Get rid of the perpetual license: A suggestion for a different approach to the licensing structure of Capture One.
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Sign up for a year and if you cancel at the end of that year, you get the version you were on to use "forever".
Off-ramping.
This would satisfy my needs as a perpetual license owner. Would work for me with adobe (which I hate) too...
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Today I looked at Microsoft's new (and only) proposition for their Office products and seats proposition for Small to Medium sized businesses.
New for 2022 is a price increase a few months from now, and additional hike in charges for monthly subscriptions with a very much shorter "get your data off our systems before we delete it" period, an Annula Subscription and, soon, a 3year subscription.
One can add more products and seats to the arrangements at any time but not remove them until the end f the current period of the agreement. Of course a monthly subscription is quite flexible but at some considerable cost.
There is no Off-ramping, other than a few days latitude for recovering data or renewing the subscription.
In business this seems to be the way that all software vendors would like to be heading.
Basically, as described by Raymond, the proposal is just what a perpetual license offers today, other than one pays for it in advance rather than monthly. There may be detailed differences, but not many.
The legacy of a perpetual license, not updated for several years is fine (as would be the subscription and Off-Ramp) so long as:
- You are not forced by third parties to upgrade your OS to a level that does not support your legacy software;
- You are not forced by the purchase of a new camera or lens to upgrade the version of the software;
- You do not need new application features that may be introduced.
- Any peripherals you may obtain, whether photographic or for editing, will be supported by the legacy version you retain;
- You do not expect to have need of any performance improvements that may become available - i.e. you are happy with how things work as they are.
Now this is quite easy to achieve at this time - no action required when a new version becomes available unless you choose to update to that version for some reason.
As for Basic and Pro levels - that is pretty much how things were originally.
Express was originally a reduced feature (but all supported cameras) option available free and Pro the whole offering.
DB was for Phase One Data Backs - all functionality but file type constrained.
CH was and is a different sort of "Special" that stretches beyond just software.
"Enterprise" is, basically, already (conceptually) what is described as the "Pro" version with some highly specific functionality included aimed at studio functionality.
In summary, the suggestion is either pretty much how things are at the moment OR has already been used in the past. More or less.
I think it would take something rather different (but probably more complicated) to come up with an offering off greater flexibility of content - with users able to pick from a menu of options perhaps - that would successfully address all of the many and varied wishes of the current and future user base - assuming we do no all succumb to phone camera usage and editing facilities in the next few years.
After all, if enough AI is available there would be no need to carry the cost of the equipment or the travel required to make a few images. We could all save a few hundred units of currency on software and avoid paying several thousands of units of currency for cameras and lenses.
Problems solved - until the discussion about the costs of using A.I. goes mainstream.
;)
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It is better for customers, and ultimately for the product as well, if customers can vote with their wallets for and against certain changes.
If a subscription model allows unrestricted off-ramping and on-ramping then it is equivalent to a perpetual license model, with the only difference that one would have to actively jump off, instead of needing to actively stay on board.
If the subscription is less flexible/generous then it gives customers too little power to steer the development.
Now, tailor-made variants sound interesting for the customer and would raise the competition between features and capabilities. From the company's perspective, though, it is much easier to take a "one size fits all" approach. It simplifies book keeping and allows to split the cost for features that few use over many customers.
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I’d like it to be simpler and more predictable for the company and of value to the customer. And yes, what I’m thinking of is really the inverted perpetual license: you have to actively opt out to leave. With the only way in via subscription, that helps manage the predictability side for Capture One, especially as I’d recommend that it be a minimum of a year term (you could end early, just pay).
As a software developer myself, to me, there has to be a careful balance between customer-driven development, “things that need doing” (tech debt) and the point of view of the company too. Capture One will have insight that no customer will have and also have a product vision that I’d want them to keep. I like Capture One not just because of the feature set, which I find excellent, but the design ethos and other non-tangibles that for me set them apart. I wouldn’t want them to lose that. I’m not interested in a clone of Lightroom, for example.
A customer-driven roadmap can be useful indeed but doing it right is very difficult. Capture One’s feature request ecosystem should be revamped, in my opinion, so that it can be a little more transparent. It would be great to see what the top and trending requests are, for example. Maybe in a dashboard or what-have-you. (That’s all probably another feature request of course).
