Web Designer 365 Premium - Now a subscription product?

First of all I'm not openly hostile to the concept of a yearly subscription model, but Xara's launch information doesn't clarify the situation. If I don't renew one year, what part of the product is still accessible to me? I believe we should be charged full price for the initial product and then the yearly subscription should be at a greatly reduced price, but at the moment it looks like we will all be charged the full upgrade rate every year.

Also many people are interested in the future development of the online designer aspect of the product. If I design a site and then want to give someone else access, what is the cost of an additional person accessing that facility and also the ongoing renewal cost?

Does this also have negative long term implications for the web design side of the Designer Pro product, with more and more functionality stripped away to make Web Designer 365 ultimately a separate product (available features wise) to Designer Pro therefore giving consumers more reason to buy both products.

None of this is a critique of the new product and I will probably buy it, but I am a little annoyed at the shift into the direction of a subscription model being slightly cloaked. Why not call a spade a spade, after all it's up to Xara how they choose to market their product and our choice whether to buy or not.

Think of the updates as previews ...

Quote:

---

It’s important to note this is not a subscription service. Unlike other products such as Office 365, or Adobe Creative Cloud, the program you purchased is yours to keep, and will keep functioning with no further purchases, but after 365 days you’ll stop getting access to updates, new content, and the online services if you choose not to upgrade.
Note: these updates continue to work after 365 days but if you reinstall the software after the 365 Guarantee expires (and you don’t renew) then it will be the same version as feature set as you originally purchased.

---

http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/wd365/#xl_Heading-365

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zaphodeist

Think of the updates as previews ... http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/wd365/#xl_Heading-365

---

Not quite, the updates that appears during your "subscription" period could be lost and you are rolled back to what you bought. Also, there is the difficulty of what is termed an "update": application or content. In the worst case, you could be left with version 12.0.0 with no access to any content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stevey

First of all I'm not openly hostile to the concept of a yearly subscription model, but Xara's launch information doesn't clarify the situation. If I don't renew one year, what part of the product is still accessible to me? I believe we should be charged full price for the initial product and then the yearly subscription should be at a greatly reduced price, but at the moment it looks like we will all be charged the full upgrade rate every year.
Also many people are interested in the future development of the online designer aspect of the product. If I design a site and then want to give someone else access, what is the cost of an additional person accessing that facility and also the ongoing renewal cost?
Does this also have negative long term implications for the web design side of the Designer Pro product, with more and more functionality stripped away to make Web Designer 365 ultimately a separate product (available features wise) to Designer Pro therefore giving consumers more reason to buy both products.
None of this is a critique of the new product and I will probably buy it, but I am a little annoyed at the shift into the direction of a subscription model being slightly cloaked. Why not call a spade a spade, after all it's up to Xara how they choose to market their product and our choice whether to buy or not.

---

There are many unstated aspects from Xara.

The yearly "subscription" rate, as advised by Kate Moir, has not been set, nor what you would have to pay to rejoin.

Xara Online Designer is still beta and there will probably be a nominal cost to add access for your Customers.

I still don't know why Xara market Web Design non-Premium, it is so crippled. The inclusion of all the extras far outstrips the cost of Premium so the purchase is still fantastic value.

I have both Web Designer and Designer Pro and I use the former for 90% of my work. I can see Xara forcing people from Web Designer to Designer Pro as the cost differential is way too steep.
XWD is £35, XWDP is £70 and XDPX is £220. Xara would do better to drop XWD altogether, up XWDP to £75 and drop XDPX to £150.
Rowing boat to corvette to Flagship, we don't need the rowing boat - or offer it free on magazine CDs.

Acorn

I am pleased that Acorn actually agrees with me that Xara has left many unstated aspects open to interpretation. It proves that this is a very democratic forum (Sorry, comment not relevant, not implying you work for Xara!) .
Actually I'm a big fan of Xara software and have purchased many products and upgrades over the years. One main point of confusion of Web Design 365 premium is that they have moved to a part subscription model with one of the main draws, an online live designer which is still in Beta, surely they should have waited until it was out of Beta? The other main draw of all the now free business templates isn't that relevant to me as I usually design from scratch.

