Not with a Bang...

--- but a Whimper.

Found this today:

Attachment 120550

No fanfare, no social media, no "This is not the Xara Online Designer you are looking for." It's Xara Cloud, take it or leave it.
You cannot even get to this News page directly: http://www.xara.com/uk/news/ through http://www.xara.com/.

Xara Fog!

So Xara Online Designer is no more and Xara Cloud is not beta.
It now has a list of Prices: http://www.xara.com/uk/pricing/.

First off, how rude to charge at equity for Sterling to Euro to US Dollars.
Secondly, how rude to cut off access to any Desktop products when accessing http://www.xara.com/!
What does work is http://www.xara.com/eu/ or http://www.xara.com/us/ & http://www.xara.com/uk/.


The limited detail is hiding here: https://docs.xara.com/latest-updates/april-4th-2018.

Help is now through intercom that thinks you are a company.
So I checked what "unlimited sharing" (Premium at £9.95 a month offers), I found https://docs.xara.com/collaborate/sharing-a-document, which mentions:

Quote:

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You can also sort of 'Export' documents by hitting Download option. Then you can decide if you want to save it on your local machine as a JPEG or PNG image, PDF document, or even XML text file.

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and has Xara Online Designer plastered everywhere.
A Knowledge Base of 42 articles.
A Knowledge Base that describes features that are seemingly excluded from the Starter version.

Xara has done the usual and fragmented its product so all the vital things are in the top bracket, which is not a selectable option anyhow.

Quote:

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Premium version (£9.95/m) is for individuals who want to create stunning documents.
For small teams the best option is Team (£19.95/m). It includes all the functionalities and allows you to share your documents with unlimited users. You can also create your own templates. If you are a bigger company we encourage you to contact us and we will find the best solution for your business.

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I really must be missing something.
Look at http://www.xara.com/uk/pricing/ and then flip to http://www.xara.com/uk/pricing-annually/.
Slightly negligent not to mention the pricing is per User per month.

Say I have a client that I could trust with my design.
I would buy Xara Web Designer Premium and £69.95 and exchange designs through the Cloud.
If I had to collaborate through the Web, I would reluctantly use the free Xara Cloud Starter, of which I and my client now have a collaboration each.
My ROI is less that four months.

Acorn

Yes I got this too and I agree its very confusing.

Thanks for pointing this out Acorn, I never received any notification. Like yourself, I & many other TG members are long standing strong supporters of Xara software over many years. However I must admit to an ever greater disillusionment over the past 4 to 5 years with the Magix involvement, the multiple Xara versions, the false announcements of new features, the lack of real vector features etc etc.

TG has a Dear Xara section for users to post their, what I can only suggest are 'pipe dreams' as they go ignored and unanswered. We are being told by Xara employees that Xara's efforts are now focused on Xara Online Designer, whoops sorry, change of name again? Xara Cloud. Meanwhile the desktop product we all use is languishing in limbo, bugs go un-repaired, quarterly updates are not being met, Magix servers appear to have far to frequent issues/down-time and the farce that is the on-line catalogue rolls on, not mentioning the hated 12 monthly annual service contract and all that entails.

And what is the latest offering? It's not an online vector drawing package. It's a webdesign/DTP cloud based software costing £/€/$ 9.95 PER USER per month!!!

Sorry, I'm not cracking open any champagne bottles. Matt Bolton the new CEO stated:

Quote:

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Secondly, Xara is not pivoting from the Desktop products. We will continue, as we always have, to release new features and performance improvements on a consistent basis. What we are doing is investing in new areas of growth, but the existing business around the Desktop products remains strong. The rich content creation market is massive yet highly competitive and we believe Xara is well positioned to drive the market forward.

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No. Your main core user base is Vector graphics, you've taken your eye off the ball or even perhaps abandoned your software's core element. I won't be interested in Xara Cloud. To expensive and lacking in features :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Meanwhile the desktop product we all use is languishing in limbo, bugs go un-repaired, quarterly updates are not being met, Magix servers appear to have far to frequent issues/down-time and the farce that is the on-line catalogue rolls on, not mentioning the hated 12 monthly annual service contract and all that entails.

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And, in the case of XPD, the price for this infamous update service has been jacked up by more than 33%, notwithstanding assurances a year earlier that it would remain comparable to the earlier upgrade prices!

Great, now that's out the way maybe they can actually do something important like finish v15.1 😉
Incidentally (and not that it makes any difference) but have Xara now become a German company?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonopen

Great, now that's out the way maybe they can actually do something important like finish v15.1 
Incidentally (and not that it makes any difference) but have Xara now become a German company?

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Yup, I noticed the GMBH too,
Acorn

Seems the currency is the main factor for the Matt
https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...559#post591559

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonopen

Great, now that's out the way maybe they can actually do something important like finish v15.1 ��
Incidentally (and not that it makes any difference) but have Xara now become a German company?

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Ja mein freund. Wie heiBen sie? Don't tell him Jonopen doh!. Ihr name wird auch auf der liste erscheinen.

