Anderton
...So when you take the entirety of Cakewalk's business into account, Platinum users getting lifetime updates simply isn't a deal-breaker, and IMHO it's a really great way to thank loyal users for their support. 

What he said... Thank you Bakers!
 
Walt
A loyal user.

I consider the price for lifetime updates an insult and not a thank you to loyal supporters. I upgraded to platinum before the promotion and had I waited I could have upgraded and got lifetime updates included. Same for people that just bought the full product a month or two before the promotion. To me the people being rewarded are the new users and people just now upgrading, not loyal users for many years. I know several people here who have upgraded to every version for many, many years and they should be getting lifetime updates for free. FL only charges $39 for their old users to get lifetime updates. Of course, they have a much larger user base, many times that of Sonar. I think this whole thing could have been handled much better with more tiers depending on when people updated to Platinum and how many updates they have done over the years. This would have been the way to thank loyal users.

bsantini99
I consider the price for lifetime updates an insult and not a thank you to loyal supporters. I upgraded to platinum before the promotion and had I waited I could have upgraded and got lifetime updates included. Same for people that just bought the full product a month or two before the promotion. To me the people being rewarded are the new users and people just now upgrading, not loyal users for many years. I know several people here who have upgraded to every version for many, many years and they should be getting lifetime updates for free. FL only charges $39 for their old users to get lifetime updates. Of course, they have a much larger user base, many times that of Sonar. I think this whole thing could have been handled much better with more tiers depending on when people updated to Platinum and how many updates they have done over the years. This would have been the way to thank loyal users.

Not true. Your upgrade price reduces the cost of lifetime updates. If you aren't seeing that reduction, contact sales.
 
Regards,
Dan

I just bought in for the lifetime updates for $200.  I think it's a good deal. 
 
My theory is that Cakewalk will reduce the membership prices going forward to get more adopters and try to generate more revenue from add-ons such as plugins.  I think also going forward, some of the currently included synths, etc may be un-bundled for future adopters to reduce Cakewalk's cost. 

I just purchased the platinum upgrade with life time updates from Musicians friend with a 15% off coupon and redeemed. Platinum now shows up as a download on "MY Products" page. YAY!
 
But another question- since I bought Sonar Platinum specifically for the iMac, and since I can not get a registration code for Sonar Platinum until I run the program on the iMac for the 1st time, will I have issues when the Mac version is released with qualifying for life time free updates if that date is after August 31st 2016? Or is there another way to get a registration code?

The registration process is different now. I answered in your thread. It is just a matter of waiting for the Mac version.

TY scook!

Hi,
This thread is 17 pages long (so far) so forgive me for not reading every entry.
 
@Cakewalk Staff: Before I buy into the lifetime offer, do you have a published timeline for Sonar releases on Windows platform? More specifically, I want to know if there are 2 or 3 years of Sonar on Windows releases behind that "lifetime" commitment.

Regards,
JR

JRoque250
Hi,
This thread is 17 pages long (so far) so forgive me for not reading every entry.
 
@Cakewalk Staff: Before I buy into the lifetime offer, do you have a published timeline for Sonar releases on Windows platform? More specifically, I want to know if there are 2 or 3 years of Sonar on Windows releases behind that "lifetime" commitment.

Regards,
JR

Just from the experience of the two years of subscription, there has been on average a monthly release of updates to the program.
 
In terms of the meaning of "lifetime" in terms of how long the program will survive as Sonar, it is anyone's guess. I assume since they are working on the Mac version now that they feel there will be a significant "lifetime" for Sonar. I really don't feel that they will offer a "lifetime" choice if they intend to dump the program in just a few years. Believe me, the community here would create quite a storm of criticism if that happened which would be equivalent to cutting their own throats.

JRoque250
Hi,
This thread is 17 pages long (so far) so forgive me for not reading every entry.
 
@Cakewalk Staff: Before I buy into the lifetime offer, do you have a published timeline for Sonar releases on Windows platform? More specifically, I want to know if there are 2 or 3 years of Sonar on Windows releases behind that "lifetime" commitment.

Regards,
JR

Cakewalk's Sonar product is ~20 years old at this point.  I don't remember exactly when Sonar itself came out, but that is a pretty good ballpark of what I remember.  
 
The question you are asking really boils down to "Is Cake going to be in business for at least 3 years"  None of us know for sure, but it is safe to assume we all expect them to be.  It has been a long road to get to this point, and clearly they are doing some great things right now.  Do you really think they are going to invest in the Mac platform development and then abandon everything in 3 years?  I certainly don't think that is a logical question to ask.