Getting worthwhile non-rubbery information out of Autodesk on the maintenance to subscription push has been like pulling teeth. Well, one tooth has popped out now. There are a rotten mouthful still to go, but some progress is being made.
Here is the latest Autodesk communication on this subject. While it gives the impression of providing transparency, there’s still not enough there to provide enough certainty to convince any but the most naive customers to throw away their perpetual licenses. If you try pumping Autodesk’s numbers into my costing spreadsheet, you can get so far and then you’re back to guesswork again. If you guess low, it’s merely a bad deal. If you guess high, it’s an atrocious deal. For you, not for Autodesk; I’m sure Autodesk will be happy with whatever deal it decides to inflict.
There are huge holes in what has been stated that allow Autodesk to charge pretty much whatever they like in the future. I have about a dozen questions about those holes. If they get answered, I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, I suggest you still assume it’s a trap to leave you open to future massive price gouging without the safety net and escape route that a perpetual license provides.
Your analysis is interesting, thank you for taking the time to do that. What I don’t see mentioned is the reliability issue of the subscription model. I have already read stories from Adobe users were the license server shut them out right when they had important work to do. Being dependent on the internet is not good, and being totally dependent on the internet is even worse. It is going to happen, you will need the software to work, and it wont for any number of reasons. It will be in the middle of night on a weekend and there will be no one to help.
Aside from that I can’t think of a juicer target for hackers to take hostage. I don’t know what AutoCADS market share is, but assuming it is 25%, just imagine a hacker taking control over %25 percent of Americas industry all in on fell swoop..
I have already talked to people who have had to pay a ransom to unlock there data when they picked up a virous, imagine when the AutoCAD license server gets hacked. Don’t say it wont. If banks get hacked and the government gets hacked , AutoCAD doesn’t stand a chance. It is just a question of when someone realizes the potential and is willing to act.
Also not mentioned. I used Inventor CAM, which is tied into Inventor. If Inventor shuts down for any reason, I cant use my CAM software, which means I cant program my CNC machines, which means I go broke.