jimkleban
 
I know that CAKE is saying that most of their revenue is NOT coming from existing users but even at 10,000 annual updates we are talking about $1M per year in revenue that has apparently been given up by this new lifetime deal.  I am going to sign up for this and my faith is that CAKE is able to remain my DAW environment software for many years to come.
 

I have no true financial information to back this up, but I'd be beyond shocked if they get 10K renewals every year for the flagship product.   
 
I'd bet most users do not upgrade every year.  Those claiming they have been supporting Cake since DOS and upgrading the flagship every single year have to be in the extreme minority.  Realistically most users can go 5 years without needing to upgrade.  
 
That would be about X2 to today or so, and X3e is still considered a wonderful DAW and that came out 3 years ago and is still 100% functional and should be for years unless Windows botches something.  
 
Don't believe me?  Search for old threads about the releases of each and you will see plenty of people balking at the update to the next version.  Even when they were starting to throw in truly major things like the full blown version of AD.  
 
 

I totally made up the number of upgrades per year for example purposes only.  I have no idea how many SONAR users even exist let along SPLAT users.  No sense in beating this old horse any more.  I hope and support that the bakers know what they are doing.

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

dlion16
funny, i never got the email. nor do i get other emails from cakewalk, even though i've signed up frequently and been a user since DOS.

You should be all set now. You were unsubscribed.

Wow, I never received an email either an I have purchased every pro version since dos 2.0. 

Just did the lifetime upgrade myself.  CW has always been more than fair about giving us "stuff" (which they didn't have to do) with each and every upgrade.  Am I concerned about spending $99 for this???  Of course not.  I make a living using Sonar among other software....doing audio and video production.
 
For one thing...it's tax deductible....for another thing, I'm anxious to see what they have in store for us :) .

Reading this series of posts confirms to me why i hardly ever post anything....why can't someone just discuss something rather than immediately assume that the poster is "anti" (heaven forbid) cakewalk? The original post was exactly what i was thinking and while some of the posts that follow are interesting so many of them slam the person with the original post.  I am going to get off my computer now because some of you will probably conclude i'm a commie who wants cakewalk to die or some other asinine conclusion.

Anyone remember the Nov/Dec 2015 AD2:Custom snafu? If not, there was an ad in Monthly Specials  in the CW Store for AD2:Custom including 3 ea ADPaks/MidiPaks/Kit pcs for $39. XLN sells Custom for $170. Separately the paks are over $300. When it broke that it was indeed a mistake, there were threads like this one. "Cake is going to rip us off", "best we could do is a refund", etc.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3323723
I honestly thought Cake would do a refund...and I would have been happy with that. But guess what.
Cakewalk made good on their mistake ! They honored the $39 price !
It was the best present I got for Christmas last year (I'm pretty hard to shop for).
And it reminded me that some companies are still not completely evil.
I bet on one-time Platinum in Jan 15 , I bet on one-time Platinum in Jan 2016. I did not lose those bets.  And I got a totally unexpected Holiday gift. So I already jumped on the lifetime deal.
I think maybe we could cut these guys some slack.
Not always but sometimes... a cigar is just a cigar.
Just sayin'.

ronniejames
 I am going to get off my computer now because some of you will probably conclude i'm a commie who wants cakewalk to die or some other asinine conclusion.

Your opinion of his forum notwithstanding, the aspect of this post that begs refutation is the comically ironic yet archaically offensive use of 'commie' as a derogatory term to describe how you may be unfairly judged and vilified. Is it 1985 or has Ronald Regan logged in using an alt?

joden
And THIS is the salient point imo. Only for "Platinum". Now I imagine if in a couple of years CW decide to morph it into something else (with the usual excuses and whatever), then the so-called "lifetime" of Platinum is over ne c'est pas?

 
I figure it this way, we get a couple years out of it, given the current price of an annual subscription to us loyal Platinum subscribers, we break even. Beyond that, it's all gravy. This lifetime deal is a no brainer - and I'm surprised that CW went out of its way to accommodate all the nervous nellies with an extended date to take advantage of it.
 

"nervous nellies" 
 
Like it.

Dave000
I see my IK Sample Moog and Tron that worked a few months with Splat stop working and the bit bridge grinding to a halt as more and more 32 bit 3^rd party plugins stop working in Splat… 

I think the ST2 instruments still work in Sonar as long as you run it in admin mode, which I believe is an IK limitation rather than a CW one... but I agree it's a drag.
 
If you are of a mind to act quickly, IK has a deal on until May 31 where most of the hardware - some of it quite cheap - that would normally get you Sampletank 3 SE gets you the full meal deal ST3, complete with 33GB library, plus the usual extras. That would let you import SampleMoog and SampleTron to ST3 and run them in 64 bit with a much nicer interface and better onboard FX etc. I've just imported Tron, Moog, Sonic Synth 2 and a few other goodies and it works a charm.
 
link: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/st3controller/
 
Some of those iRig keyboards are pretty cheap at third party shops - I went with a 37Pro because I've always wanted a 3-octave, light, full-size controller that fits in a suitcase for travel, but even if you don't need one at all the smallest mini-key ones are practically nothing. Of course you can do the imports with ST3SE that comes with those products normally, but I figured it was worth jumping on the full license for the full library - maybe there's something great in there that will fuel a track or two down the road. Hey, it's only disk space, might as well use it!