LabVIEW subscription model for 2022

[pxiCarsten]

This thread is record long, showing the passionate desire  to continue to be enthusiastic about LabVIEW. 

But these vocal ones typically are less than 1% of the users. NI should be more concerned about the remaining 99% who are silent , and many of these have already quietly LabVIEW and  NI.

This thread is just the canary in the coal mine.

[EricR]

Thank you for adding the summary of the LabVIEW Community Edition and how it can be used @Hooovahh 

For others that have replied on this topic, the LabVIEW Community Edition can open VIs for nearly every version of LabVIEW.  For versions of LabVIEW that it can't open, they were created before subscriptions existed and are only available as perpetual licenses.  

In addition, NI is aware of the challenges of activating the LabVIEW Community Edition today.  We are working on improved methods to make this process better.

[pxiCarsten]

This thoughtful comment repeats a discussion I well remember we had in the late 1990s. 

It sketches a manageable counter-attract by LabVIEW into areas where LabVIEW can do as good or better job than text-based languages, both in terms of development efficiency and performance.

I strongly serious consideration of proposals of this nature.

[AhmedEisawy]

I appreciate all the feedback but NI is no longer offering development software by subscription only. We've reenabled perpetual again back in April with some limitations (limiting visibility to pricing and LabVIEW only availability on ni.com) while we're working on adjusting our pricing and packaging this year.

For anyone who needs a perpetual development license for LabVIEW, please go to ni.com/labview and request a quote. The quote will be created at full price but discounting will be offered (not through haggling) but to guide us into how to adjust permanently moving forward.

We appreciate the feedback and the patience from all of you.

[pxiCarsten]

What is the status for these licensing questions with respect to toolkits such as Sound and Vibration? 

[Intaris]

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@AhmedEisawy wrote:

I appreciate all the feedback but NI is no longer offering development software by subscription only. We've reenabled perpetual again back in April with some limitations (limiting visibility to pricing and LabVIEW only availability on ni.com) while we're working on adjusting our pricing and packaging this year.

For anyone who needs a perpetual development license for LabVIEW, please go to ni.com/labview and request a quote. The quote will be created at full price but discounting will be offered (not through haggling) but to guide us into how to adjust permanently moving forward.

We appreciate the feedback and the patience from all of you.

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First, it's great NI/Emerson is offering perpetual licenses again. This is a great move.

On the other hand I don't understand the difference between "we don't publish prices for perpetual licenses" together with "You'll get a discount if you ask for one" and "haggling".

We received an offer for perpetual licenses, with hardly and discount. Now we contacted NI again with a question for more discount. This is not the same as "discounting will be offered" (which suggests some sort of pro-active NI/Emerson behaviour). Instead, it is a simple reaction to our request for lower prices. This is literally haggling. It's a discussion over prices. It's a back-and-forth. It makes financial planning impossible.

I was just talking with my colleagues over lunch and my personal position is that it's NOT only the price which has created the problem, but it's this kind of communication which had seriously eroded our ability to trust what we're being told.  We know what haggling is. We see how it's working. We see the parallels between them. Being told it's not haggling while demonstrating that we need to engage in haggling is a situation where we, as engineers, quickly lose faith in anything NI/Emerson has to say to us. We no longer feel that we can trust your word. And that's independent of the price discussion. But the price discussion made it really obvious that the flow of information has become problematic.

The only part which could give any kind of respite is: Can you outline what precisely you mean by "discounting will be offered ... to guide us into how to adjust permanently moving forward" actually means? How will it be offered? Proactively? If so, then why is the offer being generated with full price. Too many things in this situation just don't add up no matter how you look at it. Because if it smells like haggling, looks like haggling and sounds like haggling, what information do we have to go on that it's not just haggling. It certainly seems the most reasonable position to take. I'm not being snarky (or at least not on purpose) but am genuinely trying to understand exactly what the issue is here. What I see and what I'm being told just don't seem to align.

[AhmedEisawy]

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@Intaris wrote:

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@AhmedEisawy wrote:

I appreciate all the feedback but NI is no longer offering development software by subscription only. We've reenabled perpetual again back in April with some limitations (limiting visibility to pricing and LabVIEW only availability on ni.com) while we're working on adjusting our pricing and packaging this year.

For anyone who needs a perpetual development license for LabVIEW, please go to ni.com/labview and request a quote. The quote will be created at full price but discounting will be offered (not through haggling) but to guide us into how to adjust permanently moving forward.

We appreciate the feedback and the patience from all of you.

---

First, it's great NI/Emerson is offering perpetual licenses again. This is a great move.