Stygg :D

Don't think the xara name will be present anywhere at all in the near future and yes George again a namechange http://links.giveawayoftheday.com/magixcloud.com

here's a link to Companies House:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/c...97032/officers

on the people tab you will see that only Kate [Gaddeston Place] and Jurgen [Berlin] remain dirctors of the Xara Group Limited; and Charles resigned 31 December 2015

Guess we can all decide for ourselves what that might mean...

I wouldn't mind betting that, whoever does the actual programming for the desktop programs, control is effectively with Magix; hence Rob having to beg for examples of why version 15 was a pig's ear when it was obvious to all that actually use images and text for anything other than glorified photo-album manipulation, web based or otherwise...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

Ja mein freund. Wie heiBen sie? Don't tell him Jonopen doh!. Ihr name wird auch auf der liste erscheinen.
Stygg :D

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Very Dad's Army but more like 'Allo 'Allo and Fawlty Towers.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Very Dad's Army but more like 'Allo 'Allo and Fawlty Towers.

Acorn

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Dad's Army Acorn, just my little joke after reading the posts in this thread as regards does Magix own Xara and all the confusion over the cloud and pricing and the rest of the secrecy, smoke and mirrors . I thought at this rate we would all be getting e-mails sometime or another asking if we were for or against such a move, if against, your name would go on the list. Hence the Dad's Army ref. Not offending anyone, just my weird sense of humour :D

Stygg

Hmm, Upgrade/renewal price (UK) is £89 expires? today (8th).
https://www.magix.com/gb/photo-graph...-designer-pro/
Can't remember what I should be expecting to pay to renew, was considering not renewing but to save the hassle I might if this is regarded as a genuine bargain price or is 'expires today' just a gimmick to pressure me to buy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

Dad's Army Acorn, just my little joke after reading the posts in this thread as regards does Magix own Xara and all the confusion over the cloud and pricing and the rest of the secrecy, smoke and mirrors . I thought at this rate we would all be getting e-mails sometime or another asking if we were for or against such a move, if against, your name would go on the list. Hence the Dad's Army ref. Not offending anyone, just my weird sense of humour :D
Stygg

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i got the joke reference straight away but the Brit-German dichotomy might have passed others by.

Acorn

Please no airdefence here, heard enough about the cloud.

I went to xara.com - scrolling right down to the borrom, where it says 'products' and clicking on 'desktop', took me to the xara.com/uk product page [and at the bottom of that page is the link to 'news']

so you can do it...

as for pricing and the rest... what can I say that's not been said; joke is what it is, but not funny...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Yup, I noticed the GMBH too,
Acorn

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http://www.firmenwissen.com/en/az/fi...XARA_GMBH.html

but you need to pay if you want any details.....

notice who the contacts are...: magix-online...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

I went to xara.com - scrolling right down to the borrom, where it says 'products' and clicking on 'desktop', took me to the xara.com/uk product page [and at the bottom of that page is the link to 'news']
so you can do it...
as for pricing and the rest... what can I say that's not been said; joke is what it is, but not funny...

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It is the sole link to get you into the old Xara Products site so I apologise for not spotting it.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

here's a link to Companies House:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/c...97032/officers

on the people tab you will see that only Kate [Gaddeston Place] and Jurgen [Berlin] remain dirctors of the Xara Group Limited; and Charles resigned 31 December 2015

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Jurgen is the only Director.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sculptex

Hmm, Upgrade/renewal price (UK) is £89 expires? today (8th).
https://www.magix.com/gb/photo-graph...-designer-pro/
Can't remember what I should be expecting to pay to renew, was considering not renewing but to save the hassle I might if this is regarded as a genuine bargain price or is 'expires today' just a gimmick to pressure me to buy?

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Upgrade price of £89 now expires 22nd..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

It is the sole link to get you into the old Xara Products site so I apologise for not spotting it.

Acorn

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hey no need to apologise :) - just letting everyone know

Quote:

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Jurgen is the only Director.

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thanks for that - I didn't persue it any further there or elsewhere...

the times they are a changing... lets just hope, bearing in mind your tag for this thread, that they are not all hollow men...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sculptex

Upgrade price of £89 now expires 22nd..

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Good to hear that they have this offer at the moment but last year when my renewal was up the special offer was 119 euros. I'm still mad about it.

Is anyone aware that the picture of the Minions is Copyright Pierre Coffin, Universal Studios?

Sorry, it's just bad form for a company to "liberate" copyrighted material; without permission from the creator.

Xara is an original product. The announcement is not.

Sorry,

Gary

It's possible that they asked permission ...

Although given the current climate, I'd doubt it. Looking at the post again, it looks like a tweet ... You'd think a professional designer would know better!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ss-kalm

It's possible that they asked permission ...

Although given the current climate, I'd doubt it. Looking at the post again, it looks like a tweet ... You'd think a professional designer would know better!

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Gotcha right there. A professional designer would know better!

</snark>