Best Explanation I Have Heard for Subscription/Support Model

[upscaps]

Convo between Bob (always insightful) and EJ. We shall see how this works out. It's coming. IMO, if you are on PT Vanilla, logic/cubase should be in your immediate future. Rent PT vanilla, for $19.99, when you need to do transfers. No one currently knows what will happen to HDX/HD users if we let support lapse. Or if we get discounts for multiple HDX/HD rigs. So no need to go down that road in this thread yet again. It's in enough threads.

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Their corporate users are already on service contracts so this doesn't increase their cost while the incremental upgrades are likely to improve the quality of Pro Tools. While this will turn off many of the home MIDI crowd, the rental plan will probably bring in many new users, especially those doing audio for video. There has been a revolution in inexpensive video production that is comparable to how the introduction of MIDI changed music during the '80s.

I had a very long chat with one of my guys at avid/digi today. Albeit the subscription model is something that will need to be "tweaked" as it goes along ,there are some very good advantages as Bob described above. Basically, this is how it was explained to me:

Every time avid wants to add a new feature it has to sit on that new feature until it has enough new features to make a major release. Let's say for arguments sake, avid 15 new features. By the time they have the 15 new features and release it, they realize that the implementation of new feature number 13 broke something in new feature number 2 or some feature that has be in protools since 2006. This way by adding new features ala carte, the can add more features that are fully tested in smaller numbers that are also less likely to break anything that is currently working.

If this is the case and works as planned it could be a really good thing as the insightful and more experienced Mr. Olhsson previously stated.

ej

[JCBigler]

Has any new version of Protools ever been released with 15 new features?

Usually it's one or two really big new features along with one or two smaller less important new features and a handful of bug fixes (which I don't think should count as new features).

[upscaps]

Originally Posted by JCBigler

Has any new version of Protools ever been released with 15 new features?

Usually it's one or two really big new features along with one or two smaller less important new features and a handful of bug fixes (which I don't think should count as new features).

You took the convo totally different than I did. The "for arguments sake 15 new features" was immaterial to the substance to me.

[Bill Denton]

Actually, this aspect of the "service plan model" has been thoroughly explained several times both by me and by others.

And, actually, what you posted shows you drawing some incorrect conclusions.

The "service contracts" Bob Olhsson referenced are totally different from what is currently being discussed.

What Bob was referencing was service contracts offered by Avid to their large customers, wherein "Joe's Post House" pays Avid "X" dollars per month/year to keep their 200 Avid systems running.

If "Joe's Post House" were huge, Avid might even have a service engineer permanently "on site" at "Joe's Post House". The service engineer would be employed by Avid, but every morning, they would go to work at "Joe's Post House". (BTW...I don't know if Avid specifically has these types of arrangements with any of their customers, but they are quite common in various industries, so I would not be surprised if Avid does...perhaps Bob can advise us on this.)

The point Bob was making is that "large" customers are used to and comfortable with paying Avid a monthly/annual fee for service...and change in terms or a slight change in pricing is not going to bother them.

Bob Olhsson also mentioned "incremental upgrades"...this is something that will affect all Pro Tools users.

Again, as others and I have posted, the "service plan" model Avid is moving to has been quite common for decades among vendors of high-end professional software.

Under this model, there are no "fixed" release dates, such as every two months or every quarter or whatever. With the "incremental upgrades" Bob mentioned, when the coding and testing for a fix or new feature is complete, it is made available immediately, instead of having to wait for some arbitrary "release date".

And while Avid has not yet mentioned doing it, this "incremental upgrade" concept leads to "versionless" software. Instead of having PT 11.1.2 and PT 11.1.3, you might have PT-Build 5389 or PT-Build 5390. Again, Avid hasn't said they would be doing this, but it is quite common with the "incremental upgrade" model.

Note that all of the above applies only to the "service plan" licensing model.

There is also the newly-introduced "rental" model, which, as Bob Olhsson also noted, is ideal for those who only need Pro Tools from time to time.

Consider someone who writes "music for video", and needs to provide stems and other "deliverables" in Pro Tools.

He/she might spend three months writing the music in DAW "C", their preferred composing tool, then rent Pro Tools for a month to create the deliverables.

Or, consider the rise of "virtual corporations", which are created for one tour by a band. They do the tour, then they are dissolved. It might be advantageous to rent Pro Tools for a year to record the tour, then let it, too, dissolve at the end.

