Autodesk has revealed plans to offer a software subscription model, with details to come in October. Company CEO, Carl Bass, spoke of an array of upcoming software rental options during an earnings call on Thursday, August 22.
When analysts on the conference call pointed out the similarity to Adobe’s Creative Cloud business model, Bass clarified, “Because we’re starting in a different place than Adobe, we don’t feel the need to force people, as they did, to go to these new license models and end perpetual licenses.”
Bass expressed Autodesk’s interest in increasing the predictability of its revenue over time with new rental options, stressing such changes would augment existing programs rather than replace them. This may not amount to a large change or risk for Autodesk, as the company’s large business customers already use a type of “pay per use” business model where software licenses are provided per seat, and render farms and support are part of the contract. I suspect this move will simply give smaller customers a new option to consider, in cases where purchasing retail copies of the CAD product was the norm.
Comments are closed.