Geezuz, can we can someone to start locking all these threads? There's no fewer than FIVE "wah wah wah, I'm dubious about Cake's motives" threads going on right now. 

Anderton

joden
I would appreciate them not trying to be so "buddy-buddy" about it, as if all of us (users) and all of them were somehow part of one big "family" all looking out for each other.

So you want us to lie. Duly noted. 
 
You are certainly free to exempt yourself from being part of a family where everyone looks out for each other. Those who do feel like part of a family will continue to do so. 
 
Cakewalk is tiny part of Gibson. Cakewalk could fall off the earth tomorrow and it wouldn't make one iota of difference to Gibson Brands, except after the people at corporate eventually realized that it had fallen off the earth, it would make life easier because it would be one less division to track. Anyone who thinks that the profit motive was Gibson's reason for acquiring Cakewalk knows absolutely nothing about business. Even if Cakewalk was the biggest software company in the music industry its contribution to Gibson Brands' bottom line would still be negligible.
 
This is me speaking - not Cakewalk, not Gibson - but it's incredibly sad that people are so cynical they can't accept that a company truly believes that the only pathway to true success is to have happy customers. To think that Gibson and Cakewalk are simply out to "get" their users flies in the face of everything that's happened since X3 was introduced.
 
And I'm not even going to get into how much good Gibson has brought to the world through the Gibson Foundation, which does charitable work around the world and whose administrative costs are borne completely by Gibson, not the Foundation. When you buy something from Gibson Brands you are buying clean water for African children, helping cancer victims, those fighting muscular dystrophy, the blind, MusiCares, and a whole lot more...all because Gibson's CEO thinks it's important to give back. And he won't even talk it up because he's doing it to give back, not get credit. He might even chastise me for this rant if he sees it.
 
Some people do give a damn.
 
 
 

You are right on though !Im glad you spoke your mind

I dunno about locking, but most of this stuff probably belongs in the store forum.

I propose to make a Forum Future request, we need two special boards:
1) "For Crystall Ball users only..." with the first post "something is coming... I see it!",
2) and "Conspiracy theory" with the first post "The real third announcement: Cakewalk has signed a pact with Evil to fight with users!"
 
Then we can sort all posts from all these threads between these two boards

Why does everyone feel they have to even reply? One reply with the word "No!" should suffice.

superdan54

bapu

superdan54
Well in one sense I think the OP is correct. Platinum as we know it now, is already being retired. And by that I mean that the tiered system where we pay more per year to get more extras (synths, fx & tools) is going by the wayside. The lifetime updates pretty clearly stated that only core features will be included in free monthly updates. 

What you have failed to recognize, IMO, is that CW staffers have CLEARLY stated here in this forum that the annual plan we know today is NOT going away. They have simply added a $99 lifetime updates plan for those Platinum users that bought in Jan 2015 and purchased a renewal in 2016. They also have a $199 for Platinum users who just bought in either in 2016 or just now. Added bonus anyone wanting to upgrade to lifetime Platinum (from Artist or Pro) can do so for the upgrade cost + $199. All of those life time update options go away on August 31. 
 
The annual Platinum with all bells and whistles is NOT going away. Any Platinum user can opt stay that way. No gun to anyone's head.

I know they have said that SONAR will still be available as an annual plan, but have they said that all three SONAR flavors will be available? If so, that could really get confusing. You'd have one subset of Platinum owners who would be getting Platinum only features automatically, and another set of Platinum owners who wouldn't, since the lifetime membership only includes Core features.

All Platinum owners get the same updates and features. If you are an active member, the updates will be the same as the lifetime. Only difference is lifetime means you get all future updates to SONAR. Artist and Professional are still under membership and lifetime updates are exclusive to Platinum.
 
 

Tripecac
Please correct me if I have these dates wrong:
 
Sonar X3 was launched in September 2013.  Its last update (X3e) was March 2014.  Therefore, its "lifetime" support (in terms of updates) was effectively 6 months.
 
Sonar X2 was launched in September 2012, and last updated in March 2013 (again, 6 months).
 
Sonar X1 was launched in December 2010, and last updated February 2012 (14 months).
 
The entire "X" series lasted from December 2010 to March 2014, which was 3 years 3 months.
 
Sonar Platinum was released in January 2015.  After about 1 year 5 months Cakewalk [apparently] realized they weren't making enough money from the subscription model, so are going back to the "lifetime updates" model.  Apparently.
 
To calculate whether the $199 "lifetime deal" is worth it, we need to estimate how many more months or years Sonar Platinum will be actively developed/maintained.  It if only lasts as long as X did, then we have less than 2 years left, so $199 is not worth it (compared to $99 per year, especially for those of us who have a lot of time left on our current subscription).  I guess we just have to cross our fingers that Platinum lasts [significantly] longer than X did.
 
Of course, it would be very frustrating if we pay for Platinum's "lifetime" updates now, and then a year or two from now, Cakewalk retires Sonar Platinum and instead releases a new product (which doesn't count as an "update" and therefore requires us to pay all over again). 
 
Or. what if Cakewalk starts deliberately packaging updates with paid add-ons?  "Sorry, but to get that Piano Roll bug fixed, you have to buy the new version of Dimension Pro."  Or even "If you don't like the current piano roll, then buy our new Advanced Piano Roll plugin, for only $19.99".  In other words, micropayments.
 
