Price Rise
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35% increase in the 'maintenance' charge!
Nice bit of PR trimble - not even an explanatory or apologetic comment.
We are all sheep being 'farmed' for our money. Shame, it is such good software.
David
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a > 30% price increase is quite a bit. Curious about the reason...
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Some kind of explanation would be good, I'm hoping SU2016 will have some of the features from the Gehry Technologies (GTeam) software that now belongs to Trimble.
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It is called free enterprise. Free Enterprise slaps democracy in the face all day long.
I wonder who will enjoy the increase. The employees or the shareholders?
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@derei said:
Good boy, Trimble... let's see why one should be happy about this:
SketchUp is a very professional tool that:
- allows UV mapping
- doesn't do bugsplat when having the Outliner window opened and SU does recursive operations
- Scene manager doesn't have bugs at all (eg. renaming scenes if there is something written in the Scene name field and the user clicks on another scene)
- The Warehouse doesn't take ages to initialize, is fast and sleek
And then let's talk about Layout. Layout is the best, working perfectly in conjunction with SU
- Is fast, renders the images instantly, doesn't feel lag at all
- The text from SU is identical in SU and Layout; the rendering of text is flawless. One doesn't have to make tiny dimensions (5-6pt) in order to see them decent in Layout.
- Text written in Layout is very simple to edit. Selecting all text and pressing BackSpace will delete the marked text. Also, many other very intuitive text functions (mainly like any text editor).
- The best part is still the speed, no lags, no annoyance of any way.
And many more could be said about SU + Layout.
So, yeah Trimble... your price rise is justified and earned. Good job! Expect for many people to buy licenses, because your software gets better and better.
**Leaving the irony aside, all the updates and improvements that Trimble did so far to SketchUp are welcomed and very good. BUT they merely made SU decent... like not CRAP anymore. From this to a PROFESSIONAL Software that grants speed and makes sense to pay a load of money for it is a LOOOOOONG way.
Dear Trimble... want money? We'll be more than happy to pay loads of money for SketchUp. Just make it worth that money.**
Cheers.
Derei,
It looks that there has been 38.6% general inflation since 2000, the year SketchUp was launched at $495. It was great value then and in my opinion is still great value today at the new prices.
From my calculations the new prices are an increase of 26% for SketchUp Pro 2015 and 35% for Annual Maintenance Renewal, both below the inflation rate.I, like most others, don't like price increases on things I purchase and it would be great if these things were free. Oh!!!! SketchUp Make is free and I see this is what you use.
SketchUp, just like SketchUcation, is free to the vast majority of their users /members. Its lucky for these users / members that they have SU Pro purchasers and SketchUcation Premium Members to subsidise this.
Mike
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@mike lucey said:
Derei,
It looks that there has been 38.6% general inflation since 2000, the year SketchUp was launched at $495. It was great value then and in my opinion is still great value today at the new prices.
[attachment=0:mj9tcxef]<!-- ia0 -->Inflation Calculator.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:mj9tcxef]
From my calculations the new prices are an increase of 26% for SketchUp Pro 2015 and 35% for Annual Maintenance Renewal, both below the inflation rate.I find it decent to raise the price a bit if it's justified. BUT - since 2000 Trimble didn't had SU, they bought it recently. And making a price raise just because you paid for it and need to cover your expenses is a bit... too capitalist.
A raise in price would be justified with considerable work added to it, to see "we worked to deliver you a better tool, a tool that FINALLY worth to pay for and use it as a PRO".@mike lucey said:
I, like most others, don't like price increases on things I purchase and it would be great if these things were free. Oh!!!! SketchUp Make is free and I see this is what you use.
Yes that is what I use: SU MAKE, and is for the reasons stated above: I don't see any benefit in going PRO (though I would do it tomorrow) exactly because PRO is just too much name for such a flawed software.
I understand the logic behind a price increase, but my parents taught me that i should offer first, ask after. I grew up with this "belief". What I want to say is that Trimble should have raised (at least the Pro version) to a PRO status before raising the price. To say "ok, here it is... the new version, greatly updated Layout, greatly updated this and this, but we also had to raise the price a bit along with this GREAT updates".Let me tell you why: because Trimble won't pay me a cent if I lose money due to their "PRO" software - I don't complain about Make, because Make is free and I am grateful for that (to Google, not to Trimble).
So, I when I pay for a program, I expect it to do what it says it does. Many parts from SU "kinda do"... like they do, but with many question marks. And mostly Layout (yeah, I am coming back to it), is NOT what I would call a PRO tool. Is so unoptimized that even Gordon Ramsay would make jokes about it.@mike lucey said:
SketchUp, just like SketchUcation, is free to the vast majority of their users /members. Its lucky for these users / members that they have SU Pro purchasers and SketchUcation Premium Members to subsidise this.
