How do you feel about the 365 Program?

[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.