My thoughts on the Xara Web Designer 365 subscription service

Like many others, I was apprehensive and somewhat confused about the new Xara 365 subscription service, as I am vehemently opposed to any subscription-based software. While I am not an expert on XWD by any means, I hope I can clear up any confusion regarding the current subscription service as I see it. Feel free to correct me if I am misunderstanding anything.

First of all, I despise any subscription model that completely disables or removes the software, or any part thereof, if you stop paying (e.g. Adobe CC). I feel this is an extortion tactic that condemns longtime and loyal users to perpetual software slavery.

However, I do not believe this is what XWD 365 is proposing.

The way I understand it, when you purchase the latest version of XWD 365, you are getting new or upgraded features released up to that point. Then, over the course of a year, you will receive new updates as they become available. Here is where I believe the confusion lies. Until you renew your subscription you have NOT actually paid for any of the new updates or features, as one might think. While the updates are initially provided at no charge, they are not really "free", or included as part of the original purchase. Xara is providing them in advance of a yearly update. The benefit is that you no longer have to wait for new updates. If you find the updates useful, then you will have the opportunity to pay for them when your subscription is up for renewal, just like when you purchased the yearly upgrades. If you don't care for any of the new updates, then you won't be missing anything if you choose not to renew your subscription. However, unlike Adobe CC, you will still be able to use the 365 upgraded version of your software, including all the bugs fixes and any new or improved features that were included at the time of your purchase the year before.

Plus, as a subscriber, you can try the new features without having to buy the update first, or using a trial version, as was previously the case.

Also, a lot of users are concerned about what will happen if their hard drive crashes, or they change computers, etc. Xara has made it clear that in any of these scenarios, you will always be able to use the 365 upgrade version that you purchased (complete with bug fixes), regardless of whether you renew your subscription. Again, what you will not be able to use if you do not renew your subscription, are the features that Xara provided AFTER you purchased your version of the 365 upgrade. So you are not losing anything you have paid for. Remember, the new updates wouldn't have even been available until the next yearly update, which you would have had to pay for anyway.

Of course, any template, widget or web packs that have been paid for, or provided as a bonus with a purchase of XWD, should be accessible in perpetuity, whether or not you continue your subscription. If not, then that is a major problem that Xara should change.

As far as losing access to the Online Content Catalog or M Hosting, since I am unfamiliar with either of those, I cannot comment on that. But if their use was free and unrestricted in previous versions of XWD, then it should continue that way, regardless of whether or not you continue your subscription. If that is not the case, then it is definitely something Xara should address.

Again, I believe the biggest misconception about the Xara 365 subscription service is that users feel they have already paid for future updates, when in reality Xara is merely providing them in advance of what were previously yearly updates.

I honestly think this 365 subscription may be a good thing for both sides, as long as Xara does not abuse it by disabling things that have been paid for by the user, release few or insignificant updates within the course of a year, or raise the subscription rate well above the traditional pricing structure of the previous yearly upgrades.


- John

I'm not certain, but my understanding is once the subscription runs out and is not renewed, you stop receiving new updates. I don't think that Xara is going to take anything back. You just will not get any new features.

Please step in and correct me if I am wrong.

Gary that is correct with the present exception of a reinstall or a move to a new computer. Then you lose all features released after your purchase date that came out during the 365 day subscription period.

So as long as you never buy a new computer or have a crash or even swap out hardware on your computer, it is all hunky dory.

Mike

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

I'm not certain, but my understanding is once the subscription runs out and is not renewed, you stop receiving new updates. I don't think that Xara is going to take anything back. You just will not get any new features.

Please step in and correct me if I am wrong.

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Well, if that's the case then it's even better than what I assumed, which was that you lost all updates if you didn't renew.

Read what Mike just wrote.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Read what Mike just wrote.

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I did. I assume Xara will fix that as it doesn't seem right. Especially if the user has kept the subscription up to date.

It's what they have repeated over and over. Will.it change? That's a who knows. It is the way it is right now.

I'm sure you could contact Xara and get it straightened out. It may be a slight hassle but it's doable. I assume if it happens often enough Xara would fix it, if for no other reason than to save themselves the aggravation.

Xara, specifically Kate, has made their position very clear in the announcement thread. At first not even the bug fix updates were to be included. That changed (I'm sure she would say, clarified) later in the announcement thread.

One problem, other than that this subscription hating person (Dijenga) doesn't have any concerns.

My problem? I purchased the download version, so no CD. And no, I don't want to purchase a CD in addition to having what I've already burned. That being said, seeing the selection of templates etc. that come with the downloadable version, it's very disappointing.

Why not a second download of content (templates, widgets, etc.) to those willing to do the downloads? I ask this question because you have to download these now either one at a time or you can download "all templates" or "all widgets" but you still don't have a central resource if your computer falters.

In any case, YOU ARE STILL DOWNLOADING. Being able to download the complete package as a single download to burn onto a CD would be so nice ... and it would be (IMO) a bit more of a goodwill gesture than "download them and hope your computer never dies".

Sure, I can probably dig them out of the folders where they are saved, but it would be so much more convenient and make me feel a bit better about my purchase.