What are Cakewalk's options?  Can they really afford to give us free updates every year, for 5, 10, 15, 20 years?  With no requirement for us to ever pay them again?  Hmm...
 
Until now, Cakewalk has gotten about $100 a year from me, just on Sonar upgrades.  Something tells me it's EXTREMELY unlikely that they will accept 2 years' advance payment and in return enslave themselves to us for the rest of their (and our) natural lives.
 
So how will they survive, as a company?  Will they resort to ads, embedded in parts of the Sonar UI?
 
What road will Cakewalk take?  And when?
 
What is Sonar Platinum's life expectancy?

Any guesses?

Let me just squash this right now. There's no plan to retire SONAR Platinum. There's no plan to change the name and do a bait and switch. We've been in business for over 30 years and we try to do the right thing by customers. We still plan on making other products as well. We have been doing that for almost 30 years as well. SONAR is still very important to us which is why we are even more focused on making it better. 

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

Tripecac
Please correct me if I have these dates wrong:
 
Sonar X3 was launched in September 2013.  Its last update (X3e) was March 2014.  Therefore, its "lifetime" support (in terms of updates) was effectively 6 months.
 
Sonar X2 was launched in September 2012, and last updated in March 2013 (again, 6 months).
 
Sonar X1 was launched in December 2010, and last updated February 2012 (14 months).
 
The entire "X" series lasted from December 2010 to March 2014, which was 3 years 3 months.
 
Sonar Platinum was released in January 2015.  After about 1 year 5 months Cakewalk [apparently] realized they weren't making enough money from the subscription model, so are going back to the "lifetime updates" model.  Apparently.
 
To calculate whether the $199 "lifetime deal" is worth it, we need to estimate how many more months or years Sonar Platinum will be actively developed/maintained.  It if only lasts as long as X did, then we have less than 2 years left, so $199 is not worth it (compared to $99 per year, especially for those of us who have a lot of time left on our current subscription).  I guess we just have to cross our fingers that Platinum lasts [significantly] longer than X did.
 
Of course, it would be very frustrating if we pay for Platinum's "lifetime" updates now, and then a year or two from now, Cakewalk retires Sonar Platinum and instead releases a new product (which doesn't count as an "update" and therefore requires us to pay all over again). 
 
Or. what if Cakewalk starts deliberately packaging updates with paid add-ons?  "Sorry, but to get that Piano Roll bug fixed, you have to buy the new version of Dimension Pro."  Or even "If you don't like the current piano roll, then buy our new Advanced Piano Roll plugin, for only $19.99".  In other words, micropayments.
 
What are Cakewalk's options?  Can they really afford to give us free updates every year, for 5, 10, 15, 20 years?  With no requirement for us to ever pay them again?  Hmm...
 
Until now, Cakewalk has gotten about $100 a year from me, just on Sonar upgrades.  Something tells me it's EXTREMELY unlikely that they will accept 2 years' advance payment and in return enslave themselves to us for the rest of their (and our) natural lives.
 
So how will they survive, as a company?  Will they resort to ads, embedded in parts of the Sonar UI?
 
What road will Cakewalk take?  And when?
 
What is Sonar Platinum's life expectancy?

Any guesses?

Let me just squash this right now. There's no plan to retire SONAR Platinum. There's no plan to change the name and do a bait and switch. We've been in business for over 30 years and we try to do the right thing by customers. We still plan on making other products as well. We have been doing that for almost 30 years as well. SONAR is still very important to us which is why we are even more focused on making it better. 

Andrew, you could say this 1,000 times in 1,000 different threads, and then some people would start posting "Why does Andrew keep telling us that SONAR is very important to Cakewalk and not going away? He would not be doing this if there wasn't something to cover up!"
 
Just sayin.' Go to the "January 2015" drawer in your office's file cabinet, and put these kinds of posts in the same file folders as "Cakewalk will never deliver monthly updates," "Cakewalk has no incentive to deliver any monthly updates now that they have our membership money," and "Cakewalk will be out of business within one year of being acquired by Gibson."

dcumpian

abacab
One word: Adobe ...
 
Words cannot express what I really think about their Monthly/Annual plan for the "Creative Cloud". It is an all you eat buffet of all their creative applications, from Photoshop and Illustrator, to their web & publishing tools. You can download and use them all, similar to CCC.  They are an "industry standard" for graphics professionals, so many depend on them for the tools of their trade.
 
Their monthly pricing for all that sounds great at first look.  But there's a catch. Stop paying and your software stops working.

Yep. I like that model so much that I forked out $299 for Capture One.
 
Dan

Q-Who invented ransomware?: A- Adobe

Anderton
Andrew, you could say this 1,000 times in 1,000 different threads, and then some people would start posting "Why does Andrew keep telling us that SONAR is very important to Cakewalk and not going away? He would not be doing this if there wasn't something to cover up!"
 
Just sayin.' Go to the "January 2015" drawer in your office's file cabinet, and put these kinds of posts in the same file folders as "Cakewalk will never deliver monthly updates," "Cakewalk has no incentive to deliver any monthly updates now that they have our membership money," and "Cakewalk will be out of business within one year of being acquired by Gibson."

This may be true Craig, and I understand your frustration, but I have to say the details of the lifetime deal have taken a while to be clarified. It is not just the tin foil hat brigade that have had questions; it is also some very loyal users including forum hosts. It is much easier to accept change when you have all of the information. The  'pre huge, no, big announcement announcements' fuelling speculation did not help the process.