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JoshPlumSE
Structural
As a prominent former RISA employee, a number of people have approached me privately with some questions/ concerns regarding RISA's recent move towards subscription licensing. As such, I thought it would be a good idea to state the current policy as I understand it and offer some generic advice to those who are wondering the same thing.
RISA / Nemetschek is currently only selling their subscription licensing. Meaning that if you contact them about getting a new copy of their software (or updating from an old version) they will offer to "lease" the right to use the software on a yearly basis (i.e. a subscription). But, once your lease runs out you lose all ability to use the software unless you renew your subscription.
However, people who own a perpetual version of the software and continue to pay their yearly maintenance fees will continue to get upgrades to the newer versions using their traditional license protection (Sentinel network licensing or hardware keys or such).
Maintenance cost vs subscription costs. The maintenance costs of the perpetual licenses are significantly less per year than the subscription costs. This is because the owner paid a large up front cost to purchase the right to use the software. And, they are now only paying a yearly maintenance fee to provide for upgrades and access to technical support.
Personally, I feel the Subscription model and costs are really pretty good. Provided you have a reliable internet connection (because the license validation relies on your internet connection). If I were a new user it would take something like three years of subscription to make up for the purchase price of the program. The only drawback is that I don't own the right to use the software once my subscription runs out.
Transferring licenses: If you prefer a perpetual license over a subscription, your only current option is to purchase it from an existing RISA user. Maybe you have a friend who is getting ready to retire and is willing to sell you their license. All you have to do is purchase the license from your friend, and get them to write a letter to RISA authorizing the sale. Then you can take over their maintenance payments and such.
A couple of words of words of caution about perpetual licenses:
Note: I cannot give you the currently pricing because I don't know it. In fact, the current company policy at RISA/ Nemetschek is to let only their Sales Reps know the cost of the software. Pricing structure is considered "too complicated" for regular engineers to understand. LOL... If anyone wants to know the current pricing, then you should ask RISA directly or get someone to post the information to this forum.
RISA / Nemetschek is currently only selling their subscription licensing. Meaning that if you contact them about getting a new copy of their software (or updating from an old version) they will offer to "lease" the right to use the software on a yearly basis (i.e. a subscription). But, once your lease runs out you lose all ability to use the software unless you renew your subscription.
However, people who own a perpetual version of the software and continue to pay their yearly maintenance fees will continue to get upgrades to the newer versions using their traditional license protection (Sentinel network licensing or hardware keys or such).
Maintenance cost vs subscription costs. The maintenance costs of the perpetual licenses are significantly less per year than the subscription costs. This is because the owner paid a large up front cost to purchase the right to use the software. And, they are now only paying a yearly maintenance fee to provide for upgrades and access to technical support.
Personally, I feel the Subscription model and costs are really pretty good. Provided you have a reliable internet connection (because the license validation relies on your internet connection). If I were a new user it would take something like three years of subscription to make up for the purchase price of the program. The only drawback is that I don't own the right to use the software once my subscription runs out.
Transferring licenses: If you prefer a perpetual license over a subscription, your only current option is to purchase it from an existing RISA user. Maybe you have a friend who is getting ready to retire and is willing to sell you their license. All you have to do is purchase the license from your friend, and get them to write a letter to RISA authorizing the sale. Then you can take over their maintenance payments and such.
A couple of words of words of caution about perpetual licenses:
1) The license protection scheme (sentinel USB hardware keys) used for perpetual licensing seem to be falling out of fashion with the company that sells this technology to RISA. So much so, that it hasn't updated the drivers for their keys for years. They still seem to work with Win10, but there is no guarantee it will work with the next version of Windows. What will RISA / Nemetschek do if this happens? Back when Bruce owned the company I knew what the answer would be... He would offer very fair (even generous) terms to the users who got screwed over. He valued all of his customers and had a genuine desire to do right by them. I'm not entirely confident that the new RISA / Nemetschek would be quite so generous.
2) While the maintenance costs for a perpetual license are currently a lot lower than the subscription costs, there is no guarantee it will stay that way. It would be kind of a nasty thing to do, but what's to stop RISA / Nemetschek from raising the cost of the maintenance until it equals the subscription costs. Certainly there is a desire to move as many users over to subscription as possible. It's a better licensing model for them after all...
2) While the maintenance costs for a perpetual license are currently a lot lower than the subscription costs, there is no guarantee it will stay that way. It would be kind of a nasty thing to do, but what's to stop RISA / Nemetschek from raising the cost of the maintenance until it equals the subscription costs. Certainly there is a desire to move as many users over to subscription as possible. It's a better licensing model for them after all...
Note: I cannot give you the currently pricing because I don't know it. In fact, the current company policy at RISA/ Nemetschek is to let only their Sales Reps know the cost of the software. Pricing structure is considered "too complicated" for regular engineers to understand. LOL... If anyone wants to know the current pricing, then you should ask RISA directly or get someone to post the information to this forum.