Just Released: A New Version of Web Designer

[jacobitejake]

Why would a user of the premium product, be downgrading to a product that offers fewer facilities than the product that they are using will eventually offer?

It's not an upgrade.

It's sad to see how easily people make incorrect assumptions about how people treat their customers.

Ouch! I think I see your point, do you mean things like the gallery etc. that would disappear if I neglected to pay again at the end of the year, maybe I should just upgrade to v11 then? It's still available on some sites...

[gracehjs]

Everyone seems hung up on the new model - I understand why. However, does anyone have any comments on the new features. Without Gary's usual tutorial I find it difficult to figure out the new features.

[pauland]

Ouch! I think I see your point, do you mean things like the gallery etc. that would disappear if I neglected to pay again at the end of the year, maybe I should just upgrade to v11 then? It's still available on some sites...

Maybe you should just be patient. No doubt this release will not be the only release to come.

[jacobitejake]

Maybe you should just be patient. No doubt this release will not be the only release to come.

Surely the 'other' releases will still have the same issue of losing stuff at the end of the year if I fail to spend again?

[Reality]

Kate - I applaud your efforts to find a way of producing a hi-bred of perpetual/subscription to help your finances...but I think you might have created a monster...lol I stopped using Adobe because of the subscription and turned to Xara as a solution. I would have liked a table feature in the new version but it looks like that didn't happen. I deal with a lot of stats.

You have answered one question, fix or bug updates would be included in the perpetual license. The big problem is any new features you add during the year cannot be recovered if a re-installation is required after 365 with no renewal. If I build a site and, let's say, in three months you offer a new feature and I incorporate it into my site, then if I cannot recover that feature if my computer dies after 365 and I don't renew the subscription, then I cannot edit those new features on my site. It would be a nightmare.
I suspect you may have to choose one or the other, or ensure feature updates to a particular version through the year could be recovered, in addition to bug fixes, if re-installation is required after 365 with no new purchase/renewal. But no new features will be available when a new version is released.
Offering the new features during 365 is a nice compromise between your perpetual license and the Adobe type subscription. I can live with it as long as it has the perpetual license on a version but I have to be able to count on the new features even if I don't renew.

[pauland]

Surely the 'other' releases will still have the same issue of losing stuff at the end of the year if I fail to spend again?

I would say that at this stage Xara might review the situation, who knows.

As things are you know the current situation, but Xara might think again about the practicalities.

[Acorn]

Well I hear what you are saying and all feedback will be considered, because this is a new model and it has to prove itself. But let me describe a different way of looking at 365: We have done a new version as usual, and the new features are the ones described on the Whats New page at http://www.xara.com/web-designer/whats-new/ and the release notes at http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/wd365/. We think it's a good upgrade. What we offer *in addition* this year is access to next year's features before next year. But if you are not comfortable with the conditions that attach to that access then you can reject the updates and come back in a year's time and consider again the new features that have been added in the interim and whether you want to upgrade at that point - which would give you the normal perpetual license to the version current at that time.

Kate, I have never held back from upgrading but this time is a poser.

I am trying to look at the benefits of this year's offer and not belabour the faults with the subscription model itself. It is a subscription model as you remove services on expiry.

Can you confirm that you are giving Web Designer 365 Premium purchasers $2,500-worth of Business Templates for free?
Xara Online Designer is included free for one year with Web Designer 365 Premium? Can my clients access this for free?
Will my On-line Content Catalogue for Xara Web Designer 11 Premium continue in perpetuity? Why will I not get ongoing Web Designer 365 Premium access for free?
Can you confirm you are giving Web Designer 365 Premium purchasers an upgrade to ‘Website M’ hosting, worth $23.76, for free? Can this be continued separately?
The On-line Designer now allows the creation of Xara design pages? From templates or just a blank start?
Do I lose the Font Awesome collection and a collection of Google Material Design Icons if I end my Web Designer 365 Premium subscription?