Mike
Believe me Mike, this is the only reason why I stuck with SU: because of the great community around it and the great potential. And hoping month by month, year by year that SU will raise up to the competition. I don't need it fancier, just damn optimized. Yeah, after SU7 we started to see improvements in how SU works, but as I said in my previous post: what SU is NOW, should have been years ago.
For this year I had in plan actually to buy a pro license, because I considered that SU started to worth paying for. It just raised from the mud. But this price raise "just because inflation" made me think again. I will wait until "because now we made it better" moment comes.
Make this words heard by Trimble, Mike.
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Mike, it's a bit fallacious to try and discredit Derei based on him not paying for a pro license... Your arguments have a good point, but let's leave the one-upmanship out of it?
For my part, I'll say that I don't think the price rise will help Trimble - it will just drive people away from pro. They'd do better to leave the price as is, imo, or even look into dropping it to entice those sitting on the fence.
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@oceanembers said:
Mike, it's a bit fallacious to try and discredit Derei based on him not paying for a pro license... Your arguments have a good point, but let's leave the one-upmanship out of it?
George, I was not trying to discredit Derei and definitely not being fallacious. As for 'one-upmanship', I'll leave that to you
I was just sticking to facts, figures and on the ground reality as I see it.@oceanembers said:
For my part, I'll say that I don't think the price rise will help Trimble - it will just drive people away from pro. They'd do better to leave the price as is, imo, or even look into dropping it to entice those sitting on the fence.
I disagree with your suggestion that Trimble should leave the price for SU Pro as is or drop it. It looks to me that they may have possibly inherited the 'free ethos' brought in by Google that, it seems, were not that interested in making money on SketchUp. It looks that Google were more interested in the bigger picture, pushing / developing Google Earth etc.
I wonder what kind of app SU would be and at what price level it would be at if still under @Last Software ownership. I doubt we would have a free version and I'd say they would not have been able to freeze the price for 15 years.
Mike
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@kaas said:
a > 30% price increase is quite a bit. Curious about the reason...
Very curious indeed. Let's hope that the improvements are 30% more!!
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@mike lucey said:
George, I was not trying to discredit Derei and definitely not being fallacious. As for 'one-upmanship', I'll leave that to you
I was just sticking to facts, figures and on the ground reality as I see it.Fair enough, my misinterpretation then.
@mike lucey said:
I disagree with your suggestion that Trimble should leave the price for SU Pro as is or drop it. It looks to me that they may have possibly inherited the 'free ethos' brought in by Google that, it seems, were not that interested in making money on SketchUp. It looks that Google were more interested in the bigger picture, pushing / developing Google Earth etc.
I wonder what kind of app SU would be and at what price level it would be at if still under @Last Software ownership. I doubt we would have a free version and I'd say they would not have been able to freeze the price for 15 years.
I don't think there's any doubt that Google kept the price fair. I just think that with Sketchup's particular userbase, a lower price would be beneficial - reason being the huge number of Make users (no doubt including many small businesses who should be on pro) can essentially be seen as potential buyers who can't afford pro. I'd be incredibly surprised if the gain in pro users wouldn't make up for the price drop involved.
Of course, this is all conjecture, really, since the decision is ultimately about what is least risky for the shareholders, but it's nice to dream. Personally, I'd like to see a blender-shaped initiative to develop an alternative, but that's wishful thinking at best
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@oceanembers said:
I don't think there's any doubt that Google kept the price fair. I just think that with Sketchup's particular userbase, a lower price would be beneficial - reason being the huge number of Make users (no doubt including many small businesses who should be on pro) can essentially be seen as potential buyers who can't afford pro. I'd be incredibly surprised if the gain in pro users wouldn't make up for the price drop involved.
Of course, this is all conjecture, really, since the decision is ultimately about what is least risky for the shareholders, but it's nice to dream. Personally, I'd like to see a blender-shaped initiative to develop an alternative, but that's wishful thinking at best
Company profits, shareholders dividends etc aside. Trimble SketchUp is trying to service designers of all types with just two products, Make and Pro. The Make users appear to be happy on the price front, free, whereas the Pro users want more 'bang for their buck'.
Its been said before on SketchUcation that whats really needed is a range of Trimble SketchUp products that aims to cater for all needs and budgets. A tall task but nonetheless it could be an objective.
