I just got this email. Maybe you did too:
Dear Christopher [sic],
I have some important information to share with you.
As we continue our transition to a fully subscription-based business, we remain committed to providing you greater value, more flexibility, and a simpler way to access the Autodesk software you need.
On August 1, 2016, we will introduce Autodesk industry collections and end the sale of Autodesk Design & Creation Suites.
Industry collections will provide you access to a wide selection of the essential Autodesk software for your profession. They will offer immediate access to new technology, cloud services, and several licensing options. In short, industry collections will give you the freedom to access the software products you want, when you want them. Learn more about the industry collections here.
To make way for industry collections, we will end the sale of new Design & Creation Suite subscriptions and perpetual licenses after July 31, 2016.
If you wish to purchase more Design & Creation Suites before August 1, 2016, we encourage you to subscribe now and rest assured that we will provide you with a simple way to switch to an industry collection in the future, if you so choose. If you prefer, you can purchase perpetual licenses of a Design & Creation Suite with a maintenance plan before August 1.
If you wish to continue receiving updates, support, and other benefits for your Design & Creation Suites, you can do so for as long as you continue your existing subscription or maintenance plan.
To learn more about Autodesk industry collections and options for switching your subscription (if you choose to do so) please read our Frequently Asked Questions. [I fixed the email’s URL which didn’t point to the FAQ].
I want to thank you for being an Autodesk customer, and I hope you share my excitement about these important enhancements to our offerings.
Yours sincerely,
Jeff Wright
Vice President, Customer Engagement
Autodesk, Inc.
No, I have no idea why I’m Christopher. No, I have no idea why Autodesk is so averse to using initial capitals for its product names. It’s confusing and silly.
As far as I can tell, industry collections are just renamed/combined Suites with a few things shuffled around a bit. If Autodesk were still in the business of selling software I might be interested in examining the pros and cons of moving to industry collections. Autodesk isn’t (or very soon won’t be), so I’m not interested. As it is, the annual cost is out of the question (unless I were actually going to use a decent number of the included products, which I wouldn’t). That’s to be expected, because the whole point of trying to push people onto desktop subscription (Autodeskspeak for rental) is to extract much larger amounts of cash over a given period of time.
Sorry Jeff, I don’t share your excitement. Thanks, but no thanks.
The main issue with the collections is that people who are on maintainance subscription (=perpetual licenses) will have to switch to rental/desktop subscription because there will be no maintainance subscription for Collections. Thus they will loose their perpetual licenses for the product after the 2017 suite release, which is the final one. All later releases will only be collections
Why will they “have to switch”? You mean only if they want to switch to “collections”, right?
As i understand, there will be no new Suite releases any longer after the current 2017 suites, those products simply will not exist then ( No XYZ Suite 2018, only the one of Industry Collections ). And Collections are only rental. So essentially, people with maintenance subscription (=perpetual license) on suites will have to switch over to a 2018 collection, which then is only a rental license. Of course this would keep the perpetual 2017 Suite license valid, but the 2018 license then is pure rental, with all disadvantages.
With the single product maintenance subscription/perpetual licenses ( like 3ds Max ) this is different, as the product will see a 2018 release and you can – for the time being – renew your maintenance subscription and thus keep even Max 2018 as a perpetual license.