Avid has done a terrible job of explaining all of these changes...I hope what I have written, using the invaluable input of Bob Olhsson, will make it a bit more understandable...

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by upscaps

Convo between Bob (always insightful) and EJ. We shall see how this works out. It's coming. IMO, if you are on PT Vanilla, logic/cubase should be in your immediate future. Rent PT vanilla, for $19.99, when you need to do transfers. No one currently knows what will happen to HDX/HD users if we let support lapse. Or if we get discounts for multiple HDX/HD rigs. So no need to go down that road in this thread yet again. It's in enough threads.

For me my immediate future is Digital Performer who just announced DP9 at NAMM. $495 US for DP8 and $395 US if you have a qualifying product to use as an upgrade crutch. And there's so much that qualifies it's insane. Heck even Sony Soundforge which is not a daw qualifies.

[Park Seward]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

Or, consider the rise of "virtual corporations", which are created for one tour by a band. They do the tour, then they are dissolved. It might be advantageous to rent Pro Tools for a year to record the tour, then let it, too, dissolve at the end.

Yes, this has been done for years by motion picture and television shows. When I spec an equipment package for a TV series, everything is rented. That is advantageous for tax purposes as well as not having to worry about repairs or what to do with al the stuff when the corporation dissolves. It also can make sure all equipment is new and current.

There are companies in LA that have over 100 Avid video editing systems available for rent. And when they become outdated, they are then sold at a large discount or auctioned to make capital available for new purchases.

[@tention]

Originally Posted by upscaps

Convo between Bob (always insightful) and EJ. We shall see how this works out. It's coming. IMO, if you are on PT Vanilla, logic/cubase should be in your immediate future. Rent PT vanilla, for $19.99, when you need to do transfers. No one currently knows what will happen to HDX/HD users if we let support lapse. Or if we get discounts for multiple HDX/HD rigs. So no need to go down that road in this thread yet again. It's in enough threads.

Sorry, but that is marketing BS, imho.

They need money NOW and they don't actually have a lot to offer. PT 12's feature set is pathetic, with a few functions that hardly anybody wants. Nothing from Ideascale has been implemented (apart from freeze) and 11 is still heavily bug ridden.

Let's just hope they lose enough customers to force them back to reason....

I'm NOT going to pay 600 Euros per year to go into a forced subscription, no way AVID!

[JCBigler]

Sorry, but this monthly rental scheme is retarded.

Protools is far too unstable and finicky about hardware and third party software compatibility to deal with on a month by month basis.

You're going to spend the first month of your rental installing Protools and all of your plugins and getting your optimizations right. Then what? You're going to go off the rental and not touch it for another six months. And then you'll have a project come up and you'll have to spend another three or four days getting your system back up to spec with the current software or new plugins that you need to use.

Even if Avid was able to double down on their software quality and compatibility, they won't be able to make it to that level of quality. They would have to, literally, implement an exponential increase in their quality control.

And they can't do that with upper management who have never seen the inside of a DAW or NLE and all of their programmers in eastern Europe.

[Michael Zull]

I was thinking the same thing earlier. I don't mind the amount of work that is sometimes needed to get a rig updated and stable, but a constantly moving target with a subscription service seems like it would be a stability disaster and user time sink.

[Josh Voyles]

Originally Posted by JCBigler

Sorry, but this monthly rental scheme is retarded.

Protools is far too unstable and finicky about hardware and third party software compatibility to deal with on a month by month basis.

You're going to spend the first month of your rental installing Protools and all of your plugins and getting your optimizations right. Then what? You're going to go off the rental and not touch it for another six months. And then you'll have a project come up and you'll have to spend another three or four days getting your system back up to spec with the current software or new plugins that you need to use.

Even if Avid was able to double down on their software quality and compatibility, they won't be able to make it to that level of quality. They would have to, literally, implement an exponential increase in their quality control.

And they can't do that with upper management who have never seen the inside of a DAW or NLE and all of their programmers in eastern Europe.

When Adobe released their subscription plan a lot of people were upset. However, I was on that plan the the support and updates were industry leading. I always felt like I was like I was on the cutting edge and everything was rock solid.

Now enter Pro Tools. I pretty much agree with the posts above. PT12 seems more like a 11.4 update rather than a new software version and PT in general is not as rock solid as Avid would like to think it is. I've had PT11 playback engine errors during rehearsal and it's always embarrassing playing back the song for the band with a chunk missing.