I take your point about there being potential Pro buyers that can't afford Pro. I've been thinking about this and while there is no easy solution there might be ways to satisfy a large portion of this user base.
One solution might be to do what vehicle manufactures and for that matter a broad range of manufactures do. Take a car user needs a vehicle to get him/her to work and back every day, a two or three mile trip. The low cost 'bottom of the range' car would do the job perfectly but the same low cost vehicle would not suit the person that needs to travel hundreds of miles each day.
In TSU's case in might be a matter of having different sized engines or even a 'governor' installed to a single broad spectrum engine. As the user requires more 'power' they pay accordingly. Why would a 3 mile a day commuter require a v8 engined car when a three cylinder .9 litre would do the job needed.
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Lots or reasoning going on here.
All I can say is that my first thought was how would my clients behave if I presented them with a 35% increase (after VAT) in my services? They might accept it... they would probably expect more/better services... they would very likely look around at who else might offer the same service and what they might charge.
For the first time ever... this is how I have felt about SU. I know its not likely I'll find better for the same or less cost, but it has made me consider looking!
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@emerald15 said:
Lots or reasoning going on here.
All I can say is that my first thought was how would my clients behave if I presented them with a 35% increase (after VAT) in my services? They might accept it... they would probably expect more/better services... they would very likely look around at who else might offer the same service and what they might charge.
For the first time ever... this is how I have felt about SU. I know its not likely I'll find better for the same or less cost, but it has made me consider looking!Fair point Fiona.
Many would say that its not great business practice the way Trimble SketchUp are going about increasing price and I imagine this might well sour some Pro users but I honestly feel that SU Pro will still be good value at the new pricing. Its just a pity that better PR wasn't brought into the matter.
I also agree with some above comments that its always good to offer / include more value or even perceived value in the price increased product as we all like to feel we are getting a fair and good deal no matter what we buy.
Mike
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Energy costs have risen more than 110% in Australia in the past 5 years and I'm still keeping cool and feeding my family. Its progress I guess.
For a mere $35 a year I'm not too concerned given the changes I have been able to make to my workflow even in the last 3 months that is making me more productive. I do agree that there has to be a benefit for it but I'm sure many will agree that Trimble has continued to build a super product.
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To morrow, Microsoft will make available windows 10 at no charge for a year, then there may or may not be a fee after that period, Apple offers updates to its software at no fee, Google gives android software for free, google drive storage is free for some space( I forget the amount). There are probably more examples to cite.
Companies have different models to attract customers. Who among us doesn't like to price shop. Personally, If I buy something, I like to pay for it one time, not have it as a recurring event. Cell phone bill is an exception, but I would like to replace that as well.
For me I liked it when Google owned Sketchup. Also recently Google made Google Earth pro -free.,,,, joe
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Joe, all of those companies you list have revenue streams that benefit by giving away software. Advertising is just one source. Maybe if Trimble started selling advertising space in SketchUp and sold information about its users, they could afford to give SketchUp away for free to everyone.
If Google still owned SketchUp we'd still be stuck at version 8.
Despite what some people seem to think, software developers don't work for free, space for them to work in costs money as do the lights. Server space for the Warehouse isn't free either although they don't charge users to store their models there. A very small percentage of SketchUp users wind up paying for development and services that also benefits those who haven't paid a cent.
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Some were disappointed by this sudden price increase and for good reason.
Not because price increased. But because something was asked, without something given back of equal value. In the official statement, Trimble says "We’re continually investing in SketchUp". The problem is that is not done enough yet to justify more money.Let's remember what was the first thing Trimble "improved" in sketchup: - was the logo. And that logo change increased SU performance by like... 0%
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After this, the major improvements were those that were left on Google's table at the time of sale. It was mainly just continuing Google's job. Well, I must admit that without Trimble, things may have gone much slower, as Google wasn't too interested to develop SU. But still, there is not yet something to say that Trimble did a major thing for SU.
We'd better see this major improvements soon, because the price we've seen already. -
Dave R;
I had a feeling you would come to Trimble's defense. Just saying 'there are many ways to run a company and attract customers'. Feel free to pick up my tab anytime....joe
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... also in the news ...
"Trimble announced that SU2016Pro will incorporate Skalp, Condoc Tools, Profile Builder 2, Vertex Tools, Artisan, Vali Architects' entire suite of extensions, 1001 Bit Tools Pro, and a few others (surprise!) as standard offering."
... and then I woke up ...
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official statement http://blog.sketchup.com/sketchupdate/lets-talk-about-price
edit: added and revised some math
So, new people pay 41% extra compared to 2012. People who already have a license continue to be happy using SketchUp paying $120 every year.
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