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@Class A
Tailor-made variants were available, in effect, for Adobe products that supported "plug-ins". (And any compatible products that were happy to support the same plug-in methods and opportunities.)
One might suggest that this was Adobe's of allowing others to "fill in gaps" in functionality in a way that was encouraged by the potential for "monetization" and so offer benefits to everyone who chose to participate.
Or, perhaps, a way to discover what was really popular and worth building in to applications without the need for speculative development promoted by vocal minorities with specific interests that, whilst valid, were not of proven investment value. In other words, one might buy the plug-in to make it one's own or simply develop the same functionality within the product thus making the plug-in obsolete.
My own observations, working with corporate clients to implement business systems and deal with what they perceived as being tailored requirements specific to their operations in a given market, was that the only way such an approach could be supported in the long term was to absorb the "special developments" into the "standard product". Possibly in a 4 or 5-year cycle at the time - but that was long ago and now subsumed into the 1-year version cycle most companies have adopted.
As a side note, there are many companies out there, some very large "global market leaders", who promise functionality and benefits that in many cases are far beyond what they really offer or can actually deliver.
The clients need to be very large (in cash flow terms) and very well managed (in order to identify and admit to problems) if they are are to have any influence over the vendors.
The subscription model is showing no signs of offering long ramp-off options or even access options to a frozen version of the software in the way that a perpetual license offers, albeit only for a limited period based on owning hardware that can run the last version that one upgraded to.
All subscription models that I am aware off cut off access to applications when the subscription expires or very shortly afterward if local legal requirements so demand.
Cloud-based services, the Holy Grail for customer retention and control by large corporations, are unlikely to offer any potentially reliable access to functionality OR, in some cases, one's data files after a subscription has expired.
Of course, that may not matter. One's 100k image library may be impressive but 10 year down the road relative few of them are likely to be significant. If they are they are probably available in a pre-prepared form in a commercial library such as Getty Images.
If 1k of the images are still "significant" in terms of a need for being edited from time to time - that's not really very many images to re-process with a new tool if and when demand arises. One may even see enhanced results.
But the current challenge may be that the potential market for selling the product is in decline.
I have not checked the numbers for a while - maybe it is time to do so again - but "proper camera" sales were declining rapidly in past years and consumer camera sales had almost vanished in favour of mobile phone devices. One device to rule them all.
So how big is the market for photo editing software from stand-alone companies?
Is there a general marketplace developing for the future or only niche options that mainstream corporates, such as Adobe, may not be so focused upon?
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Raymond,
A customer-driven road map can indeed be useful. However, in my experiences in the corporate world such approaches were best handled (or produced the best outcomes for those involved) when specifically managed.
So it might work with an Enterprise targeted development plan but would be much trickier to run successfully with the wider interests of the general user market.
That said if, as a developer, one is going to try something related to customer involvement there should at least be some interaction and feedback even if only minimal.
In the forums are some generic threads related to Camera Support and Lens support and, iirc, suggestions for "Pro-Standard" camera profiles.
They have been running for a while now. So it would seem sensible, from a PR perspective if nothing else, to provide an update about what has been delivered based on the requests created.
Unless, of course, the information would be less than optimal in terms of user perceptions.
Absent any "good news" feedback (and there surely must have been some at some point) from any of those official request channels I struggle to see how any more specific form or User Requested functionality could be successfully introduced.
I would guess that if a group of people combined to make an issue through multiple channels and had an opportunity to "catch the ear" of a senior executive something might happen "behind the scenes". That would be quite normal throughout the business world. But a widely effective engagement with "the masses" and their highly personalised set of requirements seems less achievable - anywhere, not just with C1.
( I will except from that statement situations where one is communicating one-on-one with a solo developer or a very small team - but that situation brings with it other matters of possible concern.)
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The yearly update is fine. They just sometimes do a couple of goofy things around when it is time to pay.
- When you pre-pay to get a discount your current version of C1 just stops working without no explanation why. This last year I had to scratch my head for a week before I realized that my old serial number voids when I buy the new version. Hey Phase One why don't you just offer the discount when the day the product comes rather then a month before? Why do I need to pay for something I don't have yet anyways?
- This year they have been upfront with what features would be available on in the first quarter release and possibly what should be coming out in the second or third quarters. There is not so much a surprise to what you are paying for.
They fixed many problems with previous updates. Basically just need to make it so it isn't such a main for early updaters. Do the paying and the updating on the same day.
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