will the bakers be offering this option again? 
or was it a one time only?
I've had every release of sonar since 7, but missed the offer as i was involved in moving house(just my luck!)

So far it was mentioned several times that the offer was one time only. Note that even CW is planning to repeat it, they will not tell you in advance (obvious reason). The price politic was drastically changed 2 month ago, it is no longer "you can get everything close to for free, when not in a hurry", as it was for many years...

cant really get my head around it!
 
If they are not offering the deal again
are they reall expecting new users and people who didnt take up/missed the deal
to  finance a lifeteime of updates for a group of users
 
or am i missing something???
its like having to pay more for a car each year so that someone gets one free
(not a great incentive to upgrade)
 

At first cakewalk had a 1 month time frame to upgrade (to lifetime updates).
So everyone rushed around, trying to buy it within the 1 month time frame. Turns out cakewalk was kind enough to extend that offer 4 more months (for people who didn't have the money and needed time to save)
For example someone maybe who needed a month because they were moving .
 
The offer ran for almost 6 months.
I do not look at it as anything else but a 1 time great offer that cakewalk gave to its loyal users.

I should mention though.. Im with you, I hope they offer it again for a special.
Like a "3 days only" deal. Other people such as yourself deserve to get it.

I think it was a good token offer.
But the problems do not lie with CW in whole...So to say it works on or with ..OS..being another variable...the offer should repeat at....A special offering time of tidings and ..we all hope for Joy and bliss...and push the cow near the dire desired terms.
 
I would pay another push push...to dig into what is behind the vale of the OS WIN MS mayhem of updates...which seem to cause, infractions of setup, or use without permissions to do so...if so is os.
 
CPU hick ups..not resolving something...if it is a service trying to open a connection or other sending tactics...it causes issues...and if it cannot solve the ((secret sending)) where is the data stored until it can?...cache?.memory?..or does it take over and write to folder or file system....causing another interruption of work ethics being used or working with?....Too many changes occur, too many updates, too many violations of setups being reverted back to defaults?....
 
Well...life times of updates...Thus CW being a good provider of Music making, now tied to Gibson, another good provider of instruments for making music.
 
I would say...with these two teaming up to make music...a good thing...Needs to be!!!....so It is not their intent to sabotage the processing it...if this now software end is in their camp!.
 
 
I would truly say....Push the MS people to make a audio and video OS...and leave out the garbage mistrust and trace and track...To the internet Jinn.
 
Or send in the door kickers, and dog sniffers...for the terror tactic redflagging to make someone accountable for some bent crime.
 
Is the crime not imposed by mistrust?
 
 
Who is mistrusting us . ..to need to trace and track...what is put in...is then manifested through.
 
So, Yes..Please, Let us put a donation towards....as It is impossible to continue fixing on what was garnished out to a few who could afford it.
 
Perhaps once a year...on a very announced time line....CW could make a exclusive day?...so others who do buy in, get a sort of coverage ...in hopes MS gets things settled with the mistrusting us.
But ask we trust them.
 
Surely We see eye to eye a need for all parties to work proper...Truth and Trust go hand in hand!.
 
Cheers!

godino
cant really get my head around it!
 
If they are not offering the deal again
are they reall expecting new users and people who didnt take up/missed the deal
to  finance a lifeteime of updates for a group of users
 
or am i missing something???
its like having to pay more for a car each year so that someone gets one free
(not a great incentive to upgrade)

CW was many years giving away staff for almost nothing, including "lifetime" offer. That could not continue forever. You can find finance report at the time of Roland->Gibson move (I have no idea why Roland has published it, may be it has leaked into the Internet by mistake, but it is still on Roland web sites).
So at some moment they had to stop... Fair? Well, they gave "lifetime" before the switch. Most "loyal" users got it almost for free, newcomers could get it cheap. Sure there are some people which deserve but do not have it (there are other who saw it, but predicting Apocalypse instead of price politic change have decided to opt out... ).
 
But what is your proposal? As soon as they declare "3 days" offer for the first time, new price politic will crash (the information will be spread immediately: in case you want Sonar, wait for the next "3 days" offer...). May be they can offer lifetime updates on permanent basis, let say for $1000. But I do not think you see that as a solution.
 
Craig has mentioned several times that Platinum never was the package from which money are collected, but that is not the reason to permanently give it "for free".
 
I have "upgraded" XP to Win 8 for ~$30. And then all the way to Win 10, without a single cent more. Do you think they ever return the possibility to get Win10 for $30 (directly from MS site, so nothing "gray")?
 
Sometimes price politic does not work and then it is changed. While CW currently has an offer for X1/X3 users (against previous declarations, but logical from common sense), that does not mean they return all features they had and found not working (including too small upgrade prices with huge content included, which I guess was barely covering license fees, if at all).

thanks for the replies
 
I'm obviously envious of the lifetime updaters
and I agree with you Chuck that it would be nice to have a window of a few days to allow
the customers who missed the offer to be included
But I still find the offer strange!!
I do not know how many took up the offer, but i would expect it to be most of the core users
where will the future yearly revenue come from?
 
(Sir Les - I'll need a bit of time to translate your post)

chuckebaby
I should mention though.. Im with you, I hope they offer it again for a special.
Like a "3 days only" deal. Other people such as yourself deserve to get it.

And the people who miss the 3 days will look for another offer down the road, etc etc etc.
No offence to the OP, but the forums were full of people at the time the lifetime deal was first announced proclaiming the immediate demise of Cakewalk, that monthly updates would fail, that Cake was using the revenue from lifetime updates to fund Apple development, and who questioned the value of paying for bug fixes, etc. In the process a lot of people chose not to participate. 
The fact that there have been many customers since saying that they wished lifetime updates would be offered again is I think a credit to Cakewalk, and how successful the program has been.
Yes I am a very happy lifetime subscriber.
No offense again, but participation was a more difficult choice at the time given the uncertainty of how this would take shape. It was a leap of faith decision to invest in Cakewalk and spring for lifetime updates. Today it would be a true no-brainer, having seen the successful rollout of the whole process.
In other words, it's far, far easier now, given the benefit of hindsight to say - " hey ya, I'm in...."

godino
 
I do not know how many took up the offer, but i would expect it to be most of the core users
where will the future yearly revenue come from?
 

Platinum - which is the only product that was offered with lifetime updates is only a fraction of the revenue for Cakewalk.  Most customers do not own the top of the line product.
 
Revenue will come in from new users, users that continue the membership (i.e. upgrade), as well as all the other products Cake offers in addition to developing new ones that can be used by both the Cake DAW customers as well as users of different DAWs (Look at Rapture Pro and the Mastering Plugins, as examples)
 
Sorry you missed out on lifetime updates.  I do not know many people that take 6 months to move to a new house though.  Not that it matters but are you suggesting you were unaware of the deal for 6 months, or that you knew about the deal but could not afford it because of the move?
 
I'd imagine it is within the realm of possibility that they would offer it again, but who knows.  I'm thankful I took advantage of the offer the first day it went public.