EPIC-ness sold separately.
 
I would probably buy a Cakewalk Sonar X Pro Complete package that included ALL the ProChannel plugins, but I can wait for sales.  I have bought Sonar X1 Pro, X2 Pro, X3 Pro but I have yet to buy any of the separate ProChannel plugins. 

I think the idea is that as DAWS have matured, there is less  and less reason to upgrade.  It may be that a subscription model will be the only way for them to guarantee steady income and buffer against market trends/seasons/etc.  With cheap daws like Reaper, pricing a full featured daw is difficult.  Thankfully sonar is ahead of the others in UI features, but the others will catch up eventually and there will be even less to differentiate them.
 
I LIKE the idea of using old hardware and software.  I think it would be really cool if I was still using X3 in ten years time.  ALthough if they introduce touch enhancements I would be enticed to upgrade.
 
 

MachineClaw
EPIC-ness sold separately.
 
I would probably buy a Cakewalk Sonar X Pro Complete package that included ALL the ProChannel plugins, but I can wait for sales.  I have bought Sonar X1 Pro, X2 Pro, X3 Pro but I have yet to buy any of the separate ProChannel plugins. 

If the store were smart enough to detect which plugins you already own and adjust the price accordingly, I would be down for that. I don't want to pay for plugins I already own.

I'm glad to see the sarcasm die down. It's no fun to try and suggest ideas or insert hopeful food for thought only to have it be merely regarded as humor. I appreciate the humor, but it certainly downplays a (hopefully) good point.

Sarcasm implies some implied negativity and I didn't see that myself quite the opposite. Mind you I haven't read the whole thread either... There are a lot of posts and a lot of opinions!!! (that seems healthy to me).

200bpm
I think the idea is that as DAWS have matured, there is less  and less reason to upgrade.  It may be that a subscription model will be the only way for them to guarantee steady income and buffer against market trends/seasons/etc.

Everyone seems to be forgetting the new user.  If I were Cakewalk, that's the only one I'd be thinking about.
 

Very good point Paul.

Great point, indeed. And I think that was a point Waves conceded to. Although it was in the form of WUP, I'm betting they realized they were stalled somewhat to work on VST3 and 64-Bit plug-ins (for example), so they couldn't spend much time on generating new plug-ins to sell and keep the cash flow coming in. I believe that having a steady income is better and easier on the books than trying to predict the outcome of a next release.

Paul P
 
Everyone seems to be forgetting the new user.

I can promise you that Cakewalk is not forgetting the new user. Having SONAR X3 for $99 with unlimited tracks, inserts, buses, video support, etc. has picked up a LOT of new users. 
 
New users are where to grab market share, not trying to convince someone they should give up their multi-thousand dollar investment in Pro Tools (and investment in the learning curve) and switch to SONAR.
 
 

OK for a quick word about subscription software and my limited experience with it. I am on the monthly subscription with Adobe and an annual rate. If you want out before your 12 months is up you must payout the remaining monthly subscriptions. CC2014 is constantly updated with fixes (am I a paying beta tester?) along with annoying things like insisting my TRIAL time is expired, which requires a login to fix the problem. The annoyances with the sub model of Adobe are becoming less buggy, notwithstanding the improvements I have actual firsthand knowledge of people going back to CS6 and a lot of anecdotal info others are doing it also. The people I am talking about all use Adobe for work I am in it until September 2015, then I must make a decision on what to do.

Many new software programs have released new versions that in combination with other programs and plugins can replicate much of the Photoshop functions. So while some expensive software programs have moved to the sub model it appears that Adobe have opened the door to other companies who just have a perpetual one off licence price. Of course you still have to pay for upgrades.

This is the dilemma cake will have to face - that is, customers moving to other software without a sub model.

Piracy and subscriptions - if you trawl through many a forum you will find reverse engineered latest versions of Adobe products along with full instructions on how to remove the sub programmes. Thus it appears as fast as Adobe make code changes the reversers release an illegal version, my point being subscription does not stop piracy, it is speculatively the opposite - increase piracy.


All of the above regarding subscription software is largely speculative and any change by cake would assume they have researched the model and we will have to wait and see what is the outcome of their research.