LabVIEW subscription model for 2022

[crossrulz]

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@MichaelBalzer wrote:

Unless I'm understanding it wrong, those pre-2022 subscription rates (<10%) are completely at odds with what was said in this thread by Eric (emphasis mine):

• At the time NI made this change, a large portion of our users were already using subscription-based software. Some part of this decision also came down to simplifying our portfolio - choosing a single model to offer software through. Between many users already using it, and the other benefits I listed, the subscription model is the right choice.

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In this case I can only assume "subscription-based software" was referring to all of a customer's software, both NI and non-NI. A lot of people probably have Office365 subscriptions or similar, but that's not really comparable to LabVIEW.

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I would put "subscription-based software" more to:

• Alliance Partner Software Reference Library (SCR) - was officially a "lease"
• Enterprise Agreements (EAs) - large VLAs that typically lasted 3 years
• Possibly Optimal+ - I'm not sure how they did their licensing, but they seem to be the largest acquisition as of late, so I felt inclined to include them here.

[billko]

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@Pnt wrote:

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@beuvink wrote:

As of this chart ~65% of all licenses have shifted to SaaS. By the end of the year this will be ~80%.

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This is somehow expected. When you are a big company and you have many projects running,  you will go to SaaS. You have no choice. 

But who new company will trust NI, in the future?

It was NI that said, please move to NXG... then they canceled NXG.

It was NI that said, we want to work with you, to provide you good software, and make LabVIEW even better... then they left many engineers hunged,  by moving to SaaS.

In this business reliability is very important. 

From the other hand, marketing people rule the world,  so maybe NI will improve their financial numbers in the future. 

Someone had said... "the most uncommon think in the world,  is common sense "

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I think NI took a big gamble on NXG, and when that was cancelled, so was LabVIEW in general.  They were hoping to salvage something of NXG in Classic, but the integration proved troublesome.

[EricR]

I would like to thank "Prof_Dude" and "ProfBrady" for their candid posts.  I would also like to thank both of you for the way you described the challenges and invited NI's participation in the discussion with you about the scenarios you now face.  The resulting 1:1 discussions with both of you were very helpful to me.  I appreciate the time you took both to make the original posts and to then talk with me 1:1.  Your points were well articulated, concise, and specific.  I'm using the information you gave me and I'll follow up with any additional questions and to vet some potential changes with you in the near future.

[EricR]

Thanks for posting this Rolf.  Admittedly, this thread has deviated in so many ways its hard to find posts to respond to.  Just to confirm, NI will have multiple solutions to use for viewing IP stored in VIs that operate outside of a subscription.  The LabVIEW Community Edition can already be used for this for all non-commercial, non-industrial purposes.  I'll be posting a more "complete" reply in the near future.  There are several problems people have posted within this thread and I'll post replies for as many of them as I can.

[EricR]

This is an accurate assessment.  While I won't comment much about the graphs shown in the Investor call (since I didn't build any of them and am not sure what sets of data were used to create the views), I can talk to specific statements.  My earlier statement about the users who were already using subscription based software clearly took into account Enterprise Agreements, VLAs and other contractual agreements that have term-based payments and usage.  The graphs as shown were showing customers not yet using subscription and how quickly they are moving to that.  If you listen to that part of the call recording, Jason Green specifically talked to this point.  It is also true that nearly all of NI's more recent software products and acquisition were already subscription-based.

[sakiyo19]

私の友達の中には何年も作業している人もいるのに、最初は大変でした。 私自身はまだその概念のほとんどを理解しておらず、それに取り組もうとするといつも迷ってしまいます。 だから、私だったら、気がついたらそんなに落ち込まないでね。

[beuvink]

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@EricR wrote:

…

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Hi Eric, thanks for joining this thread no longer leave us in the dark

[aputman]

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@Jay14159265 wrote:
Do you have a link to that one? I have been going to a few developer level ones like this one next week: 

Register now

[Artst]

This is a worldwide trend, and not just in software. Have you been in the housing market lately? You now have to compete with BlackRock. They buy up any house they can, and rent it. Their real estate empire is in constant expansion.

“In 2030, you’ll own nothing — and you’ll be happy about it”

— Klaus Schwab

That is easy for you to say, Klaus.

I do not like subscription licensing, and I so avoid it wherever I can. I do not like it because it means a constant drain on my finances, and should I ever get hard up financially, and can't afford it anymore, I no longer have the use of the software tool. It is why, for example, I changed from Dreamweaver to PineGrow for editing websites.

Where I work I am the LabVIEW programmer who develops the software that runs our product. We are a small company. It used to be that we could get a perpetual license, and service plan for 1 year, for about $700 / year. On my recommendation we continue to use the perpetual LabVIEW 2020 license. It is for reliability reasons. Should this company be no longer able to sustain the subscription it would be screwed. We are secure in the knowledge we will always have LabVIEW 2020 to continue to develop with.

LabVIEW was appreciated because development was fast. I estimate 10 to 20 times faster than C++. I do not know much about python, but I intend to study it more.

A text based programming language is not an option to migrate to because it would cost too much to do. The program is huge, and depends heavily on NI-SCOPE, VISA, and many of the high level math VIs.

[BertMcMahan]

Just FYI, you can get VISA in other languages. Python, for example: https://pyvisa.readthedocs.io/en/1.8/getting_nivisa.html DAQmx is available for other languages as well, and I'd guess NI-SCOPE is too but I don't know. Not sure about the math libraries, but I do know there are a LOT of them out there.