3 paid software upgrades in less than 12 months!

[NK]

Ok, I just purchased 7.2 and now I am being told I have to pay $80 to purchase 7.3 even though it was less than 35 days ago? Let's see, ok I paid $199 for 7.0, then less than 10 months later I pay another $199 for 7.2, now less then 35 days later, $80 for 7.3? This is insane, I cannot understand the logic of continuously milking your loyal and paying customers for maintenance upgrades that are still buggy at best. It is just not right. With the future of computer power and many software choices out there it just does not make sense to make your customers this frustrated. Your already milking us for $4000 plus dollars just to go from PCI to PCIE, after we just paid almost the same amount of money to go from Mix to HDpci. Not cool Digidesign, not cool at all. How can I be sure if I purchase the 7.3 upgrade that you will not release the .4 upgrade next week, requiring another $80 for bug fixes and a couple more features that should have been rolled out all at once anyways.
I just do not get it. I am a loyal customer who feels like I am being treated like crap. Wake up Digidesign.

[Tony Shepperd]

1. This has been covered in other threads recently.
2. No one is forcing you to upgrade, however let's be honest, it's a nominal fee for all the new features you're getting.
3. The $4000 going PCI to PCIe was not Digidesigns fault. Apple made the change to PCIe.

Is Digi just supposed to eat all of the upgrade cost of new cards?

[Dr. Marius]

Hi Tony,

Just my words!

A BIG thank you to everyone at Digidesign for doing such a great job. I am proud and happy to pay for your effort!!!

Best regards,

Marius

[mgoorevich]

Hello,
I understand your pain. However I understand the other "big houses" guys which will pay to any upgrade as often as it's required. Because $200 is a small money or rediculous amount comparing to the productions budgets. They have the best system (HD Rigs), best studios, best stuff and best money. All this costs millions! Should they compromise the software updates? No.
Where it is sensitive it's in yours or mine case.
I live in a small country, where very little productions to happen. I am crazy about what I am doing and I love my tools I use. However it's always the matter of choice for me. Like (sorry for this comparission) to buy a new jacket or jeans or get another plug-ins or hardware. Yes I have a lot of equipment and it's trully pro equipment, but it's all I have in my life.
I am not trying to cry. I just want to meantion some facts: there are 10 features in my country per year. Each one has budget around $1.000.000. If you are lucky you'll get worked on one of them. They pay much less than in US or UK for sound work. Average salary is 3-4 times lower from US.
But should Digidesign count on people like me? The answer is no. Cause if it will, this means that they must stop their development. In such conditions they would not remain the best tools manufacture for the best productions.
But again it's tough for the private business, private people to stay alive. But we must realise that we are just the minority.
Don't give up and spend your money wiselly!

[NK]

Not even Apple requires someone who just purchased a $199 software product to have to pay an additional $80 dollars to upgrade within 35 days of purchase. I know this hurts the Digidesign fan club to have anything negative to ever say about the company but as a loyal customer I feel really burned about this issue and regarding the HD-PCIE issue Digidesign certainly knew that apple was phasing out PCI since they were developing PCI-E boards while they were selling the HD-PCI with the understanding that they would be phased out. Had I known this I would have waited a extra month to purchase the PCI-E boards for the SAME price. Just as with upgrading the $199 7.0 upgrade within 10 months to 7.2 for another $199 and then having 7.3 released just days later and requring an additional $80 dollars. Had I waited 4 extra days I could have just purchased 7.3, I do not know about you but as for me I feel a serious lack of respect to the customers on these particular matters. Not to mention as paying customers after we purchase a upgrade not battle tested in production, we are essentially acting as beta testers and then paying for the fixes we report in certain instances.


All I am asking for is a more fair and respectable upgrade policy, especially as it relates to software versions that were just purchased. I do not think that is to much to ask for as a customer who spends lots of money with the company, I just want to be treated with respect and fairness.

[P A M]

- I dont know when you guyes bought your upgrades, - but you are aware that if you bought after nov. 5 you get an amnesty-upgrade right..?

[Armando]

3. The $4000 going PCI to PCIe was not Digidesigns fault. Apple made the change to PCIe.

Is Digi just supposed to eat all of the upgrade cost of new cards?

No. Definately not. But let's be serious here, every other Audio/Computer hardware manufacturer(like MOTU, Apogee, M-Audio, etc...) has had to answer the PCI/PCI-X to PCIe crossgrade at "realistic" pricing. $4K means it costs approximately $1,333/card to move all those electrical components over to a new "plastic/glass" circuit board with a PCIe interface. That's ridiculous considering the cost of what's involved.

Like it or not, it is what it is.

[Cobra176]

Things seem to have been very very messy for the PTHD user on the Mac platform lately, and I think it has been pretty rough for the developers/engineers too. It was the switch to OS X, then the 64bit G5s, then the PCIe and lastly the intel procs. There's still some legacy code here and there. And each permutation of all of these new and old technologies can effectively generate a platform of its own- each with its own set of bugs. What could be needed is a little more commitment and stabilty from the computer end.

It isn't really digidesign's fault; maybe a techno-cultural flaw with us as a whole.

I mean, moving forward with technology is cool and all, but many platform changes over time mean many new pieces of code being written*. And having a lot of code written for different things with little time for things to settle and stabilize (and debug) means that there are more errors. And they're even harder to debug after the fact than they are to avoid to begin with. But if programmers have to rush they have to rush.

*Yes, code can be ported with relative ease but the porting code is written by someone, and it can have bugs too.

A place or two that I know of will hold out on a PT upgrade for a while until the version stabilizes. Or at least they try.

On a personal level, I am more interested in bugfixes than features so I am not buying.

[remainanon]

Had I waited 4 extra days I could have just purchased 7.3

If I were you I'd have a word with my dealer about this issue. They know what's coming up as far as planned upgrades - at least my dealer does.

It's their job to navigate the deadlines for you - anytime there is an amnesty upgrade or anything like that there has to be a cutoff date. Which means it is always possible to buy something one day early or one day late. Digidesign can't prevent that.

Talk to your dealer and ask why they didn't tell you about the upgrades.

JW

[NK]

Thanks for the reply. I did talk to my dealer, they had no idea that Digidesign was going to release the 7.3 just a couple weeks after they released 7.2 for $199 and then charge users who just paid $199 an additional $80 dollars for the 7.3 update.
Not cool.