SketchUp 2019 release

Derek Edison

It all depends of course how long they will keep the classic license.

I would give it 2 years based on what I'm seeing compared to what happened with Autodesk. This seems to be playing out closer to that than Adobe. If you didn't go through the Adobe & Autodesk subscription transitions this is the basic playbook:

Decide to push your customer base to a subscription model to increase and guarantee revenue.
Bundle your "flagship" product with other low selling or low cost apps/ services to increase perceived value.
Price your new subscription offering at half the perpetual license cost to offer easy entry but higher returning revenues past 3-4 years ownership vs. perpetual licensing.
Convert software development to a rolling release model. No need for major updates unless there is a disruptive competitor in the market.
Market your perpetual license customers to get them to switch over to subscription with "special one-time" offers to convert.
Make owning perpetual licenses progressively more expensive/difficult and keep any substantial new features as subscription only. Do not reveal any future plans for perpetual licenses. Rely on FUD to move them over.
After about two years or so cancel perpetual licenses to force the remaining hold-outs to subscription. Grandfather special subscription rates on on former perpetual licenses and then increase costs until there is no difference anymore.

Adobe is done.
Autodesk is on step 7.
Trimble is on step 4. Step 5 has already been mentioned over on the official form as a "customer loyalty" program.

dedmin

@derek edison said:

@kaas said:

It all depends of course how long they will keep the classic license.

I would give it 2 years based on what I'm seeing compared to what happened with Autodesk. This seems to be playing out closer to that than Adobe. If you didn't go through the Adobe & Autodesk subscription transitions this is the basic playbook:

Decide to push your customer base to a subscription model to increase and guarantee revenue.

Bundle your "flagship" product with other low selling or low cost apps/ services to increase perceived value.

Price your new subscription offering at half the perpetual license cost to offer easy entry but higher returning revenues past 3-4 years ownership vs. perpetual licensing.

Convert software development to a rolling release model. No need for major updates unless there is a disruptive competitor in the market.

Market your perpetual license customers to get them to switch over to subscription with "special one-time" offers to convert.

Make owning perpetual licenses progressively more expensive/difficult and keep any substantial new features as subscription only. Do not reveal any future plans for perpetual licenses. Rely on FUD to move them over.

After about two years or so cancel perpetual licenses to force the remaining hold-outs to subscription. Grandfather special subscription rates on on former perpetual licenses and then increase costs until there is no difference anymore.

Adobe is done.
Autodesk is on step 7.
Trimble is on step 4. Step 5 has already been mentioned over on the official form as a "customer loyalty" program.

Spot on! Couldn't say it better!

Mike Amos

Question is, will current users migrate in sufficient numbers to deter the slippery path development model?

juju

@mike amos said:

Question is, will current users migrate in sufficient numbers to deter the slippery path development model?

With the "Classic" option link so difficult to spot / find, I would say many of the user will probably be going the subscription route only to realize later (possibly, if they look at this forum and / or the other) that they had options.

kyeric

It was said a bit earlier, but I believe the feature upgrades to the new version of SketchUp were held off due to the (rightfully) assumed backlash of the new pricing models. My bet is that SketchUp will have some substantial upgrade in about the next 6 months after the weeping and gnashing of teeth of this release. John Bacus' post of "...we have to earn your business over and over again every day you are under subscription" enforces my assumption that Trimble was wise not to bundle good news with bad.

chaours1

@numerobis said:

@juju said:

@chaours1 said:

and I do not think I'm the only one ...
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=70183

how is it that this link needs special privileges?

It's in the french forum. If you're not registered for the french language you're not seeing it as long as you're logged in. Just log out and you can read it (a bit stupid but this is how it works... )

thank you for the answer

david_h

Okay. .. I'm sad now.

markchandler

@rv1974 said:

Example.. I forced (via task manager) a file crash. On reopening v2019 asked whether I'd like to open an autosaved version which didpreserved latest changes (similarly to PS). But untill now I haven't seen a single Autosave file in the project folder.
Maybe v19 creates them in Temp?
@Juju: bot options are V-ed

Auto-save (aka, recovered) files are no longer saved in the same folder as the original SketchUp model; in SketchUp 2019 they are stored here:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Temp\SKETCHUP\RecoveredFiles

kaas

@mike amos said:

Question is, will current users migrate in sufficient numbers to deter the slippery path development model?

