tzzsmk
lifetime license sounds really nice,
but what really matters is the licensing/activation system,
with all respect to Cakewalk, CCC is not pleasure to work with,
for serious studio use of Sonar, computers being completely offline (due to security and functional reasons), it appears fairly impossible to use Sonar - I would really like to see something like "export iLok license" within CCC, so it would be possible to run Sonar on offline production computers

astaub
For all this from Europe Peoples....
I has paid "Lifetime update" now for 105.26 sFr. = 106.45 US$ @purchase time ( not 99 US$).  Plus Tax ( MwSt. 8%) = 113.68 sFr = 114,98 US$

Glyn Barnes
The announcment is pretty major! But for the majority of existing users I suspect the MAC version is not going to raise too much excitment. I use a PC, and particularly since Win 10 it just works!
 
I had been waiting for the announcment before jumping on the lifetime option, but I will be doing so now, with gusto. It looks like there is a lot of good stuff in the pipeline.
 
Yes there is an element of uncertanty about how long lifetime will be, but nothing is certain in life and this looks like an excellent deal.
 

orhanproject
I guess Im ok with sonar being planned for mac now BUT I just hope cakewalk doesn't ditch sonar pc and makes it mac only in the near future...

michaelhanson
I skipped Sonar 2 as well Ed, because I was running Home Studio back in those days.  Once I jumped into Sonar, I have never missed an upgrade or a plug in that they have released for Pro Channel.  
 
Like AllanH, it has always been more about supporting Cakewalk, because I wanted to contribute to making sure that the software kept advancing. 

TheMaartian
Bought the lifetime sub yesterday. This morning, SONAR | About told me I'm good until 12/24/2037!
 
Christmas Eve.
 
Do the Bakers have another present in store for us in 21 years?
 
And my new G&L guitar is on the UPS truck out for delivery.
 
What a day!!!

streckfus
While it does seem a little too generous for Cakewalk to offer lifetime updates instead of sticking with the annual update plan

subtlearts
OK I did the deed and am now officially a Lifer (To Infinity And Beyond, as the saying goes). Thought I'd put in my 2 shekels about the announcement, since everyone else and his dog seems to have done so already...
 
1. Lifetime Updates. I've heard some complaining that it's a 'cash grab', and cparmerlee has pointed out that in essence they're asking us to prepay for 2017 updates, before we've even received all the 2016 ones we've already prepaid for, so that we won't even break even on what we likely would have paid until 2018. That's fair enough, but given the ROI that I've generally seen from CW over the time I've been trusting them with my investments in music technology, I still feel it's a relatively safe gamble. If they somehow drop the ball so completely that I feel truly let down, it will be pretty much the first time in our long association... and I will still feel overall that I did fairly well out of the bargain. But I doubt it; I'm betting I'll be a happy camper well into 2018 (and I'm not usually a betting man). 
 
2. Sonar for Mac. I posited in the Giant Great Big Enormous Speculation thread (not suggesting this was an especially brilliant observation, but as a point of departure) that the Lifetime Updates thing was a dip into their pool of existing users' goodwill that would provide a cash bump to help finance some big developments, that would in turn bring in enough new users to keep everything ticking along, so that everybody wins in the long term. That still seems like a reasonable enough assessment of the situation to me. If Sonar for Mac is that big new development, so be it. I don't currently have any use for it, as I have no computers running MacOS and no plans to switch - BUT, at least now I will have that option if it becomes salient for whatever reason. Virtually everything else I'm invested into is cross-platform, aside from Sound Forge which I use less and less these days and haven't updated in a few years. With Sonar running natively on MacOS, I *could* switch if I need to, which is nice to know.
 
But even if I never do, I don't have a problem with it. As Craig has pointed out elsewhere, all of us wild speculators don't really have any idea how any of this fits into the overall business plan, and we lack any of the likely substantial data and research it's based on. CW is not a big company, but they have managed to stay in business for a long time, and they have the backing of a much bigger company that has been in business for a much longer time, so I highly doubt these decisions are made capriciously. If they are betting the farm on this, they doubtless have pretty solid reasons for believing it will pay off. I sincerely hope it does, and if my vote of confidence by pre-paying to be a Lifer helps them make it happen, and stay in business, and keep sending me Awesome Updates until the end of time, then I'm happy to give it. Plus, it will be nice, one day, when someone asks me what platform I work on and I say Sonar, not to get a quizzical blank stare. I'd like to get a (much more appropriate) approving nod. 
 
3. Commitment to Awesomeness. What can I say? I am in favour of Awesomeness. I think Sonar is pretty awesome already, and the people that made it so are telling us they have plans to make it more so, and letting us in on *some* of those plans. What's not to like? I don't really do much in the way of take and comp editing, but hey - as above, I might someday, and it's nice to know they're working on making it Double Plus Awesome. Same goes for Console 1 integration - I don't have one, don't plan to buy one immediately, but I hear good things about it and you never know. I am, on the other hand, very very excited about Ripple editing, which will impact me much more directly. But someone else might not care about it, and that's how it goes. I find it weird that people are actually upset about CW putting resources into developing features that don't impact them directly and immediately. That just seems very self-defeating to me - what happens when the shoe is on the other foot? 
 
Anyway. Enough said, I need to get back to work, but these were my thoughts as I made the decision to plonk down the PayPal and make this thing permanent.
 
Put a ring on it, as the song says...