope to be on. No matter how good your products are, if you piss your customers off past the tipping point they will drop you like a hot potato for just about anything else.

Obviously they have learnt S(weet) F A(all) from their handling of the Softimage EOL. Then again I didnt really expect them to

Almost forgot to add. One things Adobe / Autodesk havent figured out yet is that permanent licences held people to your products. Rental options make it very easy (from a financial point of view) to move to another product. Theres no wasted expenditure to try and defend, nothing. I have already seen just how fast people are dropping Adobe, because the rental model makes it easy to do.
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MauricioPC
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by MauricioPC » 29 Aug 2014, 12:43

angus_davidson wrote:
MauricioPC wrote:
McNistor wrote:What surprises me is that people still seem to be taken by surprise when it comes to monopolistic behemoths, particularly Autodesk in our case.
I am not surprised ... I understand why they don't give us options, I just think they are stupid on doing so. I would go to Max probably in the end, but it this new rental thing is like Adobe, I might just go somewhere else.
The main problem is by doing this Autodesk have just confirmed my view that they favour investors over customers. To me that is a very dangerous slope to be on. No matter how good your products are, if you piss your customers off past the tipping point they will drop you like a hot potato for just about anything else.

Obviously they have learnt S(weet) F A(all) from their handling of the Softimage EOL. Then again I didnt really expect them to

Almost forgot to add. One things Adobe / Autodesk havent figured out yet is that permanent licences held people to your products. Rental options make it very easy (from a financial point of view) to move to another product. Theres no wasted expenditure to try and defend, nothing. I have already seen just how fast people are dropping Adobe, because the rental model makes it easy to do.
You are right! After you make a huge investment, it's very hard to change software, just look at Maya! Or even Max, after you bought 700 plugins. :P

Of course the major studios wouldn't trade because of lots of development invested, but from medium to small, I do believe it'll be a lot easier for them to just say: "heck, I rented Maya and it's crap. Let's go to C4D or Modo or Houdini".

For me, the biggest problem is that there's no guarantee of continue development or price average. What's stopping Adobe from simply raising the prices of the suite by say 50%? If they do that and you are in the middle of a project, there's nothing you can do. I find this to be a very unsecured way to work. I just hope rented software doesn't become the norm.


Since we are on this topic, Angus, you've said it before you were able to drop Adobe. What are you guys are using for instead (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After)?

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by angus_davidson » 29 Aug 2014, 14:06

Hey Mauricio.

Our decision was based on a few things. One the rental model and a big university environment has made the management of the licences a major pain. Secondly due to a lot of budget cuts we had to rationalise a lot of what we do. We spend a fortune each year on the Adobe master suite (as that is what available for us to get EDU pricing on) and after careful audits we only have one person that really needs photoshop, as he is a Photographer.

For our 3d and Game design courses there is nothing we cant do in paint.net / krita or even pixelmator (looking at Ormr too ) that we currently do in photoshop. We very rarely need to work in video and for that we still have 5 copies of FCP X. Using some of the saved money (about 10%) we will be getting Nuke for compositing. We will be dropping from about 100 Adobe seats down to about 5 or 6. That way if we need indesign or illustrator for some reason we will still be able to work with the files.

Outside of the University however the Adobe support in Africa is next to useless. I know this because being the techie one I am always the one my folks, friends , and their extended social circles call when it screws up. Its just not a model that works everywhere.

Both in work and personal spheres I am having much better luck with small companies ;)
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by McNistor » 31 Aug 2014, 15:31

Dropping a s/w because the rental system makes it easier as far as financial matters go makes sense for freelancer and small studios.
For larger companies and studios, it really doesn't make much of a difference.
For example I'm working at a not-to-be-named company that really doesn't give a crap about what s/w is being used as long as the job is getting done.
When I got there I've "ordered" a few s/w licenses because that's what I'm used to and they didn't blink. To give you an example, I've ordered a few Adobe products (because that's what I;m familiar with) and they got them even though they have a perpetual license of other s/w the person before me used.

I'm pretty sure you know by now that Autodesk doesn't give a fuck about the small guy but only about companies/studios.
The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
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MauricioPC
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by MauricioPC » 31 Aug 2014, 16:20

The company you work for is correct, the important thing is to get the job done. But at the same time, if they are at the hands of a company, let's see how they would react if say, Autodesk decides to increase the price of the software by 40% when everybody is on rental mode. Let's say it happens on the middle of a project, then what?

There's no law saying they can't do that, so you might be in trouble. With a perpetual license you can dismiss the update/upgrade, think what to do and than go.

The other thing ... are really all the big studios responsible for the majority of the revenue of these companies? Or are the freelancers, small and medium studios? I don't have data on that, but I think that the big studios aren't the responsible for make more money for the companies. So it's funny how the freelancers and the small studios who drive more money to the company are generally the most injured from these tactics.

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Just as an example, the most profitable enterprise in Brazil are the banks. Something like billions of profit each quarter. The major ones has the big clients, like the big companies from here. But most of their profit comes from the average brazilian person, from the poor to the middle class client, not from the big companies or the rich clients, who are worth only 10% of the revenue at the most.

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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 31 Aug 2014, 16:38

Even worse than the obvious price increases is the way Autodesk will be effectively be able to hijack your assets. Once you stop paying, you can kiss the notion of using your assets ever again goodbye, I'm afraid. And this would not just affect smaller shops, but also the bigger ones working on multi-year projects, I guess.
:|
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Re: Autodesk going all rental?

Post by McNistor » 31 Aug 2014, 17:09

For every asset I create I export to a variety of formats for practical and principle reasons. :)
In some instances you can't export anything due to technological reasons, but whoever chooses to close their doors - I'm talking about s/w companies here, like Adsk or Adobe - I'm pretty sure they're aware that there are drawbacks: keeping a door closed keeps everyone getting out but it also keeps new commers getting in, so don't worry, if they choose to put out formats that are harder and harder to export, they're digging their own graves for the quick buck they make to impress their share holders in the quick stay they're having as directors/managers at these big s/w companies.

I don't think the "shareholders" know how we the young emancipated generation think and of that fact the directors/managers put in place are aware so they adopt policies to quickly satisfy the bottom lines, no regard for the long term since they're most likely be gone.

I don't think Autodesk is a company that's wise enough to stay afloat for much longer in the M&E industry. They've already put out 3dsMax for tablets :P
They clearly appeal to the masses and even if that might be profitable short-term, it's by no means the pinnacle of tech.
I don't see Autodesk in this industry for much longer to be honest. This statement might sound crazy when you think about how entrenched Maya is, but I think they're aware of that, which would explain their direction towards mobile (amateur, quick buck) industry.

As far as the pro industry goes they're screwed as we speek - for every app they own to address a specific market there already is a better, more specialized app out-there with one exception probably, that being character animation (since they also own XSI). Don't forget though that animation in itself is putting keys on a timeline, no rocket science there. The difficulty comes at rigging and skinning (with all kinds of deformations) and there, Maya's at least one step behind Softimage and Houdini.

Money can put a delay on the consequences of your decisions, but not for an unlimited amount of time.
The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
-Thucydides

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