On the official forum it already seems like business as usual. No indication that anything will change.

The bigwigs don't care for a few hundred / thousand 'old' loyal pro users who move over to Blender/Rhino etc. They will try to lure more people into the subs model and will probably start raising prices slightly every year at some point. Bigwig + shareholders will be happy with the extra revenue.

At least there is a perpetual license v2019. If that one can stay alive for as long as SU 2008 is alive already, that buys me a few years time to find a replacement for SU&LO.

I do hope the plugin developers will stick around for a while. If they start leaving to Blender/Rhino etc - SU would loose its appeal to me even faster.

juju

It seems as thought the SketchUp team members have all quit responding and / or commenting on anything related (except some apparent issues some people may be having with licencing and / or other bugs / usage queries) to the SU2019 release gripes everybody is having.

Waiting for the storm to pass... Curious.

solo

@juju said:

It seems as thought the SketchUp team members have all quit responding and / or commenting on anything related (except some apparent issues some people may be having with licencing and / or other bugs / usage queries) to the SU2019 release gripes everybody is having.

Waiting for the storm to pass... Curious.

Like they do with every lackluster release, they wait it out, people forget fast. Frankly, I do not think they give a shit what we think, they just do not like us expressing our thoughts on their forum it seems.

klip53

@markchandler said:

@rv1974 said:

Example.. I forced (via task manager) a file crash. On reopening v2019 asked whether I'd like to open an autosaved version which didpreserved latest changes (similarly to PS). But untill now I haven't seen a single Autosave file in the project folder.
Maybe v19 creates them in Temp?
@Juju: bot options are V-ed

Auto-save (aka, recovered) files are no longer saved in the same folder as the original SketchUp model; in SketchUp 2019 they are stored here:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Temp\SKETCHUP\RecoveredFiles

thanks, I will make a shortcut to that location

sketch3d.de

@markchandler said:

C;\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Temp\SKETCHUP\RecoveredFiles

why not bring it to "Window > Preferences > Files"?

rv1974

Sketchup devs are very lucky Trimble is not a Japaneese company. After all this v2019 storm in official forum they would be obliged to commit collective seppuku

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_2a_N4WVqg

https://qz.com/656080/a-japanese-ice-cream-maker-deeply-apologizes-for-raising-prices-by-9-cents/

numerobis

@solo said:

Like they do with every lackluster release, they wait it out, people forget fast. Frankly, I do not think they give a shit what we think, they just do not like us expressing our thoughts on their forum it seems.

Yes, business as usual. Like all the other years without real improvements. They just don't care...

But it looks like Trimble has started an offensive to counter all the negative "open letters" in their forum. This really sounds to me like they wrote it themselves... and with a fresh account registered a few days ago.
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/open-letter/88172
And even if this is a real post, i think it's very sad, since it must be someone who seems to have completely lost reality... (or discovered SU just very recently and doesn't know what's going on elsewhere in the 3D-world)

rv1974

@numerobis said:

@solo said:

https://forums.sketchup.com/t/open-letter/88172
And even if this is a real post..

I don't think he's the real user. Too much common empty dithyrambs.
I wouldn't be surprised if it comes from the same PR person that wrote about giant coffe consumption. What irritates even more are those 'Sketchup sages' with fairy tales about "no need for new features because people have diffrent needs".

solo

That looks fake to me too, in fact I commented about it in another thread where he advertised his open thread: https://forums.sketchup.com/t/an-open-letter-to-trimble/87510/21?u=solo

numerobis

@rv1974 said:

What irritates even more are those 'Sketchup sages' with fairy tales about "no need for new features because people have diffrent needs".

Yes, i noticed that too.

Paul Russam

There are very simple reasons that this profile has only been active for a week.

Profile ... what an odd term for a user account .... It sounds to me more like the term a forum admin might use

Derek Edison

@numerobis said:

@rv1974 said:

What irritates even more are those 'Sketchup sages' with fairy tales about "no need for new features because people have diffrent needs".

Yes, i noticed that too.

I suspect they are just protecting their mealticket. They don't want Trimble to poach their existing paid extensions or develop new features so they have more opportunity to develop more.