UPDATE BELOW Jeez, you stay away from the forum for a week, and the whole world turns upside down.
I just got the email announcing the new Sonar sales model yesterday, and I logged on last night and read about 200 posts, intermittently going to the "Products" pages and looking at the new features and how Cakewalk intends to charge for them. Then I slept on it, and now I will try to say what I think about it -- just for my own clarity. Nobody else has to read this.
I really like Sonar the DAW and Cakewalk the company and the staff members I've had direct interaction with. I have bought Pro Audio 9, Sonar 1, 7, 8, 8.5, X2 and X3. Obviously, I don't feel the need to get
every new version. But the new Platinum release looks like a good value to me, and so I will buy it. As has often been the case, there are new things in it that I didn't know I needed, not to mention some whiz bang stuff that just looks like fun. Cakewalk staffers have been at pains to repeat many times in this thread that it will be like "...getting X4
and X5," but of course there's no way of knowing any such thing, so I won't expect that.
In fact, if enough new stuff is rolled out during my initial one-year membership to add up to what would have been a whole new version, I'll be quite surprised. I mean, the past few version upgrades have cost about the same as this new membership (I use Producer). How is it that X2 at $149 was more difficult to update than Platinum at $149? Because that's what I've read here -- to wit, with the membership model (paraphrasing)"...we'll be able to roll out new stuff as soon as it's ready, but we couldn't do that with the old model." Why, because somehow nothing was "ready" until the moment the next version was set for release? I don't see how having "members" instead of customers is going to make the development and release of complex code any easier.
I won't be going the monthly payment route, mainly because it costs more, and in any case I don't need to "try" Sonar to see if I like it. Which brings me to the price increase. I don't know whether to cry that it will be going up to $200, or cheer that Cakewalk has made the announcement a full year in advance. I understand that everybody wants more money, especially corporations, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to most readers that Americans in general are making
less money than they were a few years ago, in adjusted dollars or in some cases in real dollars. At least
I am, and the fifty dollar bump is going to sting. If my first year of membership is full of incredible, super-valuable and highly usable upgrades, features and content, I guess I will feel a little better about paying the higher price to re-up, but I'm not sure I'm going to want to pay for another year without some indication of what I'll be getting. Yes, yes, I know I can not pay and keep everything I've got, but sooner or later I'm sure Sonar is bound to come up with new stuff I didn't know I needed, and then there's that price, going in the opposite direction of my income and budget.
Finally, I'm not going to try to guess what the conversation in the boardroom was that led to this marketing decision. But I do know this: It was done to improve Cakewalk's bottom line. That's fine with me. I understand the deal: Make a product that people will want, and find the highest possible price point at which people will buy it. I'll even accept that there are a lot of folks at Cakewalk who love the company, its owners, the product, and every single one of the customers -- er, members. But please guys, give me some credit and don't keep implying that this change in marketing was implemented primarily to create love and happiness among the user base. Let us all hope it will do just that, while acknowledging that we are involved in a business transaction, i.e. money for goods.
I like you a lot, Sonar. I'm satisfied with the product (especially X3), and I want to pay you for the good work you're doing. But there's no need to jack me up with language like
"The bar has now been set for a customer-centric ownership model instead of a company-centric rental ("subscription") model" and
"Happy customers is really what we want." It just sounds like -- ewww --
sales talk. That said, I may not have thought a new marketing model (and price increase!) was necessary, but it's not as bad as I feared, after the infamous Subscription Poll and subsequent furor and the many assurances that it was never, ever going to happen.
So where do I sign up for my subscription?
UPDATE: I was feeling pretty OK about the new marketing and sales model. I was thinking I'd buy a one-year membership, then decide if I wanted to reenlist. Maybe I would, or maybe I wouldn't have enough money, or maybe I'd think it wasn't worth it yet. I'd wait until something appeared that I needed, and then I'd buy another year, which would bring me up to date on everything I'd missed while not a member. You'd think reading 250 posts would have covered everything, but after I wrote my post (above), I read that if your membership lapses, you won't be entitled to all that you missed when you were not a member. You'll get updated on "core functionality," but not "extras." If this is true, it's not as good as the current way of buying Sonar. Whenever you buy it, you get everything, and sometimes you get a little extra if you're buying near the end of a life cycle. If I have to maintain a membership to be sure I always get everything, that's a subscription, no matter how you spin it or what you call it, and I don't care for it.