Unless it's different in your region (?) my understanding is that maintenance can only be maintained until their expiry, not extended - subscription is the only model moving forward - and so then it's a question of "saving" by getting the disproportionately-expensive Revit-only, or sucking up the "great deal" (read: trap*) of a collection.


*I'm wagering Autodesk are you using honey-pot tactics to coax all to their rebranded version of the BDSP - which, presently, cost for cost, is a better deal compared to the artificially-stagnant-high-price of lone Revit.... but then, come the retirement of any Revit-only product will turn on the customer base and say, "hey, we've given you 10+ products there, that's a lot for not a lot, we've had a rethink, we reckon we could milk you some more..."

It's why I've heard many are exploring alternative applications/deployment strategies - because the uncertainty is very real - and the costs are spiralling without check in the software world (see Adobe) all whilst offering very little and/or pushing us all where we don't want to go (read: cloud, and see OpenAsset & Newforma).

I'm all for paying the right price for the right tool, and as ever I'll restate: the annual cost of even the priciest Autodesk package, when considered as a daily cost against your fee rate, remains fairly insignificant - but it still smarts when Autodesk think it just to squeeze us for more when they've given us so very little in return.

Interesting to see some discussion of this.

My 3 year BDSP maintenance deal is up and I've opted to switch to subscription at the same cost per annum (for now) because as Hirvio mentions Autodesk are saying that maintenance deals will increase in cost substantially in future years.

Compared to BDSP the subscription seems to give me access (as a single user) to a wider range of Autodesk software - rather like my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (although that feels much better value).

FWIW I've been elsewhere than Autodesk with software over the years and still keep licences for older versions of CAD packages such as Nemetschek's Allplan but the pain of changing your daily used software makes any change very difficult - but not impossible

We rolled everything over to the IC last fall when we renewed. We had a handful of BDSP Suites and several IC seats that were purchased after BDSP was no longer available and maintaining it all separately sucks. Of course - the seats we rolled over have a different serial than the seats that were already IC (due to pricing differences) but at least everyone has the same base software offerings. Changing your installed products from BDSP to IC is a miserable pain in the ass, since you can't change the product ID without uninstalling and reinstalling (unless you have a network license) :banghead: At least once everything is the same product changing the serial is fairly easy.

Im in a similar boat, where i have two licenses of BDSU. They wanted me to move to the AECC. Even WITH the price increases they showed us detailing our increasing subscription costs for the next 4 years, keeping my copies of BDSU for the next 4 years still works out to be cheaper than moving to the IC. And the IC takes away Inventor (not happy about that) and gives me Civil 3D (i dont use it currently). So- while the cost difference isnt much of a concern for me (they are fairly close), the software change is making me wait.

Obviously new licenses for us will be AECC, but im hanging on to the BDSU's as well.

Whilst CS does offer, by some margin, a far more established, robust, and mature collection of applications (for media work) than Autodesk's collections do (for AECO work) I still feel Adobe's price-hiking smacks of profiteering.

Subscription/hosted-service models are always sold with the argument they will simplify/eradicate distribution overheads and streamline/centralise development - but what's never admitted - but patently obvious - is that the cost savings are for the developer, not the customer, and that capitalistic tendencies of companies require income revenue to always show growth - hence the incremental creep on subscription cost being pushed back to users. I would not be surprised in a few years time to see certain features being "offered" as DLC - and pay-to-play is killing the AAA game industry.

This is exactly what I'm not looking forward to.

sound in theory, save we/they had "that" already, it's their moving the goalposts that's screwed everything... and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop them doing the same again.

re. Adobe Creative Cloud, the thing that saves me a lot of money is being able to have 2 installs on the one licence now - Mac and PC - previously I had to buy a licence for each OS.

Doesn't really apply to A'desk products though

Actually, the Adobe costs irk me way more than the Autodesk ones. Frankly, with Autodesk, its not the cost at all. I just want to be able to pick the platforms in an a la Carte fashion, and ill happy pay the IC fees.

But, i also use those platforms every day. Admittedly, i would go in PS or Illustrator maybe once a month, maybe twice. Its hard to pay 70 a month for two apps id use MAYBE three times a month. But yeah... when you need something to work right you can burn some serious hours trying to hodgepodge it.

I had made do with GIMP until last week, when some folks turned me on to Inkscape, which works completely in Vector. I barely know how to use it thus far, but its great. And it works natively in CMYK, which puts it above GIMP. The plugs and steps for color separation in GIMP were sucking hard, especially since it wouldnt export PDF's without jacking up text. So, Inkscape it is. Avoiding paying Adobe for another year, at least.

I spotted your tweet on such and installed it there and then, but haven't launched it yet.

I hear you about paying out so much for CS as a casual user - and I imagine "most" Architect-y types are the same... but again, this is one of those crushing realities of the kind of work WE do: Adobe gets as much action as Autodesk.

<whimpers-away-shaking-head>

Yeah, for sure. If i used it day in and day out, i would pony up and just get the Adobe Suite. I really despise people who are stingy about having the right tool, when it helps them do their core business. But for me, i only use graphics software for two things:

1. Making marketing material (infrequently, like printing flyers or business cards, etc)
2. Making Boot graphics (infrequently, less than 4 times a year).

If i was in an architecture firm still, i wouldnt even question it. I just cant cough it up for Business Cards and Notepads. Inkscape is great, and the files are WAY better, but truth be told: My first PRLX business cards were made in MS Word, and no one can spot the difference, LOL.