ntsing
Andrew, is there any chance we could get an official response on the SONAR product lifecycle? Is Cakewalk/Gibson guaranteeing to release updates for lifetime users (as an example) for at least 5, 10, 15, etc. years?
 
I appreciate the lifetime offer, an ostensibly good deal for users, however every 'lifetime' software product I have purchased has ended support within 2-4 years. Usually either 1) the company renames/reclassifies the product, 2) the company retroactively changes the lifetime license terms, 3) the company gets bought and the parent company discontinues support, or 4) the company goes out of business.
 
It would be great to have some kind of official assurance of the continued support for this new license type.

I don't think anyone can ever tell you that with 100% certainty. You are asking an impossible question. There are so many factors as you point out. But SONAR is very important to us and it's always been our flagship product in the MI industry. That's why we are putting even more focus on it today. There's no plan today to discontinue work on SONAR. Of course, if you don't feel comfortable with that answer I understand and this your choice. 
 
FWIW, there are other examples in our industry of companies that have adopted this strategy and they are still in business. 

It seems in order to be successful in Mac land bakers cannot duplicate any of the known bugs into OSX version. So chances are that PC Splat will be much cleaner by autumn.    

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
I don't think anyone can ever tell you that with 100% certainty. You are asking an impossible question. There are so many factors as you point out. But SONAR is very important to us and it's always been our flagship product in the MI industry. That's why we are putting even more focus on it today. There's no plan today to discontinue work on SONAR. Of course, if you don't feel comfortable with that answer I understand and this your choice. 
 
FWIW, there are other examples in our industry of companies that have adopted this strategy and they are still in business. 

Thank you for the response, Andrew. You're definitely correct that nothing is 100%, especially in software. And it's great that the team behind SONAR sounds dedicated to the product. I was mostly just curious if there was any official statement from Cakewalk clarifying what they mean by 'lifetime' in more precise language, such as a minimum support time frame or anything similar. If not, that's fine, just curious.

declan

Jim Roseberry

reactorstudios
There was something for everyone in the three facets of this announcement. Those of you in the 'meh' class might need meds.
Many thanks to the bakers for lots of hard work pushed through at a remarkably low cost.

I've used Cakewalk software since the CPA 4.0 days (first version to have audio).

• The planned updates are nice (Ripple Editing, etc).  I've grown to expect those with rolling updates.
• Lifetime updates is cool.  I thought Sonar was already very affordable.
• Mac version of Sonar?  I have the fastest Mac you can currently buy... but my custom PC is faster.  To be able to run Sonar on that Mac (the way I do on the PC), I'd need $2k in external Thunderbolt drives.

While I don't want to be a downer, that does leave me feeling a bit "Meh".  

You're the only person I've seen here that started with CWPA4,  I can't believe what I did with 16mb ram.  Lots of copying & pasting?

I started when the product was a DOS program called Cakewalk, and the company was called Twelve Tone Systems around 1991. I think back then PCs had less than 1MB. I updated to every new version that was released ever since then.
 
And BTW, Jim builds fantastic DAW PCs. I bought my current system from him and can't be happier

I should probably read the next pages of replies before posting, but I want to say this anyway!

Though I am now officially homeless and as close to flat broke as can be, I just bought the lifetime update at the cost of not paying my final water bill! ;-)

What a cool thing to give the dedicated!

I already run Sonar/windows8.1 (hardware won't support win10) on a MacPro via Bootcamp... I see some say it's hard, but I've now done it twice and the second time was really a breeze!

As I don't particularly like OSX, I will probably continue is, but it will be fun to run Sonar in OSX to entice many of my friends who are Mac heads! Maybe this will finally give Mac/PT people to see what they've been missing all this time? ;-)

The Console 1 thingie? I don't think it will matter to me. Though I come from many decades of hardware recording, my methods have changed so much over the years that the only external control I need is transport control when recording my own vocals... And I have that working just fine already...

...but for those who want/need such, I am always happy to have more support than less! I hope it's serious enjoyment for all!

