Pro Tools might be moving to licensing

[Sean Kenny]

There is a long thread complaining about it at GS. No one seems to be happy. It's something I hope MOTU never considers. On the other hand, being able to use PT now and then, maybe every two years or so, for a few dollars rather than layout $700-$800 has its attractions for me if I am working with someone who doesn't have DP or Logic.

Show them DP for any length of time and they'll probably switch. Quite a number of my on going clients have. It's worth it just for the tuning feature alone.

[frankf]

As far as DP goes, the upgrade charge has been under $200. That's not even annually as DP hasn't been upgrade every 12 months. Even If it works out to $200 annually, monthly it would be less than $16/month. Why would MOTU go to this kind of fee structure? It would cost them to set this up and certainly force an increased upgrade fee. MOTU has been very good on pricing it's upgrades, IMO and that reflects their respect for their existing user base. There must be low margins on upgrades. They don't even take Amex BTW, the title of this thread is misleading. MOTU has a license agreement. We have to click the "agree" box with every installation.


Frank Ferrucci

[philbrown]

As far as DP goes, the upgrade charge has been under $200. That's not even annually as DP hasn't been upgrade every 12 months. Even If it works out to $200 annually, monthly it would be less than $16/month.

There's nothing forcing anyone to do every single upgrade though. There are people posting here pretty often that stayed with, and are happy still using v5 for instance.

If AVID makes 'rental' the ONLY option then that could bring some users to DP - people that are staunchly against the 'rental' thing on principle or whatever other reason. AVID would be smart to offer both options IMO. It would be interesting to see long-time PT users taking a good serious look at DP for perhaps the first time- and all caused by a corporate move from AVID!

[mikehalloran]

If AVID makes 'rental' the ONLY option then that could bring some users to DP - people that are staunchly against the 'rental' thing on principle or whatever other reason. AVID would be smart to offer both options IMO.

As has been pointed out, they plan to do so on Feb. 15.

I'm not understanding the difference between the $199yr and $299yr options. Not my issue but I'm still curious.

[James Steele]

I have a very visceral aversion to Adobe's "monthly fee" structure. I admit it's not entirely rational, as people say it can work out to less, but it's what has kept me from getting into Adobe Premier and sticking with Final Cut Pro X, even though some aspects of Premier are better... like it's motion stabilizing function, etc.

[Tesionman]

A lot of people seem to happily run old versions of PT. I bet many won't upgrade.

[billf]

Subscription fees are nothing new really. Those of us with Waves WUP have been dealing with it now for years. However, with WUP if you stop paying, updates cease, but the software still works with your license frozen and your off ramp version. The worst aspect of Adobe's subscription is if you stop paying, you have no way to keep working because the software license will no longer work.