License to Die?

Channel partners are apprehensive about Autodesk's shift from perpetual to subscription based licensing: it might the channel redundant

An American multinational software corporation, Autodesk that makes software for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, and entertainment industries has recently decided transitioning from perpetual software license to subscription-based options. For many individual desktop software products, Autodesk
will end the sale of new perpetual licenses after January 31, 2016.

Autodesk plans to discontinue the sale of new perpetual licenses in all countries globally where Autodesk software is available for most individual desktop software products like 3ds Max, 3ds Max with Softimage, Auto-CAD, AutoCAD for Mac and many more.

Autodesk customers have long asked for greater flexibility and more value from their software, and the shift to Desktop Subscription allows Autodesk to deliver both. With Desktop Subscription customer get a simplified product management and deployment experience. Plus, it’s easier to introduce new tools or a greater number of seats into a project with lower upfront cost and the ability to pay.

“An existing subscriber will, however, be able to continue using his existing perpetual
licenses. For a software that is on Maintenance Subscription, the subscriber will retain access to the benefits and stay up-to-date by keeping the Maintenance Subscription current. Products impacted by this change include AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, and 3ds Max”, says Jeff Wright, vice-president, customer engagement, Autodesk.

Autodesk is also taking care about those costumers already has a perpetual license or
purchases a new perpetual license at any time through Jan 31, 2016, that license doesn’t go away. They still retain the perpetual license to that software and can continue to use it
in accordance with their perpetual license agreement. If the software product is covered
by Maintenance Subscription, they will also continue to receive their Maintenance Subscription benefits.

Autodesk is doing several things to make the transition to Desktop Subscription as smooth as possible for customers. They are providing the time needed to assess options
and make plans by providing a full year of advance notice of changes to come. Also
Autodesk allows Maintenance Subscribers to continue to renew their Maintenance Subscriptions and receive/access the benefits of their Maintenance Subscription. They also provides the ability to lock in your subscription rate by introducing the option of a multiyear Desktop Subscription offering Channel partners are not really satisfied
after Adobe decided to move on to Subscription based licensing. Partners also fear that
it will affect there business drastically. Some also have a view that it will be costly for customers.

“Prior to subscription based licensing, software companies didn’t have regular source
of revenue. Companies have to find a way to earn regular revenue and they have come up
with the option of Subscription based licensing. The benefit of perpetual licensing mainly
goes to the vendor but vendors also assure that partners get some benefit out of it” said
Alok Gupta from Softmart

“There is also a possibility that after a vendor receives full details of a customer, there
will be no need of channel partner. It affects the business and therefore will decrease business viability overtime”, Gupta expressed his concern.

Subscription based licensing is becoming popular as each and every vendor is moving to cloud as it is giving them a lot of money. There is only a single benefit that lies only to the vendor. Subscription based licensing will reduce the offline market but the bottomline is assured. It will be costly for customers too, in perpetual licensing you just have to buy once and you own it for lifetime but in subscription based licensing, you will have to buy it from time to time even if you don’t need it” said Harwinder Salwan from Tricom Multimedia.