Morvejones

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

markoburrows
Hi Guys,
 
Maybe its because I am British, but with all the "High Fivein'" and  stuff I have become sooooo confused in a very short time.
 
In the comments above this post you have quoted the upgrade price to the Lifetime offer for  a gentleman with existing software as $99. I purchased Platinum in March and was expecting to renew sometime around then and there used to be a renewal price on your shop page. Now that is gone and my option to take on the offer is to "upgrade" to software I have already? 
 
And the cost to do so is £174. That's two hundred and fifty dollars.
 
So if I want to take your offer up I need to expend $250
 
How does that compare with the $99 ?
 
Any chance you could put all of the cost options up so we can assess the value of your offer and how much the lifetime renewal actually is?
 
Many thanks
 
Marko
Entertaining the few since 1962

The upgrade price from SONAR Platinum is $199. However if you renewed earlier this year (meaning this was technically the second time you purchased SONAR Platinum in the last 18 months), and paid say $99 during that promo, we are only charging you $99 (basically the difference). Since you didn't renew, you would just pay the full upgrade price. It's essentially the same price.

Andrew , so what about loyal customers that paid monthly why are we penalised? i am offered the lifetime updates for £175 ($252) even though i have spent £202 ($291) on platinum! i get the same offer as someone using X3! wtf? 

This is a valid question and hasn't been addressed (as far as I can see).  I have been on the subscription system from the start.  I decided not to go ahead with the $99 fee, but to continue paying monthly.  I would like to know if those post-January payments are taken into consideration when calculating the Lifetime fee?  In my opinion it would be very fair if that were true.  If my monthly payments between January and up to August were factored into a reduction on the Lifetime payment, should I decide to pay that by August, then I would be very happy.
 
Has this been given due consideration?

AllanH
...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.

This ^^^
 
I was disappointed all day after the big reveal, but I now chalk it up to the hype, and feeling like I've come away with nothing.
 
Had there been no fanfare, just a nonchalant Mac announcement, it would have a lot easier to swallow.
 
Maybe it won't be so bad, having folks with MAC DAWs finally being able to play with Sonar.
 
Who knows, maybe we'll end up getting new or refined features once direct comparisons to other Mac DAWs are made.
 
 
 
 

I hope Sonar on Mac gets them more customers and increases the profile of Sonar in the Pro Music community that is so hell-bent on using Macs for everything.  Personally I will most likely never use the Mac version of Sonar.  However I can see some possibilities of collaboration with people using the Mac version of Sonar that could be useful. 

Although not a Mac enthusiast, one of the benefits of supporting more than one platform is that it forces you to write the core application with cleaner code. The platform differences are contained in an adapter layer with limited purpose. I've always used Windows machines, but never was a fan of Microsoft's' compiler and especially MFC. (Old time Borlandite...)  I would love to see a control surface API with something other than COM. 
 

I am confused. So the subscription model failed? There will be no more $150 update/renewal every year? What happens if we do not pay for upgrade to "lifetime| before August 31st? Will it continue as subscription?
 
I kind of liked subscription model. It felt as an assurance that Gibson will stay interested in developing Sonar farther. Now- if nobody pays any more- what is the motivation to roll out updates?
 
So we basically back to the old model of buying once with questionable occasional patches and no major versions updates?
 
I am happy that Mac users will get access to Sonar, also it likely will push more people toward Macs...

It's too much of a deja vu for me. Subscription based marketing does sounds terrible for the end-user on the long-term, but a once-off lifetime payment makes little sense in how the company is going to survive.
 
Unless...Cakewalk can continue to profit by plugins (an increasingly saturated market) or...of course...the Mac version.
 
Here's the deja vu. I recalled clearly how much money I spent on the Windows version of Logic. It was an excellent product. Then overnight, everything switched over to Mac and Logic no longer supported Windows. That made me switch to Cakewalk. I just don't want to have to switch to Cubase in the future.
 
Supporting 2 platforms is indeed more labor and cost intensive. I wonder if Cakewalk can research on how Cubase did it and continues to support 2 platforms. 
 
If I'm on the marketing team of CW, I would probably have done the same to enter the Mac market. I might even have done it ages ago. But as an end-user, it just gives me the shakes because the obvious money generating engine cannot come from the PC version with a lifetime subscription plan. Will the marketing department consider a different strategy? Or perhaps all strategic options have been explored and this is the best course of action? It's not easy and I appreciate CW trying so hard for so long to stay in this competitive market.

Yes! Sonar for Mac. Nice.

cheez
It's too much of a deja vu for me. Subscription based marketing does sounds terrible for the end-user on the long-term, but a once-off lifetime payment makes little sense in how the company is going to survive.
 
Unless...Cakewalk can continue to profit by plugins (an increasingly saturated market) or...of course...the Mac version.
 
Here's the deja vu. I recalled clearly how much money I spent on the Windows version of Logic. It was an excellent product. Then overnight, everything switched over to Mac and Logic no longer supported Windows. That made me switch to Cakewalk. I just don't want to have to switch to Cubase in the future.
 
Supporting 2 platforms is indeed more labor and cost intensive. I wonder if Cakewalk can research on how Cubase did it and continues to support 2 platforms. 
 
If I'm on the marketing team of CW, I would probably have done the same to enter the Mac market. I might even have done it ages ago. But as an end-user, it just gives me the shakes because the obvious money generating engine cannot come from the PC version with a lifetime subscription plan. Will the marketing department consider a different strategy? Or perhaps all strategic options have been explored and this is the best course of action? It's not easy and I appreciate CW trying so hard for so long to stay in this competitive market.

Ableton does it so does protools,reason and they have no problem.
Cakewalk will continue to innovate and make pc sonar better.
Maybe they are making a Mac version because many people and users like me have requested it,and maybe it's a good decision buianess wise for them too.

vladasyn
I am confused. So the subscription model failed? There will be no more $150 update/renewal every year? What happens if we do not pay for upgrade to "lifetime| before August 31st? Will it continue as subscription?
 
I kind of liked subscription model. It felt as an assurance that Gibson will stay interested in developing Sonar farther. Now- if nobody pays any more- what is the motivation to roll out updates?
 
So we basically back to the old model of buying once with questionable occasional patches and no major versions updates?
 
I am happy that Mac users will get access to Sonar, also it likely will push more people toward Macs...

We have really embraced the agile delivery model with membership. We are definitely upping the ante here but we plan on delivering updates with more frequency. It's not going back to the old days. If you look at what's coming in the next several months, it's a lot of cool stuff that has been user requested. 
 
Don't forget there are a lot of people out there who haven't purchased SONAR and even more that will be entering the market to buy a DAW in the next few years. These changes should make it even more attractive. 

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk
 
We have really embraced the agile delivery model with membership. We are definitely upping the ante here but we plan on delivering updates with more frequency. It's not going back to the old days. If you look at what's coming in the next several months, it's a lot of cool stuff that has been user requested. 
 
Don't forget there are a lot of people out there who haven't purchased SONAR and even more that will be entering the market to buy a DAW in the next few years. These changes should make it even more attractive. 

Will be definitely watching the next few months with interest. Thanks for the assurance.