Why I may abandon Xara

**handrawn** · 08 May 2019, 07:45 AM

as you may know having been around a long time, because of decisions made very early on and therefore the way the xara code is written it would need a major rewrite to port to mac - there may well not be available resource for that at this time

xara is a business, they will do what they think is best, and take what opportunities they see, for their business to survive in a changing market

unless we are inside the loop that is difficult to argue against from a commercial point of view, even if on a personal level we find it not to our liking...

to be brutally honest I reckon if losing old customers is out-weighed by gaining a lot of new ones, then the business heads in magix/xara will lose no sleep; that is par for the course in commerce...

**Nathan Brazil** · 08 May 2019, 08:00 AM

While taking your point, and understanding the economics, I seriously doubt that trying to shovel people into what the bean counters only guess as the best direction will prove massively profitable.

There is an on-line version of Xara already in existence. So the real question is whether the company wants to sell licenses for that version, on a one payment covers everything basis, or do they want to continue to push a subscription model where customers never own anything.

An on-line version that was fully functional, and stayed that way, giving me the choice as to whether I want to buy future versions, is something I’d be very keen to see. Otherwise, as I said earlier, there is already a pretty good alternative in Wolf Web Designer 2.

**handrawn** · 08 May 2019, 08:16 AM

it seems clear to me that Xara Cloud is being driven towards the corporate team based market; by and large companies are not so adverse to the subscription model, seeing the advantage of always being up to date and consistent across the team base, as more important

it's not my problem specifically as I do not use Xara Cloud; but as far as the desktop program goes I have made sure I can do everything I [prefer to] do in Xara in other program[s] just in case... be a pity, but life is short...

**Nathan Brazil** · 08 May 2019, 01:31 PM

Alas, I fear that you are probably correct. Xara, built on individual appreciation, headed toward corporate sales. A pity, as the company could do both. It reminds me of Apple, who used to accomplish great things, and now sell phones. (-:

There are some features which Xara products just do better and easier than other apps, and so I expect to continue using those desktop versions I bought. No upgrades required. As for web design, the app I named before, Wolf, is very similar to Xara, and clearly the makers see a gap in the market.

**Rob-Xar** · 08 May 2019, 02:20 PM

Handrawn is correct here. Just to clarify, Xara Cloud is nothing like the desktop products or any products found in the app store. It is very much a separate venture that is aimed at the corporate market. It's Cloud-based so will naturally will have a subscription model.

We're still actively developing our desktop products. Version 16.2 is soon about to be released with more features and bug fixes.

**handrawn** · 08 May 2019, 02:31 PM

Version 16.2 is soon about to be released with more features and bug fixes

thanks for that Rob

**Nathan Brazil** · 08 May 2019, 03:23 PM

So why not develop an IOS based model of Xara web designer? Wolf Web Designer is pretty much there, but obviously cannot open my Xara desktop files. Is it that Xara just does not put any value on Apples App Store and Google Play Apps for Android?

**Rob-Xar** · 08 May 2019, 03:32 PM

I don't know personally, I can only assume it was deemed not to be as profitable for the work involved.

The engine behind Xara is OS independent so it's possible to make a MacOS version, but still a heck of work would be required to do so. I supposed they figured the a cloud route would be a better direction.

Designing websites on mobile and tablet devices is rather... niche.