Do you consider Xara has a future beyond milking the last penny out of loyal users?

As a Xara user (TG member) do you consider Xara has a future beyond milking the last penny out of loyal users?

There are too many ifs for me to answer this one. I have XWDP and my personal strategy was/is:

I don't see a personal advantage to moving up to XDP.
I was happy to update each year as it helped the company improve and move forward.
If Xara move 100% to Pro+ with the SAAS payment I shall jump ship and reminisce on how I enjoyed Xara.

So, to answer the poll:
Unsure - because I don't know Xara's strategy
Yes - if they keep the Magix strategy (with or without Magix)
No - if they turn to SAAS

IMO: Yes, Xara could have a future, just I doubt it with their current business strategy.

I exited the Magix annual upgrade/support cycle at Pro v17.0 (last August) - No downside - Pro v17.0 is a stable product (it should have been v16.4 anyway).

For a Web Designer, there is nothing new of any merit since v16 (June 2019); before update expiry, I downloaded the Online Catalogue (not that it's much to get excited about).

My ongoing Xara cost is GBP0.00 - and my guess that of the 1m claimed users, many will not be squandering funds on Magix or Xara.

It would be easy to create a marketing strategy for Xara's historic customer base; unfortunately Xara somewhat naively gave that away to Magix, in their quest to develop a cloud-based collaborative document management solution.

I’m ‘unsure’.

I don’t personally like the strategic paths they have taken over the past few years and feel their heyday has probably passed with regard to their desktop apps. It’s been a long time since they added any significant core drawing features or made improvements to existing tools.

At the end of the day I still mostly enjoy using Xara software (due to familiarity) but thankfully don’t rely on it to make a living.

I am in the YES camp.

Xara will abandon Magix in two years.
The products will move to Xara Pro+ for the Desktop and Xara Cloud+ for the web; both available together under subscription.

I am well placed with perpetual Xara licences so if I switch to a hobbyist only, I will still be able to produce quality work (for free).

While I am earning from my web work, the annual cost is peanuts.
My intellectual investment is transferrable to other products and I am currently doing just that with Datenstrom Yellow CMS.
Xara web delivery is the more productive but it requires restraint to achieve performance and as a static site generator it needs augmentation to exist in the real word.

Xara is a niche company with a solid core product that has been drifting for many years.
It has to wake up and smell the coffee.

Pitzer has said it achieved its Covid mRNA vaccine delivery in 226 days because it decide to: monthly updates to Pro+ have been happening.

Acorn

Yes - assuming you mean Xara GmbH - but this presupposes that the market, their SAAS is pitched at, is sufficient to generate the necessary income stream; and for that I have no data

As I recall, when you create an account for xara cloud/pro+ you are required to give a company [team] name; the whole focus is online collaboration... once such a network is established it can become another business expense and persist; question is how much long-term milage does this approch have for Xara..

I am not sure that The Xara Group Ltd [as it was then] was naive in their venture with Magix, my feeling is that they were not generating enough money and they saw the tie up as a good way to expand their marketing base; I also feel that, since Xara GmbH was set up with venture capital, that arrangement may only have been partly successful; I would discount the Magix channel from having any major impact on the company's future... everyone in business knows that what really generates income is repeat sales, and like others, I don't see the Magix channel doing this

But that then brings us to Affinity - in the half decade or so I have had their product I have only paid once per program, so they obviously have a good model, but the Mac side gives a much bigger user base... so instead of repeat sales from existing customers, it's get straight to the new customers as they start out or fall away from Adobe/Corel.... - Again a possible reason why Xara are now majoring on 'platform independant product' - maybe they should have been Mac from the start, maybe not.. I think Charles Moir saw an oportunity with Windows where there was a gap in the market, but perhaps the take up was never really good enough, which is why I don't see the Magix channel impacting

One thing I'm pretty sure of - if I were staring with vector now as I did 20 Years ago I would go with Affinity, hindsight says I'd miss a lot of the XDP usability, but what you startout with moulds yoour perception...

Lastly, and because I am a pedant, I have addressed: Do you consider Xara has a future;
as for the second part: beyond milking the last penny out of loyal user that is pretty subjective... I have used the software, and still use the software in a way that does not lock me in, others I know are different, but if you put your head in a noose, do it with your eyes open, no one is actually forcing you to do this, infuriating as it often becomes

A qualified yes is an unsure vote

I think is inevitable they will go to a subscription based model only, just like Adobe. Adobe is at about $53 per month for the suite. Designer pro incorporates a lot of the features of each program included in the adobe suite, of course not all. The elimination of a destop application (in my opinion) provides you no recourse if you stop the subscription, because you can no longer use the program at all. I'll stick with the desktop version and still get milked along the way. Once they go completely subscription, I'll probably stick with the last desktop version. I'm so small in this space I'll be able to do that. I'm sure others will have much bigger decisions to make.

