The Grim
the request for confidentiality was quite obvious
 
i haven't found it confusing or chaotic. it seemed quite strait forward and explained, not to mention a pretty awesome jesture and deal for the users.

 I also found it obvious from the email, what they were asking. The offer and announcement was for our eyes only. Cakewalk had their reasons for making this offer to a specific group of users.

Vern C
I am a Platinum user from the day it came out and I just resubscribed for another year about a month ago. How would this work? I'm paying another $99 right after just doing it a month ago that will go into affect once the current subscription is up? How does that work? It is just a little deflating that I just paid $99 for another year when there's now supposedly $99 for a lifetime membership. :/

If you had not renewed for $99 a month ago, your offer for lifetime would have been $199, not $99. So actually you are saving $1 ;).

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

subtlearts
... In any case, while this episode has been instructive on many levels, and maybe could/should have been predicted, and clearly created a lot of unexpected work and management (some might call it Damage Control), it has also resulted in a bunch of people who otherwise might not have gotten the message, sending you a bunch of money. So that part worked out at least! 

You'll be happy to know that this indeed did help us tighten the process and we fixed thousands of records. And I was just kidding, thus the :)

I am indeed happy to hear that, and I figured you were not chastising me or anything... Looking forward to the 1st!

So... are you telling me to NOT buy a new studio computer before 1st of June? Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, Mac Mac?..

Donald Duck Trump is an hologram?
 

The level of absurd speculation following this announcement is breathtaking. A company with an extraordinary track record of customer commitment offers lifetime updates to one of the longest established DAW's on the market at a bargain price, and people still complain! Seriously folks - it's a no brainer, and you even have until August 31st to save your pennies.
 
Thanks Cakewalk - you really are the best:)

From all worries about Cakewalk future in this thread, the only one which is based on facts is:

singerNow
I know one thing for sure:  Cakewalk closed their phone lines for tech support.  What does this indicate about the company?

It was down for weeks already. CW officials are closely monitoring this and other threads where that was mentioned, yet there was no single comment about that issue...
 
Before "book a call" was all the time empty. The picture is different now:

Oh no! All of our agents are booked!

We're sorry about that! We'll do our best to get more times available for scheduling calls as soon as possible. Please check back soon.
Phone support booked? Send an email to our support staff instead.

All agents are booked for (there or Sonar) lifetime?
 
Note that as I have thought when it was first announced, new users do not have phone support at all till they successfully register the product, and the registration problems are obviously most painful: you try to get the product and you can not. I personally do not need any support from CW at the moment, but in case I need it and can not get it within reasonable time (with money related glitches I am not patient), I so far has abandoned any future operations with such companies, does not matter how good the product was/is and how long I was stuck with that product. I really do not want that happened with CW.
 

tenfoot
The level of absurd speculation following this announcement is breathtaking. A company with an extraordinary track record of customer commitment offers lifetime updates to one of the longest established DAW's on the market at a bargain price, and people still complain! Seriously folks - it's a no brainer, and you even have until August 31st to save your pennies.
 
Thanks Cakewalk - you really are the best:)

The reason for that is because people are not stupid.  When something sounds too good to be true - it usually is!

SilverBlueMedallion

tenfoot
The level of absurd speculation following this announcement is breathtaking. A company with an extraordinary track record of customer commitment offers lifetime updates to one of the longest established DAW's on the market at a bargain price, and people still complain! Seriously folks - it's a no brainer, and you even have until August 31st to save your pennies.
 
Thanks Cakewalk - you really are the best:)

The reason for that is because people are not stupid.  When something sounds too good to be true - it usually is!

I am happy to give Cakewalk the benefit of the doubt.  I think they have earned that with how well they have managed the subscription process. The deal of paying 2 years to get service "forever" is probably a good deal.  But it also implies that there will be much less provided under this program in the future.  The direction has already been moving toward separately priced products.  This seems to be the business model that Gibson sees at this stage of the product life, and they are taking preemptive action to avoid the debate about the ongoing value of the subscription model.
 
This is really not too different from what Microsoft is doing with Win 10.  While making the OS "free for life" for long-term users who happen to have the right equipment, they are locking in an ecosystem where they can sell a lot of 3rd party apps, with Microsoft getting a cut off of each app sale.  Plus Microsoft still gets some revenue from OEM sales of devices that are delivered with Windows.
 
I am not saying this is malicious, devious, evil or anything else.  But it is not the same as the past and anybody who wants to argue that things will just roll merrily along with no change to the business model probably isn't thinking this through all the way.

No email here either. Could you check mine?
Thanks.