Since xara keeps track of when you registered your purchases... Why would it go back to version 12.0 after reinstalling.

It could easily go to 12.x.x according to what you are entitled to!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stevey

I am pleased that Acorn (A Moderator) actually agrees with me that Xara has left many unstated aspects open to interpretation. It proves that this is a very democratic forum.
Actually I'm a big fan of Xara software and have purchased many products and upgrades over the years. One main point of confusion of Web Design 365 premium is that they have moved to a part subscription model with one of the main draws, an online live designer which is still in Beta, surely they should have waited until it was out of Beta? The other main draw of all the now free business templates isn't that relevant to me as I usually design from scratch.

---

Moderators are Xara product users, occasional advocates, but not part of the Magix / Xara organisation. We have our own opinions, make mistakes, but at all times, try to help.

On the free business-specific templates, it is still fantastic to preview them at http://www.xara.com/uk/web-designer/templates/#! and then look into their designs. You can learn a lot of techniques from this alone.
The products have the word designer in them and where Xara excels is in its ability to support a design from scratch.

Acorn

I think on balance I will buy the new web designer product and see if enough improvements filter through to justify the yearly renewal cost.

Message to Acorn, I had a slightly senior moment accidentally associating a forum moderator with Xara, that's why I posted my apology in italic red text. I immediately realised a second after posting this silly comment, we've all done it at one time or another.

Employees of Xara and Magix do post from time to time but they identify themselves in their signatures.

Moderators are unpaid volunteers who enjoy helping others.

I suspect is one of the reasons for the vague nature of the 365 program is it is a work in progress and is probably still being determined at this point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gwpriester

...I suspect is one of the reasons for the vague nature of the 365 program is it is a work in progress and is probably still being determined at this point.

---

It may be being "tweaked" upon, but I would reckon it is because of the vocal nature of users' responses and the confusion surrounding the ill-advised subscription program and the actual lack of thinking through ramifications of how it was written up.

Mike

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stevey

I think on balance I will buy the new web designer product and see if enough improvements filter through to justify the yearly renewal cost.
Message to Acorn, I had a slightly senior moment accidentally associating a forum moderator with Xara, that's why I posted my apology in italic red text. I immediately realised a second after posting this silly comment, we've all done it at one time or another.

---

Stevey, keep this up and you'll be in the frame for nomination!
Acorn

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dutchim

Since xara keeps track of when you registered your purchases... Why would it go back to version 12.0 after reinstalling.

It could easily go to 12.x.x according to what you are entitled to!

---

It's not free to create the mechanism to provide the 12.x.x software that was current when an individual's subscription lapsed. The cost of doing so could be significant for Xara. There's no 'easy' about it.

In terms of entitlement, user's entitlement is what they agree to at the time the subscription starts, which seems to be a 12.0 disc, and no access to updates to 12.0 after the subscription lapses.

Stevey - in fact Xara Online Designer is one of the reason's for the change in model (see http://www.xara.com/update-guarantee/ for more information on the model and the reasons). Online Designer is an online service that will be updated frequently, and some of the changes in Online Designer will require matching changes in Web Designer / Designer Pro in order to maintain file and feature compatibility. Therefore we had to find a model that facilitated frequent updates to the client side part of the bundle, while trying to avoid a classic subscription product that simply removed access to everything at the end of the subscription period, in the Adobe / Microsoft mode.

Client access to Online Designer is currently free, see http://www.xara.com/cloud-xara/access/ - note clients have a more limited version of Online Designer than the one included with Web Designer Premium and Designer Pro.

The Update Guarantee page http://www.xara.com/update-guarantee/ has some more info about what continues and what doesn't after the end of 365 days, but basically you buy a perpetual license to whatever is the current version of Web Designer on the day you buy (so currently 12.0.0) plus for the following 365 days you get access to the Online Services (M hosting, Online Designer, the Online Content Catalog with all the templates in it) and any updates issued during those 365 days. At the end of 365 days the online services either end or fall back to lesser services and you no longer have access to updates. You could look at those updates delivered during the 365 days as 'advance access to next year's features', but we have perhaps confused people by not removing those updates from the installation(s) that you have at the end of the 365 days - they actually continue to work indefinitely, the program only falls back to 12.0.0 (or whatever version you purchased) when you next try to install it on a new machine.