It might even make me more inclined to drop my current software and renew this one every year. I'm just too old and crotchety to even dream of going back to writing HTML.

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Originally Posted by TheCapn

The way I understand it, when you purchase the latest version of XWD 365, you are getting new or upgraded features released up to that point. Then, over the course of a year, you will receive new updates as they become available. Here is where I believe the confusion lies. Until you renew your subscription you have NOT actually paid for any of the new updates or features, as one might think. While the updates are initially provided at no charge, they are not really "free", or included as part of the original purchase. Xara is providing them in advance of a yearly update. The benefit is that you no longer have to wait for new updates. If you find the updates useful, then you will have the opportunity to pay for them when your subscription is up for renewal, just like when you purchased the yearly upgrades. If you don't care for any of the new updates, then you won't be missing anything if you choose not to renew your subscription. However, unlike Adobe CC, you will still be able to use the 365 upgraded version of your software, including all the bugs fixes and any new or improved features that were included at the time of your purchase the year before.

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John, all this part is wrong. You have 365 Day Update Guarantee cover and get application updates and bug fixes regularly. You keep these as part of your local installation. The only downside is a re-install or fresh install reverts to what you purchased or what's on the optional CD at the time of purchase. So you can lose essential bugs fixes and have to go cap in hand to Xara. Now, you don't have much information to decide to accept or reject these application updates. Skipping even one may prevent other updates and even bug fixes being activated. So you decide to accept them as it is Xara offering them and you've paid for them so why not? When you then come to use the application, which is so intuitive that you inadvertently include some of the new functionality in your (website) design. When your cover is over and you've reverted to your purchased version for whatever reason, fate or choice, you now cannot edit your design for these objects or functions.
Now the day before cover expires, you happen to be in the right place and download all the content into your Local Designs gallery. Then all is sweet. When reality takes over, you find you can no longer access any content and that's it. Xara has also 'helped' by removing the Find function from the application.

Xara has removed access to any on-line content when you are out of cover. This is a "subscription model that completely disables or removes the software, or any part thereof, if you stop paying", which you correctly identified.

Xara has not stated any of this is a preview.

Acorn

Thanks to everyone for clarifying things. I thought I understood how it worked but apparently not. As much as I would like to have the parallax and other features included with this release, I will refrain from "upgrading" until some things have changed and the subscription model becomes more user-friendly.

On another note, has anyone noticed that software companies tend adopt the subscription model when most, if not all, of the competition is gone?

has anyone noticed that software companies tend adopt the subscription model when most, if not all, of the competition is gone?

Xara has plenty of competition. I don't feel that's a factor in this.

Adobe had the professional agencies well locked-in before they jumped to a subscription model. They had little by way of competition.

TheCapn - your first post is indeed a pretty accurate description of the 365 service. Basically you get a perpetual license to the software current on the day you purchase (so today that would be 12.0.0, which includes all the new features listed on http://www.xara.com/web-designer/whats-new/) plus for the next 365 days you get access to the online services (Online Content Catalog, M Hosting, Xara Online Designer) and any updates released. However what has clearly confused some people is that at the end of 365 days, we don't actually remove those updates from the installation(s) that you have at that time, they continue indefinitely and it's only when you install on a new computer that it falls back to 12.0.0 (or whatever version was current when you purchased), if of course you haven't upgraded/renewed again. And the other important thing to note is that the Online Content Catalog includes all the content, templates etc, so in order to retain access to them after the online services end you need to download them from the Content Catalog to the Local Designs Gallery.

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Originally Posted by katemoir

However what has clearly confused some people is that at the end of 365 days, we don't actually remove those updates from the installation(s) that you have at that time, they continue indefinitely and it's only when you install on a new computer that it falls back to 12.0.0 (or whatever version was current when you purchased), if of course you haven't upgraded/renewed again.

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I think that's the problem Kate. It's not a misunderstanding at all. It's an understanding that should anyone wish to upgrade their computer, change it's configuration, move to another machine or just have some hardware problem, after their subscription ends, they will lose whatever new functionality they've grown accustomed to since the initial purchase, and possibly (it's not so clear), any bug fixes too.

I understand it's a tricky one for Xara. The potential loss of any bug fixes (let alone the inconvenience of losing new features), is what is different to what happens right now.

I think before this scheme was introduced people had a fairly easy choice to make about upgrading. Now it's not so clear if you think you won't continue the subscription. If you continue to subscribe then these factors don't matter so much.

It's a lot for Xara to ask people to consider that new features introduced during the subscription period are in fact pre-release features for the the next version, or that they would lose any bug fixes.

I know most people will have the same machine at the start of the subscription and way after, but a lot of people won't.

It's a tricky choice.

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Originally Posted by pauland

I think that's the problem Kate. It's not a misunderstanding at all. It's an understanding that should anyone wish to upgrade their computer, change it's configuration, move to another machine or just have some hardware problem, after their subscription ends, they will lose whatever new functionality they've grown accustomed to since the initial purchase, and possibly (it's not so clear), any bug fixes too.

I understand it's a tricky one for Xara. The potential loss of any bug fixes (let alone the inconvenience of losing new features), is what is different to what happens right now.