Now.... How do I pay my water bill? I guess it won't hurt too much as I already turned it off so they can't really threaten me with turnoff and I'll find a way to pay them... Later... ;-)

Much Baker Love!

My biggest concern with all this is about the financial viability of giving up on any future revenue stream for your core product from existing users. You will have to either continually find new customers (always harder than loyalty selling), try and sell additional licenses to existing customers (hard) or separate out products add-ins and sell those to existing customers (complicated, hard to support, speculative, more effort to market, and potential for spamming existing customers in an effort to maintain revenue). Of course, the new market for Apple users will cover some of this, but only in the relatively short term, and adding that market is unlikely to be dependent on this perpetual initiative.
 
I really thought the subscription model that was introduced, a hybrid subscribe/own model, was innovative. But this new decision has me worried that the revenue will dry up and more effort will be required to preserve the revenue stream for the future.
 
I have seen several lifetime subscriptions / perpetual licenses cause problems later for companies. One small company reached out to all its lifetime subscribers with a new offer that gave them nothing except the warm feeling they were helping out the company - not a good position for the company to have to turn itself into a charity case, and an uncomfortable feeling for customers to feel they were being asked to pay for something for which they have already paid. Even Bill Gates came out before announcing Office subscription services that Microsoft's biggest competitors were now its own customers - that's a fairly sorry state of affairs. 
 
Sonar is a great product and I am a hobbyist with limited time to use the tools. I have taken a week's vacation this week just to compose music and am loving the tools. Watching the Groove3 tutorial videos showed me just how amazing this product is. As a amateur I won't be badly impacted if you have to change the model, but it would be sad if you cannot sustain the work due to the well drying up.
 
It all feels very short sighted. But I am sure you have done the modelling and I must be missing something.
 
 

I am not sure what some of the complaining is about for what people have had to spend on Sonar.
 
I think I paid $149 to upgrade to Platinum over a year ago. I expected to have to pay $200 when my year ran out, but surprise ... it only cost $99 to get the next year. Then for another $99 dollars I am able to purchase an option to never have to pay for updates. Seems like a good deal to me. Basically almost everything that has come down in over a year has been core changes which is covered under the option. I did buy some Cakewalk products which are not part of the core in the past year, but they were at hugely discounted prices.

I will be buying my lifetime upgrade and really hope Cakewalk succeeds with their plan.
 
I can’t shake the feeling that I just watched Cakewalk “jump the shark” and that the product focus will suffer. It takes extra development, and especially testing, to support a second platform and operating system.
 
Just looking at the threads around the June 1 announcement, 9 of 10 are about pricing and upgrading, and getting lifetime for $99. While I appreciate CW’s desire to get price-insensitive customers from Mac, I fail to see how Sonar effectively can compete with Logic at $200. To me, there appears to be a limited value proposition with Sonar on Mac, especially in view of hardware costs. If I were willing to pay for a Mac, I would be focused on features, and go straight to Cubase or Logic.
 
We’ll see I guess, and I do hope this succeeds.

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

declan

Jim Roseberry

reactorstudios
There was something for everyone in the three facets of this announcement. Those of you in the 'meh' class might need meds.
Many thanks to the bakers for lots of hard work pushed through at a remarkably low cost.

I've used Cakewalk software since the CPA 4.0 days (first version to have audio).

• The planned updates are nice (Ripple Editing, etc).  I've grown to expect those with rolling updates.
• Lifetime updates is cool.  I thought Sonar was already very affordable.
• Mac version of Sonar?  I have the fastest Mac you can currently buy... but my custom PC is faster.  To be able to run Sonar on that Mac (the way I do on the PC), I'd need $2k in external Thunderbolt drives.

While I don't want to be a downer, that does leave me feeling a bit "Meh".  

You're the only person I've seen here that started with CWPA4,  I can't believe what I did with 16mb ram.  Lots of copying & pasting?

I started with Twelve Tones Cakewalk For Windows... Came from Texture in the DOS world...