I don't know, but then I'm not the kind of customer that purchases every upgrade. Consider I was using Micrografx Designer in the first decade of my graphics career, which Corel bought out then flushed down the toilet, yet I still used Micrografx for years after it was a defunct software company. Then I purchased Xara MenuMaker as a button tool when I was doing web design. I liked it so much, that when Xara announced XaraX was coming, I bought it. I purchased XaraX1, 4 and 5, then jumped to XDP 11, and haven't needed an upgrade yet. Whenever PDFx1a requirements change and a whatever version of Xara I'm using at the time doesn't support it, is when I'll consider a change to different software. For now XDP 11 does what I need. So I have no idea on the future of Xara, Magix, nor anything happening at company level.

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I don't know, but then I'm not the kind of customer that purchases every upgrade.

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Yeah, I agree. People in Cuba who cannot get a new automobile, drive cars from the 50s and keep them in running order. Xara does what I need and what it does not do directly I have found ways to work around. Still and all, there is so much that could be updated without having to reinvent the program and that would make it an even easier and better app than anything that is out there. Small things mostly. Or just taking abandoned features and going the next step. For example, web animations added intro transitions. How hard would it be to have the option for exit transitions? But I'm afraid this is not the direction they appear to be going.

Oh heck, I wish a useful update could be done, as I still rely on it, but I lack faith in Magix - I had full faith in Xara, when it was a British software company. Once Magix got it, I remained hopeful, yet distrustful, but I've clung on to it, yet so far. <shrug>

My opinion about Xara is that they have majorly screwed up on their branding and name. There is no real direction as of yet for their product and so they decided to work on the + to fix that. Others like Serif have a solid hold on their new products at an amazing price that one can own. Xara knows they can not compete with Serif so they are working on the collaborative + feature which may have an audience of secretaries and office assistants.

What I have now will suffice for a few years to come. Times are changing so is technology. As a consumer I can hip hop from one software onto another, as a company like Xara maybe they can afford the risk of switching modules and experimenting at the cost of consumers. I do not think they are milking consumers yet, but they hope so to do. Not sure if the audience will stick around to be milked.

Oh and the web side of things, they really did not pay attention to was (contact form, cms, blogs, ecommerce) all which other software's and platforms online are a click away.

I first bought WDP after substantial investigation into alternatives back in 2014. I thought it was an amazing program. I spent around 4 months learning how to do things “right”. I was fascinated and remain impressed. I have updated regularly since that time.
The 365-concept introduced a new approach. It promised three or four updates per year, rather than a wait for something substantially new once a year. But that’s not what they’re delivering. Instead, we get perhaps two annual updates that could be considered, at best, tweaks.
To some degree, I have been what @Acorn refers to as a “cash cow”. I have renewed my subscription every year. I have seen little change from version to version, but I didn’t want to lose access to the changes that had occurred since the last update.
But I am now planning to wait to see if Xara will provide something worth my money.
I have learned a substantial amount about HTML and CSS and a bit about JavaScript… all of which can be implemented into the Xara program. I can do far more in the context of the program than the program itself allows. But that shouldn’t be. Xara should make those capacities easily available to everyone.
I am a bit heartbroken to make the realization, but the improvements are simply not worth the renewal price. I will wait until I see something worth investing in before I pay again.
I love WDP, and I want it to get back to its former glory.

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Originally Posted by gcellison

I have learned a substantial amount about HTML and CSS and a bit about JavaScript… all of which can be implemented into the Xara program. I can do far more in the context of the program than the program itself allows. But that shouldn’t be. Xara should make those capacities easily available to everyone.
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^^^^^ that is a very good point. Xara Pro+ can do so many things that we’re all unaware of. If it wasn’t for this forum, and trusted members we’d all be in the dark. We all know who those members are. I keep a very large file of tips and tricks, but those tips should be available to very one. In a large printed manual.

I’ll continue with Pro+ for my PC desktop, but I now work on two platforms.
If I found anything like Xara for Mac I’d be all over it. Immediately.
I wonder if Xara could do a dual platform.
Meanwhile people who use Affinity are screaming for a web program.

-Bill

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Originally Posted by bwood

Meanwhile people who use Affinity are screaming for a web program.

-Bill

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I don't know why, aren't there enough out there already?

It was the beginning of the end when Xara developed theirs.