Feel free to ignore if you want, but I felt like it might be helpful to describe my experience.
The current subscription and pricing model for Object Desktop, or other software like WindowBlinds 11, makes it hard to recommend.
I personally am on a Classic subscription for $20/year. This is an awesome deal. I really am happy with it, and will probably be a lifelong supporter as long as I can keep this deal.
Being able to spend $20/year for updates if I want, but also able to continue using the last version if I can't afford to renew it, makes this very reliable and worth spending my money on. I really appreciate it.
At $40, that's pretty steep. I could somewhat get away with suggesting that to people under the pretense that if they want to, they can continue to use their last version in perpetuity after the year of support is up. But the new subscription model no longer allows for this.
And speaking for myself, $20/year is not a bad price at all that I don't mind paying for updates.
But $40/year or lockout? For most of my friend group, that's not a good deal. It's too much to swallow and so, despite seeing all the cool things I can do with Windowblinds and Start and Groupy, etc., it's just not something they're willing to bite on.
Anyway, if your sales are still going well, then all this is pretty irrelevant. But if we did have a cheaper price OR if the license allowed perpetual use again, I would have an easier time convincing friends to give it a go.
You are talking to the guy (me) who still has not forgiven Fox for canceling Firefly... Twenty plus years I have been holding that grudge, PhoenixRising1
Sean DrohanStardock Product Lifecycle Manager
I have not been thinking about that for a while, until now...
I am pretty sure that is one thing everyone here will agree on. Probably the worst cancellation of all time.
Typical software experiences a major upgrade every two years. I will use Microsoft 365 as an example here. A subscription for Microsoft 365 Family costs $106.99 US. per year. This includes 6 licensed users with access to updates and upgrades, as well as, 1TB of Cloud storage for each user. That breaks down to $17.83 US per year, per user. On the other hand, a permanent license for Microsoft 365, single user costs $249.99 US. If you divide that by the typical upgrade cycle of two years, that's $124.99 per year, per user. Even if you are able to use it effectively for five years, that's $49.99 US per user, per year.
So, by comparison, the Microsoft 365 Family subscription at $17.83 per year, per user, which is a total of $89.18 US per user, for five years saves you $160.81 US.
Now, let's consider the costs involved with Object Desktop. The subscription cost is $39.99 US per year for five active installs (users). That breaks down to $7.99 US per user, per year. If you calculate the permanent license costs for just the most popular titles, Start11, Groupy, DeskScapes, Fences, and ObjectDock, The cost would be approximately $43.95 US. If you divide that by the typical upgrade cycle of two years, that's $21.97 US per year, per user. Even if you are able to use it effectively for five years, that's $8.79 US per user, per year.
So, by comparison, the Object Desktop subscription at $7.99 US per user, per year, which is a total of $39.99 US per user, for five years saves you $3.96 US.
Both Microsoft 365 and Object Desktop stop working after the subscription term.
In my opinion, the math above shows the the subscription model is less expensive than the permanent license. However, if you are only going to use a single license (one user), the permanent license is the way to go, assuming its actual life cycle is five years. With the Windows OS in 2024, a five year life cycle is really asking a bit much from any software.
You are correct. Mathematically, it makes more sense to do a saas lease with these programs and that is the problem. The cost of ownership is going up to a number that is higher then it would otherwise be so people are more apt to "choose the better value for their money". That comes across more as business psychology then anything else to me.
Now if a company can be subtle enough with this tactic I do in fact feel less negatively about it.
As Sean said,
Predictability of the revenue stream for a software company, or really any company, is more beneficial than maximizing profits. In other words, Stardock is willing to forgo some profit in order to be able to predict their revenue stream.
It's actually a Win-Win for Stardock and the end user. Stardock is able to better plan their future projects and the end user saves money.
I'm not understanding this point. Nothing has come down in price. The best that stradock has to offer is still classic object desktop if you are a consumer.
Okay. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.
Ditto here, Sean.
REAL Subscription models in Commercial circles... AutoDesk Revit.
Stops working when you stop subscribing. All you can subsequently do is read, not write.
Price....$7000 AUD per annum ....per single user....
I think I am in the wrong business.
I wish I grew up to be a software engineer. Talk about a valued career!
Trying not to get too far off-topic (forgive me orocrimson) but I cant resist here.
With how AI is progressing, the value of being a skilled writer with sound logical thought habits - thus being able to craft to-the-point but complete, plain language prompts - has the tools available now for them to be able to create apps. I can say this with confidence as I have done it with several projects here.
Does it help that I have some programming (hacker-ish) knowledge? Of course, but it mainly just helps accelerate what is already possible without it. The only thing holding back the floodgates is the rather limited 'memory' AI has of any given conversation. With that (current) limitation, one needs to 'see the big picture' but chop it up into digestible blocks to present to the AI model (hence 'good writing + logical thought skills').
That said, someone with passion, sound deductive logic skills, and good writing habits can produce valuable stuff with AI.
AI sure is a major double edge sword. I have no doubt AI along with robotics is going to end up putting some people of a job in a lot of sectors. But, resistance is futile. The safest thing to do right now is to fully embrace AI because those who get to it first will benefit from it the most. As you pointed out there may be new opportunity for people to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do such as an app creation.
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