Develop3D has published an interview with the new CEO of Autodesk Andrew Anagnost about his career, Autodesk’s hardware plans, and the new rental-based licensing changes. Read the interview in full on Develop3D.
Andrew Anagnost – Autodesk CEO
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So, in conclusion: If the old customers want to leave due to subscription, fine. We got plenty of new gullible ones joining the band wagon.
“The maintenance base feels like we’re raising prices”
YOU SENT US A LETTER SAYING THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING!
Future White House Press Secretary there.
For the ‘non paying users’, it’s all Yin.
You need to look at everything from Autodesk’s perspective. They are not raising prices they are increasing revenue.
“…a whole bunch of customers who [due to their purchasing experience of Autodesk products] think we’ve lowered prices.”
I’m sure this is only true for those customers who weren’t on maintenance and had to buy new licenses after Autodesk eliminated upgrades way back when Autodesk was forcing people onto maintenance. Hmmm, there seems to be a pattern here.
Also I’d like a list of those suckers/customers so I can send them some marketing material.
*NEW GULLIBILITY PLUGIN FOR 2018*
Later in the interview there’s this cool bit where he explains how Autodesk has always been at war with Eurasia.
No one can deny he is telling all the truth, what they want is to become a cloud company, a FULL cloud company, the final target is to convert max, maya, acad, etc… all in cloud software that can be used only through cloud services (i.e. browser)
It´s clear they don´t care about old users, and they put in the same bag big manufacturing houses tha use their manufacturing packages with small/medium 3d animation studios, and they treat them exactly the same… glad we are out…
Cheers.
I’ve started sending the money I used to spend on Max to the Blender Foundation. Anyone out there with good business/accounting knowledge? I have no idea how many paid seats of Max are out there, but it seems to me Autodesk want to take far more than give – and that is typically a fatal business mistake. Sign of the times, I guess. I have no idea how messy Blender’s code is – but surely it’s not far off from being refined into a polished studio tool? I can’t help thinking that 3d software would be better if separated into modelling/texturing and animation/fx rather than all-encompassing? Max has frustrated me over the years with bugs and tools that fall short. I guess I’ll be finding out soon, whether my alternative apps cut the mustard. At the end of the day, Autodesk have lost at least one long-term payer due to price increases. Disregarding the future subscription system, Autodesk have lost several hundred quid per year for the sake of wanting a couple hundred more from me.
“Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) insider Andrew Anagnost sold 24,004 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.73, for a total transaction of $2,705,970.92. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC”
So…he is selling while he can because he is not an idiot after all
Not to give Autodesk executives any slack but at some point a share holder is going to take some profit. It isn’t like he just dumped all of it at once. Maybe he wanted a bigger yacht or to hire a smile coach to fix the rictus grin. You can look up the history of insider trades on the NASDAQ site. His total number of shares held is slightly more than at around this time last year.
The terrible policies they’ve implemented to make that profit are another story.
I`m undecided on this, renewal coming up.
The subscription has me concerned, does the price honestly double after 3 years if we were to switch ? It lists in our renewal quotes a 50% discount for new subscription.
We pay £1280 for 2 perpetual licenses now on maintenance now and the cost is £1280 for subscription as well. After 3 years that doubles ? That really ain`t great but…
… just like big business it will mean we`ll just charge it on to our clients, what else can you do ? Beef shortages ? Big Mac goes up in price.
So while it seems bad in the short term we probably won`t be paying for it anyway. If we ever decide to stop paying subscription likely we`ll have gone out of business or moved on to other software. We already rent Adobe CC, broadband, phones, netflix, property etc so what`s the difference ?
Autodesk gets richer ? Big surprise ! They`re relying on us being too comfortable with 3dsmax to leave, and I think in general they`re right.
Currently there`s an offer for Media and Entertainment collection for £679.98 per license per year so we can get maya/mudbox etc for £50 more than we`re paying just for 3dsmax which is pretty decent. Factoring in that end clients will have to pay for this hike after 3 years it really ain`t that bad. Sure we could stay on 2016 forever for free as we have perpetual licenses with maintenance but we`ll likely be obsolete going forward for VR etc.
