This new SaaS is disheartening to say the least. I like may here have been on the NI highway for a long time...since 1994 here. I have been a part of "one man / two man" shops as well larger organizations. What I believe this will do is ultimately shutdown and put out of business, those smaller one/two person companies...you know, the ones who helped NI get on the road to success. Back when NI was smaller they relied on the small business Alliance Members to integrate their products and make them shine. That small business model will only yield one, two, maybe three projects per year, depending upon the size and complexity of the projects they are awarded. The way these smaller companies can increase their revenue is to utilize a tool for more than one year...as many years as it makes sense to be more to the point. They can have a multi-year project that may not yield much money because a lot of time is spent waiting for other things to be done but now instead of paying for a single copy of LabVIEW, which they would have had the rights to use multiple years, they now have to diminish their profits to pay for LabVIEW every year. That may not sound like much to the NI folks, but to the small business owner, it means everything. If they have to include multi-year pricing, they might effectively price themselves out of a job. Imagine adding another 5k or 10k to that price tag due to software costs. It will go to a larger company that has more resources, more sharing, more simultaneous projects. Some might say that you can share the costs across your customer base...for small businesses that is not as stable or known as the larger companies. They have just added a lot more risk for the small business owner...not a good thing to do and certainly not a thank you to all of those people who helped NI shine through the years.
There is an entirely different dynamic with larger businesses and I have read through the comments, I agree with what you all are saying. It will be a much tougher sell to the bosses.
As I read through the comments, I was hoping to see messages from Eric to address the concerns and state that NI will reconsider their position on this. I have not seen the major request that nearly everyone is asking about...Bringing back the perpetual license. I see cherry picking of topics trying to justify his decision to move LabVIEW to the SaaS model. There are other ways to get the feedback that NI is looking for regarding their products. The scape goat that is the SaaS is not method that will yield the best results. I wish there would be some consideration for those who are telling NI that this new subscription model will harm us more than help us.
This is a serious question for Eric, How many more ways do we need to explain it to help you understand what you are doing to us as LabVIEW developers?
Since 2-cents is not enough these days...this is my 4-cents... 🙂
