Pay For Not Being On Maintenance

CAD vendors have been pitching subscriptions/maintenance as a way of (1) smoothing quarterly revenues; and (2) locking customers in. If you've paid a year in advance for a SolidWorks or an AutoCAD, you are unlikely to jump ship to a competitor during those 12 months.

Now that lots of CAD users are on subscription, I am waiting for CAD vendors to jack up prices -- as non-CAD companies, like Oracle, this year began. I am not privvy to any sub plans, so I don't know if this is happening already in the CAD world

Today I read about a twist on jacking up prices: you get to pay DS SolidWorks an even bigger "penalty" fee if you are "late" in renewing. That's right: you pay for not receiving subscription services. Feel the love.

Matt Lombard reports that DS SolidWorks now charges you an extra $850 if you dare ignore their renewal pleas for more than three months. I s'pose it's to cover the cost of mailing you all those reminders. To quote an old cartoon series, "There Otta' be a Law!"

Don't be surprised when in the future subscription fees to become much more expensive. As sure as night folows day, CAD vendors will not be able to resist charging you more; there is just too much unrealized profit in NOT hiking sub rates.

Expect CAD vendors to rely on excuses as lame as, "It's in line with industry practice" -- even as they claim to have uniquely different products.

Commenter Bruce Fisher suggests on the Matt Writes blog that SolidWorks [and other CAD vendors] should "mail rebate checks to users who lose data and time due to buggy releases." 

Comments

[R. Paul Waddington]

An entirely predictable move and one Autodesk have been applying for years. The twist is that Autodesk's Subscriptions TERMINATE so you tell me how you can ever be late; its a 'renewal' if you pay prior to TERMINATION and a NEW Subscription after TERMINATION. But in the true spirit of consumer stupidity Autodesk's customers pay late fees and don't complain where it counts. And you watch some will complain amongst themselves and in places like this, about any rise in price, others only to their mates, but all will then write out their checks and send them away to their dealers and Autodesk.

CAD/Software users are, in the main, very foolish lazy consumers!

STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES!

I use Autodesk's software and not a single word or their Subscription and Licence Terms and Conditions apply to me and it is well past time other CAD/software users did what I have done. If more of you did we all would be treated more professionally, as customers, than simply as cows to be milked of our income to support very highly paid producers of a mediocre service.

[Matt Lombard]

In the last few years, SolidWorks users have heard more about the late fees and skipped version fees. It seems that people dropping off of subscription is becoming more common for SW.

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons, but two of them might be that people are fed up with the fluff and incompleteness that has become the signature of the last couple releases.

Another might be that SW is scraping customers off of the bottom of the barrel with their campaigns to steal Adesk customers, and these people are not broken to the yoke of annual maintenance for no service.

[John]

To be fair, I work for a SolidWorks reseller.

In 2007, over 90% of our customers renewed their maintenance contracts. We in turn added more application engineers.

While I'm not a fan of the latest changes made with SolidWorks renewal policies, they haven't increased the cost of SolidWorks since it was first released in 1995.

[Jerry Rigg]

I work for a SolidWorks competitor and fully understand why Works needs to charge for ongoing maintenance. The product needs to continually improve, and talented developers don't work for free.

Wouldn't it be nice if once you purchased a car, you could pay 20% annually to drive a new one home each and every year?

[R. Paul Waddington]

Jerry said,

"Wouldn't it be nice if once you purchased a car, you could pay 20% annually to drive a new one home each and every year?"

I believe you can Jerry, lease: there are several types of lease depending on your requirements, the amount you wish to pay and the frequency you choose to have "that new car" etc.

Or rent: new and different vehicles on a daily, weekly or yearly basis, your choice!

One difference to think about is that when you get your new car, you get your 'new' car.

With software that is rarely true and for most users there is NO value, and NO true commercial/financial return in software upgrades done as they have been for the last few years.

Leasing or renting your car would make you, the finance company and the car manufacturer happy, however with software the software developer and dealers WIN, always, and you may or may not; most likely not when you look at very carefully.

[Tony Tanzillo]

Most Wall Street analysts cite 'Switching costs' as a key factor in what drives Autodesk's revenues.

Subscription/maintainence has little to do with that. It's more about the total cost of ownership that includes things like consulting, training, customization, and so on.

That is why Autodesk has made an effort to make the way its customers customize AutoCAD incompatible with other AutoCAD work-alikes, and has done so even at great expense to its own customers. What did you think that stinking CUI was really all about?