Sunday, August 22, 2021

Re: [Avid-L2] Avid Perpetual License Price Increase?

Tangential, but related, a friend of mine has a relative who is the head of security for the entire Pennsylvania utilities system. He says they have at a minimum 500 attempted hostile takeovers of their control systems per day from foreign sources.

To your point, the internet, with its profoundly liberating properties, also has the potential to hold every one of us hostage.



On Aug 22, 2021, at 5:35 AM, Karl Knowles <tech@knowlesvideo.com> wrote:

I suppose I must be business dense.

Please explain the business model (and its impact on Avid's bottom line) of charging more to a market sector you are intentionally causing to shrink as you drive them to the significantly cheaper subscription model.

If the subscription model was generating a LOT of new business from previously non-Avid users I could understand that.  Is it?  It must be, for to drive the existing Avid user base to a less expensive subscription model would seem to be contrary to the goal of making a profit.  That is unless there will be a future price adjustment to the subscription model to make up for that initial loss leader, at which point the user base has no option but to pay to continue to use MC.  Where perpetual users could simply not pay and continue to use a (stagnant) product.  But how many people do that?

Is this a fiscal maneuver that will allow Avid to look more favorable when presenting a portfolio of subscription licensees to financial institutions, investors or potential buyers?

While I don't have experience with the Avid subscription model, my personal experience with SaaS (and I refer specifically to Microsoft Office 365) is anything but positive.  I do a lot of event productions and the licensing failures I have experienced in remote locations makes me go ballistic.  Don't have that issue with my dongled MC's.

Another consideration (one that is all too often ignored or dismissed with fear mongering overtones), yesterday morning I produced a live/webcast event with Tom Patterson (Chief Trust Officer for Unisys, and a Senior Fellow at Auburn University's McCrary Center for Homeland Security) as one of the presenters.  He reinforced and expanded my understanding of just how insecure the internet is.  The increased use of the internet, as required by SaaS subscriptions, forces a significant business investment to have greater exposure to the single source of State-sponsored viral and ransomware deviants - just to be able to use the software.

I accept that I must have internet connectivity, but I will do so on my own terms and some devices will have severely restricted internet connectivity, and some none at all.  This is fundamental precept of IT security protocol.  If you have a bank vault you don't put a screen door to the back ally in it. 

Someone, please do some 'splainin to me.  ;-)

Cheers,
Karl Knowles

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