Last shout. You state "We know that many of you find it frustrating to have to wait a whole year for our next update". No, many of us are not. What we want are all the things we have cried out for over years and years: grown up fonts and colour management, actual DTP capabilities, real tables, dynamic connectors, ...
Provide an insight into your development priorities, in advance, and you will get meaningful engagement to features and capabilities that work for real users. Don't keep us guessing.

Finally, on reviewing all available information, the cost of my v11 upgrade is only $45. Combine that with 12 proposed upgrades in a year ("typically once per month") it really is value for money. Pity the positives have been swamped by poor PR.

Acorn

P.S. I have decided to upgrade for Premium and also Pro, when available, but I will stop Premium on first renewal so you have lost one licence stream.
[I kept both going as I can develop 95% of my sites and other work with Premium and prefer to use Premium if I have savvy clients who want to maintain their own sites. Now I will just use Pro and not advise my clients to purchase anything - more lost licences, I'm afraid as I will work out how to incorporate On-line Designer instead.]

[jacobitejake]

Quick question, Is it just the 'online gallery' that will disappear if I do not renew 365 and then reinstall, or will my 'Design gallery' also disappear, with all the navbars, banners, buttons and general website themes etc.? Also, what about any themes I have purchased?

[jacobitejake]

Quick question, Is it just the 'online gallery' that will disappear if I do not renew 365 and then reinstall, or will my 'Design gallery' also disappear, with all the navbars, banners, buttons and general website themes etc.? Also, what about any themes I have purchased?

Thinking about it, if this is the case then really I'm only buying a time limited (albeit 365 days) demo! with no content, so this really is a subscription model that just holds the programme, and its content, in limbo as long as you don't reinstall, not to mention the empty 'Design Gallery' initially until you spend a fair bit of time downloading all the navbars, widgets and themes etc. So me thinks a move from v10 to v11 maybe my best route to a an upgrade after all, thank goodness I can still get hold of v11 on some sites. It's a real shame Xara that it couldn't have been v12!

Xara, I think you need to realise that there are many of us that a) do not need to upgrade each year if the additions/improvements are not essential, or not needed at that time, and b) Some of us really can't afford to. I wonder if it's because you are finding it more and more difficult to add enough to the programme to justify the upgrade cost, and indeed to spend more money, and you are starting to see from previous sales patterns that many are skipping over version upgrades, or maybe worryingly, you can foresee them doing it more and more in the future.

Thank you Xara, for finally bowing down to the rest of the companies with subscription type models, but in the end, it's all about the bottom line I suppose, it's just a shame

[hoja]

Mike, what I'm wondering is which of the common alternatives you would prefer - the old system (no access to next year's features until next year) or an Adobe-like subscription (get new features as you go along but lose all installed versions completely at the end of 365 days)? We are trying to find a way of offering some of the advantages of subscription without actually making it a subscription, while still making it profitable enough for us to carry on doing anything at all! Now I have a little suspicion that you will not be completely happy with any answer I give, but fyi the reversion will include any bug fixes we've issued for that version.

I think this 'countless users are eagerly waiting for the next release' and Software as a Service solving this issue with constant
rollout of new features is purely a marketing invention. There has been the concept of service releases and point releases for as long
as perpetual software licenses existed - even before the Internet became important.

The only valid customer advantage of SAAS in implementations which partially (Xara/Magix) or totally withdraws data access (Adobe)
are professional work scenarios which benefit from being able to exend and shrink numbers of seats (=license costs) dynamically.
Such may be Broadcast or Game production with very expensive software products in large Studios. What goes without saying in such
cases is that a certain minimum amount of seats is held available at all time (> hence there's no actual data loss).

For consumer/prosumer software portfolio under the sleve of Magix such is not an expected demand. Here I can only see the software
maker as the one who profits from introduction of SAAS: Reliable cash flow, just one release to support, things get greatly more streamlined.
It's fair to explain these business interests but turning things over and declaring the user the winner just doesn't fly.