Honestly I`m squarely on the fence here. I don`t like corporate gouging either but the `renegade` view of down tools and switch to Blender doesn`t seem realistic yet, we have to earn a living and we`d need a decent crossover which is tough when you`re busy. By all means switch to another 3d package but sooner or later I suspect they will all follow suit and switch to this business model, Blender excepted you hope. Still, development costs money so in the future when Blender changes from donations to a small proper fee it won`t seem too bad but then new features cost money and that fee increases.
Mojang will never sell Minecraft ! Oh wait…
There`s a reason that microtransactions in games are running rampant, because they work and make a mountain of revenue. We the consumer should say no but as a whole we don`t. When other companies see the benefits of a subscription model they`ll all trip over themselves to do this too, because they are companies, not hippy communes.
I don`t like it and maybe `I`m part of the problem` because I don`t take a stand and jump overboard like others are saying they are but I don`t really see such a big issue with this. Maybe it`s just my `view` of where business has been going in general. If daily rates go up £5-10 to cover costs, so be it.
We may just switch one over to M+E subscription for the extra software we may just stay put for another year and re-evaluate.
Honestly undecided.
Let the bombing run commence !
This probably is exactly the consideration ADSK took when they decided to move to rental only.
At the bottom line one can say, you are delivering them your balls and they are going to squeeze them whenever they like.
My strategy on this is, I´ve stopped my subscription and keep my perpetual licence. In the upcoming years I´m going to transition to blender. And if I really should be in need of any function that only 3ds Max has in the future (which I doubt much), I can the rent the actual version for a limited time period anyway.
I’m doing the exact same thing. I have my max2014 and will happily keep using this until I’ve transitioned to blender or something else.
@Mr Burns
The disclaimer before the wall of text is that we’ve frozen our spending and will be using our current licenses until we switch to something else or the wheels fall off.
Like people have said here and on the Area moving to subscription forum the 50% discount “upgrade” to rental offer is a pretty bad deal since you have to forfeit your perpetual license to pay for something you already own. You’re currently on 2018 perpetual maintenance?
Likewise, the M&E collection isn’t that great since it seems you’ve been getting along fine without it and all it does is entangle workflow even more with Autodesk. If you aren’t sure about staying or switching to another software why not keep maintenance for as long as they offer it (if just to stay current with 3rd party plugins), pass the cost on and give your studio a few years to explore other options. The downside to maintenance is that it seems feature updates\improvements in point releases will be rental only. It also looks like a lot of bug fixes will be categorized as “improvements” as a way to coerce maintenance users to switch. The joke’s on them though, has any new midterm feature ever been more than a wide alpha release?
I’d also like to point out the rental discount offer is the exact same 3 step play they ran when they moved from upgrades to maintenance. Offer the current scheme to a wide section of active and even lapsed license holders, narrow it to just active paying customers then eliminate the option entirely. Our guess is that maintenance will go away by 2021 as a move to streamline licensing and reduce costs.
They may not be hippy communes but it is quite clear that the business model is less about the customer and more about lock-in to increase share holder profit. Especially since R&D spending is one of those things that share holders don’t really like. If rental is a no-brainer then why kill perpetual licenses?
As far as Blender switching to a mandatory fee, it isn’t going to happen because of the GPL terms. GPL doesn’t prohibit fees but anyone can distribute the source or program for free so there is no advantage or reason for them to change.
Such insider trades happen on regular basis and are nothing unusual. Reporting them to SEC is a legal requirement for publicly traded companies ( just google up “SEC Insider Trading fileing”. For a complete up-to-date list of Autodesk’s insider trades, just read them up here
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/adsk/insider-trades
Sorry – this should have been a reply to Jonathan’s post about Anagnost dumping loads of AD shares …
ADSK, I for one am rooting for you! Sure Cloud with your prices is a bit like extortion through change of terms and abuse of trust after all these years spent learning and aligning to your tools. By recent statistics 50% of US population living paycheck to paycheck, means 50% are not! It’s especially easy for artists who study hard to stay competitive, work long hours, have to use 20 different plugins with your polarized software, relocate for jobs and work for peanuts or have their jobs outsourced. Surely no tough times for them!
However thanks to your shortsightedness and greed there are a lot of companies and artists who are now discovering very powerful, better alternatives like Blender and Houdini. So Thanks and keep doing what you’re doing!