How do you feel about the 365 Program?

[jmanganelli]

You know, I also use a program called vectorworks architect. Great program. About 5-7 years ago it had fallen behind the times. Great 2d tool. But.... Late to convert to 64-bit. Weak 3D geometry editing abilities. Weak rendering. No associativity. No procedural modeling. Slow to adopt BIM methods and tools. The forum comments had a similar fee to these forum comments. In the case of vectorworks, they did slowly address the major issues between about 2010-2015. By slowly, they were bringing out one major fix/upgrade per year and many minor fixes/upgrades per year. And at one point, in 2015, they rolled out several new major features that were very well implemented. I don't know how they introduced so many new features in one release and integrated them that well. Now their forum comments are filled with task oriented questions and optimism-or at least not negativity and concern. They also have engineers participating on the forum. It went from looking dire to lots of optimism and enthusiasm. So turning things around can happen and it can be worth sticking with a company and a tool. But it does mean that real progress must be made. In the cas of vectorworks, they also adopted a customer-centric approach to development. They did ongoing, continuous customer engagement and research and oriented their efforts around what he market was telling them they needed.

with respect to the forum itself, the modo forum is a great example of the forum as a primary driver and value of the software. Since its start, it has been a great community. In that case, developers from the software maker are also heavily involved with the forum.

[iamtheblues]

Very little chance of any of the above happening here. Xara/Magix appear to be listening, the rare comments from the powers that be suggest that is so, but the facts over the past year and beyond tell a different story. They have their own plans, which they won't divulge and despite a few mealy-mouthed comments about how they are listening, they are just meaningless, empty words. The company deserves to fail, they have treated their customers and a few of their members who have devoted many years of selfless work, by offering stunning tutorials and promotional videos only to be pushed to the side-lines. The recent price hikes are not commensurate with improvements to the product, but feel like naked greed. The company deserves to rot.
Bob.

[tonylondon]

I think that is a little unkind. Sadly xara widened their development front and have found they don't have the resources to keep at the cutting edge; they may need more resources to get back on track. It may be that the things Kate mentioned fit their business model - they have a wider picture than us to consider - but that is no consolation to us. You are right that a lot of people have contributed freely in the way of tutorials etc. Xara has to be hard nosed to survive but we loyal customers need to be equally hard nosed before deciding to cough up.

[iamtheblues]

Yes, a tad brutal, I will admit, just hoping for a contrite reaction from the powers that be, I've been steadily more and more truthful as I have gone along here.
Being a business doesn't mean that they should just ride roughshod over their customer base in a cavalier fashion an not expect an outraged backlash.
I can take "unkind" but it's not my fault that the natives are getting restless here.

[houseofman]

Very well said Stewart... "shame really"... *sigh*

[Urutoraman]

I just found out that my Xara Designer Pro 365 update service expired. To my surprise there is no more promotional upgrade price but a stiff $179 / year. I pay either $79 or $99 /year for Microsoft Office and $99 / year for the Adobe Photoshop CC Photographer subscription. I see added value on both of those every year but haven't seen any on the past year for Xara Designer Pro, very disappointed. Been with this product for more than 15 years, I think is time to move on. I just found out how great Affinity Photo for iPad is (for introductory offer of $20 it can do far more photo processing than Designer Pro), working with Apple Pencil is a dream ... so will be cancelling the Adobe subscription. Affinity Designer looks awesome compared to Xara. Serif did a great job to secure their future, sadly Xara is struggling......

[jmanganelli]

Yeah, I think the price increase and focus on the xara online tools is miss-timed. Considering the presence of affinity on the market at only $50 for a perpetual license, as well as adobe giving away its new fuse tool as an open beta to anyone with any license subscription, and considering the lack of new/improved features from xara, they probably need to cut prices or keep them the same. The market is just very tight.

[iamtheblues]

What really annoys me about the 33% price hike - ok, let's be kind, 32% price hike is that it is supposed to represent improvements in the product in the intervening 12 months, when in actual fact it is all smoke and mirrors. The only changes (I can't bring myself to call them improvements) have been to the online service. Let us be honest here, Xara needs to publish a road map of what it intends to do in a coherent fashion so that the customer can be made fully aware of what to expect in the following 12 months before they commit to this exorbitant rise. Jam tomorrow just isn't good enough, I'm afraid. I've said recently in another thread, "Thank goodness for Affinity Designer!"
Bob.

[GiddyupGilbert]

I love X365 as I have with all my upgrades. However, Magix support is poor and because of that I've almost bailed and gone with Adobe. Though the pricing for me is a bit steep what the hey they have everything imagineable for a graphics person.

[Sadler]

I just upgraded my work PC today (14/11/2017) and the Xara documents that I was editing only last week now give this error:


I'm now in the strange situation of having XDP at home still with the 365 updates and my work PC without today.

"Check for updates" encourages me to update but then I'm told, after the install, that my subscription has run out and that I should exit. I then have to uninstall Xara to install the previous version (12.4.0.47404 DL x64 Nov 8 2016).

I have bought Affinity Photo and Designer both of which were recently updated to version 1.6
Their updates are more interesting to me than Xara's (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/ind...have-launched/)

That said, I've been with Xara for a looooooong time and its proving difficult to leave. A colleague recently berated me for sticking with Xara (for fear of change she said!) but I came from being a Corel fan before Xara and have tried several alternatives in the meantime - it's a testament to Xara that I still use their program and still advocate it to friends, family and colleagues.

Before today you might have categorized me as indifferent.