Eric Colburn, PLS

Cost of Business?

I just finished reading an interesting post on another Civil 3D blog concerning the one year release cycle and Autodesk subscription plan as it relates to Civil 3D users. In large part, the post and conversation centered around: backwards compatibility, reliability and cost, among other things.

What I Said

I left a comment, too, which was inspiration for this post. My comment was as follows:

In general I like the annual upgrades with the following exceptions and issues kept in mind:

1. The 1 year subscription program benefits Autodesk monetarily more than users benefit by any increase functionality and usability. Autodesk would be better served if it separated the versioning issue from the payment/cost/budgeting issue. They are not related at all and if the next issue is taken into account they can be divorced and the yearly upgrade will make better sense from a payment/cost/budgeting standpoint.
2. It’s old-fashioned, but, don’t release a product unless it works 100 percent. Users did not pay top dollar for the opportunity to be guinea pigs. Then to force them to pay more after one year for another less than 100 percent piece of software is a bitter pill to swallow.
3. Backwards/forward compatibility is a complex issue with serious business and financial ramifications. First, alienating your paying customer who paid for a so-called “older version” (a year, really?) is a questionable practice. Second, it can be a trap for those who are “early adopters’, if you will, when trying to work in the real world where due to the yearly upgrades, cost, stability issues, and integration of those upgrades, many organizations don’t implement upgrades (perhaps smartly) concurrently, if at all. This creates more work and cost money for the person using the “latest and the greatest” when delivering or sharing a digital work product. Third, even within the smallest of organizations, backwards incompatibility can be burdensome.
4. It seems counterintuitive but I think Autodesk would get a lot less flak about annual renewal if they allowed, and even encouraged, monthly payments throughout the year. Then, they could concentrate on producing a flawless software solution with long-term purposeful improvements to functionality and usability making their software a better business and technical tool.

Just a few thoughts.

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