I think before this scheme was introduced people had a fairly easy choice to make about upgrading. Now it's not so clear if you think you won't continue the subscription. If you continue to subscribe then these factors don't matter so much.

It's a lot for Xara to ask people to consider that new features introduced during the subscription period are in fact pre-release features for the the next version, or that they would lose any bug fixes.

I know most people will have the same machine at the start of the subscription and way after, but a lot of people won't.

It's a tricky choice.

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The alternative though would be to not give anyone access to these features until next year's release ie the current model!

I think I've mentioned elsewhere that any relevant bug fixes issued will be included in the version you fall back to, we will just update the default download.

Yes, I understand the position Kate.

Imagine you bought microsoft office for your laptop at home. MS updated it all year, you made use of fancy gizmos and they were great. At the end of the year you were really happy and didn't want to go and continue getting new features for a while. Then your hard drive dies, you get it fixed and you have a load of documents you can no longer use because they have new stuff that didn't exist when you loaded your software at the start. Your only way out is to pay up again.

I have software that I bought at version 3.0. Now it's at version 3.7 and has loads of new features and bug fixes. When the company releases 4.0, they won't be disabling me from getting all of the updates to 3.0. If my drive dies, my download will be 3.7 not 3.0.

Xara is offering an unprecedented hybrid subscription scheme that is worse than many vendors already offer as a matter of course for the standard purchase model.

The bottom line is that people cannot be confident that their subscription purchase will be usable in the long term. A hardware change could render their documents unusable once they are out of subscription.

You can understand why people are wondering if this is a good scheme or not, Kate?

Two things to bear in mind though. Firstly we are already offering an upgraded version with new features (see http://www.xara.com/web-designer/whats-new/) which you might call this year's features, which we have worked on over the last year. You can buy a perpetual license to that upgraded version now. But in addition we are trying to find a way that gives access to next year's features now, rather than sitting on them for a year and selling them as v13. It's not good for us or our customers that features that are currently fashionable are sitting in a cupboard (for example let's just imagine parallax scrolling sitting on the Done shelf for 10 months ..) so we'd like to release them as we finish them. But at some point and somehow we have to be paid for this year of development. So yes if you don't renew and your two installations no longer work you will indeed lose those features. But secondly I'd mention that if you are uncomfortable with that you could just reject the updates, wait till next year and purchase the next upgrade. Seems to me you are losing the benefits but it does give you a process more akin to the old v11 one.

There are other considerations of course, there's more info on the 365 Guarantee at http://www.xara.com/update-guarantee/

My Take

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...811#post551811

at some point and somehow we have to be paid for this year of development.

That should really be factored in to the purchase price for the base version. It's what other companies do. I guess the company psyche is that the cost of the new version = costs of producing it. Maybe the cost of a new version should be the cost of producing that version and of updating it throughout the year?

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Originally Posted by pauland

at some point and somehow we have to be paid for this year of development.

That should really be factored in to the purchase price for the base version. It's what other companies do. I guess the company psyche is that the cost of the new version = costs of producing it. Maybe the cost of a new version should be the cost of producing that version and of updating it throughout the year?

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True, we could have considered simply making this update more expensive!

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Originally Posted by katemoir

True, we could have considered simply making this update more expensive!

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It may have been more popular.. ;-)

There has been a lot of misunderstanding about this new method, everything from people thinking that there is nothing new in the product and that they are buying future upgrades, to if I have to reinstall the program the day after I purchase it, it will be stripped of all features. In the former, some people have questioned that Xara may not produce anything in the next year so they would be paying for nothing. Many people have commented without investigating. Kate replied to my concern about which version would be available for reinstallation should I not renew and then have to reinstall - it is the version upon my last renewal. That is good enough for me.

Interestingly, the topic has not engendered the same amount of concern on the Magix forum. I now have two Magix subscriptions, Audio & Music Lab Premium and Video Pro X and there has been next to no comment about the subscription method. People have purchased based on what is in the new version, not what may come in the next year. It is understood that any upgrades during the year are an advance on the next renewal. However, with this subscription method, Magix and Xara can be guaranteed that if there are few or even no upgrades during the year, the subscription will not be renewed and users will wait until they see enough new features to justify jumping back in. If there are no new features in the first 6 months, you can believe that I and many others will be bombarding Magix with emails questioning the value of the subscription.

I believe that the new subscription method has been done not for cash flow purposes, because that doesn't make sense. If everyone upgrades now, then there are no cash receipts for 365 days. It was likely done to demonstrate to shareholders (an illusion of an increase of shareholder value) that there will be a regular income stream from subscribers (so long as new features are issued). Having subscribers looks a lot better on the books than potential upgraders. The danger is that shareholders may question the necessity of further development with all of these subscribers on board.

That said, since this has caused such a ruckus, I suggest that Xara simply offer two versions, one as per the previous method - purchase the upgrade and receive no new features afterwards; the other for the subscription method with the pitfall of potentially losing any new features issued in the 365 days following renewal should one not renew and then having to reinstall Xara. For the same price!

I know which one I will purchase.

John