kate

is it possible to clarify if repartitioning a disc will count as a new computer - this is something I do from a housekeeping point of view every now and then and suspect I am not alone in this - also I don't really want to go down the route of 'Trigger's broom' but if someone suffers the misfortune of a hard disc failure then if xara is going to penalize further in this regard yhen they are not the company i thought they were...

thanks

steve

To be honest I don't know the answer to that, but I will ask the Magix team who handle the activation system. Handrawn if you find the new features tempting (http://www.xara.com/web-designer/whats-new) but aren't comfortable with the conditions on the updates offered during the next 365 days then one option you could consider is rejecting the updates and then looking again the program in a year's time and deciding in the usual way whether you want to upgrade or not (at which point you'd get a new perpetual license to the then-current version, including the updates we had released in the previous 365 days). That would be something more like the v11 model.

Reading this makes me sad.

It seems that if I buy the product in March 2017 it will have all features/fixes from the last 365 days,so I get a full blown program.
But if my pc crashes in March 2017 , I get only the stripped version.
So if there are much needed bugfixes,which will come surely,I don't get them and am left with an unusable program only to be bettered by me buying an upgrade.

Good luck and you may have lost another longterm customer

Hans

one option you could consider is rejecting the updates and then looking again the program in a year's time

That's untenable advice Kate. Nobody is going to do that.

If Xara continues on this path then there will be a lot of backlash, now and in a years time when people's subscription expires and their hardware forces them to re-install.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pauland

one option you could consider is rejecting the updates and then looking again the program in a year's time

That's untenable advice Kate. Nobody is going to do that.

If Xara continues on this path then there will be a lot of backlash, now and in a years time when people's subscription expires and their hardware forces them to re-install.

---

Why untenable? It is actually opting to return to the model we have used for the last few years ie upgrade once a year.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by haakoo

Reading this makes me sad.

It seems that if I buy the product in March 2017 it will have all features/fixes from the last 365 days,so I get a full blown program.
But if my pc crashes in March 2017 , I get only the stripped version.
So if there are much needed bugfixes,which will come surely,I don't get them and am left with an unusable program only to be bettered by me buying an upgrade.

Good luck and you may have lost another longterm customer

Hans

---

No, that's not how it works. You can find information on how the 365 Update Guarantee works on our website at http://www.xara.com/update-guarantee/.

Can you tell us whether the upgrading discount will still apply to renewals and to re-installations?

Yes, there will still be a discounted price for upgrades/ renewals

Thanks Kate. Does that include for those who have to re-install on a new computer?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by katemoir

Why untenable? It is actually opting to return to the model we have used for the last few years ie upgrade once a year.

---

Because human nature is such that people will naturally download these updates.

The problem is not about the updates and new features, it's about the huge disappointment users will feel if they are faced with losing functionality if they are out-of-subscription and faced with an intentional or unintended configuration change.

It's the knowledge that people will be in a position where they may be forced to renew a subscription to preserve the functionality that they enjoyed, is what makes people think again about this scheme.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pauland

It's the knowledge that people will be in a position where they may be forced to renew a subscription to preserve the functionality that they enjoyed, is what makes people think again about this scheme.

---

Bravo! You must have been a carpenter at one time, because you squarely hit the nail on the head -- IMO.

As I said before, I'm trying this ONE TIME. If it just becomes a money grab (that is all subscription based software seems to be), I'll be gone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by katemoir

To be honest I don't know the answer to that, but I will ask the Magix team who handle the activation system. Handrawn if you find the new features tempting (http://www.xara.com/web-designer/whats-new) but aren't comfortable with the conditions on the updates offered during the next 365 days then one option you could consider is rejecting the updates and then looking again the program in a year's time and deciding in the usual way whether you want to upgrade or not (at which point you'd get a new perpetual license to the then-current version, including the updates we had released in the previous 365 days). That would be something more like the v11 model.

---

thanks Kate

yes I could do that [see here: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...54#post551754] - post #170 last paragraph

I could also capture all the updates as they install on my computer as i have the technical knowhow to do this

But I 'just draw'... I am thinking that the guys who build web-sites are not going to want to wait for the new features