On the other hand I don't understand the difference between "we don't publish prices for perpetual licenses" together with "You'll get a discount if you ask for one" and "haggling".

We received an offer for perpetual licenses, with hardly and discount. Now we contacted NI again with a question for more discount. This is not the same as "discounting will be offered" (which suggests some sort of pro-active NI/Emerson behaviour). Instead, it is a simple reaction to our request for lower prices. This is literally haggling. It's a discussion over prices. It's a back-and-forth. It makes financial planning impossible.

I was just talking with my colleagues over lunch and my personal position is that it's NOT only the price which has created the problem, but it's this kind of communication which had seriously eroded our ability to trust what we're being told.  We know what haggling is. We see how it's working. We see the parallels between them. Being told it's not haggling while demonstrating that we need to engage in haggling is a situation where we, as engineers, quickly lose faith in anything NI/Emerson has to say to us. We no longer feel that we can trust your word. And that's independent of the price discussion. But the price discussion made it really obvious that the flow of information has become problematic.

The only part which could give any kind of respite is: Can you outline what precisely you mean by "discounting will be offered ... to guide us into how to adjust permanently moving forward" actually means? How will it be offered? Proactively? If so, then why is the offer being generated with full price. Too many things in this situation just don't add up no matter how you look at it. Because if it smells like haggling, looks like haggling and sounds like haggling, what information do we have to go on that it's not just haggling. It certainly seems the most reasonable position to take. I'm not being snarky (or at least not on purpose) but am genuinely trying to understand exactly what the issue is here. What I see and what I'm being told just don't seem to align.

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Haggling was never the intention. When we reintroduced perpetual development licenses back in April, we did it in a limited way given that we needed direct feedback on how we should adjust our pricing and packaging after the subscription shift. We needed to actual data to guide us on how to permanently provide perpetual licenses along side subscription licenses for our development software.

The plan was to have our sellers call (not email) customers requesting quotes to discuss the full price and immediately (in the same call) talk about discounting options. We expected customers to compare against the 2021 levels (right before the move to subscription) and hence empowered our sellers to offer discounts to adjust the price reasonably and then report to us so that we can learn the proper balance moving forward. We're using the learning to make the changes on ni.com for all products and present prices.

Again, if it looks like haggling to you, I apologize, that was never the intent. I'm following up internally to try to improve the process. I know it'll not be better until we make the permanent changes and simplify online to avoid the need for requesting quotes and discounting.

Once more, we ask for your patience as we work through your feedback and continue on making the internal improvements.

[jmorris]

(written before the post immediately above this one)

I agree that this discussion over the term "haggling" seems like an unnecessary distraction from the actual topic.  If you (NI / Emerson) feel that the term "haggling" has negative connotations and would prefer we not use it, just say that without trying to convince us that's not what it actually is.

We can call it "financial discussions" or some such (especially if you give us your preferred term), even if we leave quotation marks around it, and move on from getting distracted by terminology, which doesn't help anyone.

[jmorris]

Ahmed, I just wanted to say again that I do appreciate all of the efforts you have put in on this thread to communicate what you can regarding the on-going price change process, your thoughts and plans on the matter, and acknowledging the concerns of the community.  It is really nice to see an on-going discussion, even if both sides wish the matter were already resolved.

I am following the developments with interest so that I can present the final / actual options to my management team in the hopes of re-solidifying our commitment to using LabVIEW for our software.  For example, the new policy to allow reactivating existing perpetual licenses' SSP without late fees was very interesting!

It does seem like whenever a new policy option like that is created internally, even if you can't immediately update the website, it would help if you posted an official announcement about it here, rather than it feeling like it was mentioned in passing while responding to another post.

[AhmedEisawy]

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@jmorris wrote:

Ahmed, I just wanted to say again that I do appreciate all of the efforts you have put in on this thread to communicate what you can regarding the on-going price change process, your thoughts and plans on the matter, and acknowledging the concerns of the community.  It is really nice to see an on-going discussion, even if both sides wish the matter were already resolved.

I am following the developments with interest so that I can present the final / actual options to my management team in the hopes of re-solidifying our commitment to using LabVIEW for our software.  For example, the new policy to allow reactivating existing perpetual licenses' SSP without late fees was very interesting!

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Thank you and we really appreciate it that you and everyone in the forum continue to work with us, give us feedback and guide us on how to improve. We all agree that we need to more work and improve. If there is one thing we can promise, it's that we'll always listen to you all and strive to improve. We hope to share the improvements soon to support you and your businesses.