1st off, this COULD be awesome.
However, what are the chances that next year will be a new name? Sonar "blah blah blah"??? Over the years there have been several names. Right now, for me, the product is Sonar Platinum. What happens when the update goes from Platinum to x15?? At that point Sonar Platinum is done and Cakewalk does not need to honor the lifetime update. 
To Cakewalk - are you saying this is truly for life and you will not be pulling the rug out at some point???  

Hi. I hope this thread gives you some piece of mind
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3434770
All the best.

I do not know what will happened in one year, but people coming here every day during this month, asking the same question. Sometimes in existing threads, sometimes in new.
Are you real? What are the chance you are in general the same, just changing nicks every day? .... hmmmmm????
 

 
PS. To make it clear, that is humor, not an offense and not targeting any concrete person...
 

Zargg71
Hi. I hope this thread gives you some piece of mind
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3434770
All the best.

 
Not really that helpful. I guess, sorta, he is stating the program will be there for 2 years. It does not really answer if this is really a "lifetime". I am really curious if there is some safeguard that there will not be a new name in 3 years....4 years....7 years. Simply coming out with an update one day that Sonar is no longer platinum, well, then the "lifetime" no longer applies.
Listen, I love cakewalk. I have been here since, i dunno...cakewalk 6??? Nowadays I use another DAW as well. I am fine with the version I have now and the coming updates in the year to work out any remaining bugs. But this lifetime thing is awesome. I do not really want to fork out 200 bucks but if this is for life....how can I not fork out 200 bucks???? If there is a chance we will jump to a new name as done in the past then I am sure the updates would not apply to this new program/name. In this case, maybe I would have been happy to stay with what I have. If someone from cakewalk chimes in and says "dude, this is for life no matter what" then this is the greatest thing to ever happen in the DAW world. Cakewalk is going to lock in several for life, they will convert several on mac for life and finally, FINALLY, get mentioned in articles, vids etc where they currently list every DAW but Sonar (which annoys the piss out of me).
Anyway, that was way more than I intended to respond. My apologies. I would just like some sort of minimum guarantee on the amount of time. I know "lifetime" is a guarantee but Cakewalk has been very good at carefully using the name platinum each time they mention it. If Sonar is officially "platinum" until the end of time....well, this is simply incredible.

 and finally, FINALLY, get mentioned in articles, vids etc where they currently list every DAW but Sonar (which annoys the piss out of me).


You're not the only one.  I hate those lists where Sonar is completely ignored..... and you only get the CLAP
(Cubase, Logic, Ableton, Pro Tools).  LOL

I'm looking forward to September 1st, let me tell you.

There is no reason to doubt Cake's intent - they have been as truthful as a corp can, in my opinion, for years.  Some people were freaking when Cake went to their yearly plan, thinking it was an ending subscription like Adobe or MS.  Now with the lifetime more questions.  FL Studio still sales units that way.  They've changed name (and thus required paying more) once in a decade.  Why not a full-fledged DAW?
 
The one time lifetime renewal should be like regular sales for a year.  The hope is with a new (Mac) market there will be enough new sales to fuel future research.  They seem to have a plan, tho whether it will work or not is another question. 

Boogit
If someone from cakewalk chimes in and says "dude, this is for life no matter what" then this is the greatest thing to ever happen in the DAW world. 

dude, this is for life no matter what :)
Seriously relax, this is not something we are doing to trick users. Please read the points I made in the letter I posted. 
We have carefully considered this. We're offering lifetime updates only for platinum since its too complex right now for us to manage too many different SKU's. While our Lifetime offer is time limited now we will continue to honor updates for users who sign up for lifetime membership. Can we guarantee that there will always be a SONAR product? Not any more than we can guarantee that any one of us will be alive next month - nothing is certain in life :) However Cakewalk has been developing the SONAR brand since 2000 and the product is the best its ever been right now in 2016. As long as users keep supporting Cakewalk as a company I don't see this changing.
Its not really up to me to suggest you buy it, but if you have use our products and believe in them, this is a no brainer deal.
 

Also it isn't like you need it to last very long to get your money's worth. Say you have to pay the full $200 for the lifetime subscription. Ok, well that means you need to get updates for 2 years at the "normal discount" price (they seem to give updates at $99/year at least once a year) and you've broke even. Anything more, you got a good deal.
 
So it seems like a very good deal to me. It really is unlikely they are planing on changing anything soon, given that they are currently working on porting it to Mac. You don't do a bunch of work on putting your product on a new platform only to then discontinue it right away.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

Boogit
If someone from cakewalk chimes in and says "dude, this is for life no matter what" then this is the greatest thing to ever happen in the DAW world. 

dude, this is for life no matter what :)
 

 
Haha. Noel beating around the bush again! You just can't get a straight answer from Cakewalk.