LabVIEW
Benefit of New Subscription Model
Solved!
Going back to the original question- the optimist in me says that a subscription model means more revenue for NI (since they're charging EVERYONE that uses LV) as well as more predictable revenue, meaning they can plan their development out better. This means they can commit more funding towards feature improvements and longer term projects. This might also mean more of a continual upgrade path more akin to Office and better inter-version compatibility. Tons of people right now are required to stay in a specific version, since upgrading once a year breaks backward compatibility and introduces new bugs. I myself feel pretty up to date running LV2020. 2021 had very few exciting new features, and it wasn't worth the hassle to upgrade everything in our (small) office. I can't imagine the hassle of upgrading everyone in a large facility.
If the SaaS model means that there are fewer version year breaking changes I'd be happy, but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully this is the beginning of the shift onto what NXG was supposed to be, like some significant IDE and GUI modernization.
Again, putting on my optimist hat- I'm hoping that, since 2021 had very few major improvements and since their NXG team isn't working on NXG anymore, they're spooling up to release a very large LV 20xx update to roll in some nice new IDE features and get away from year-specific versioning. With a more stable software base and more revenue, maybe they can make some big leaps forward, growing their user base, getting more users, then lowering the cost.
My realist hat just says they canned NXG and went to SAS just because NXG was really expensive and they could make more money by locking people in. 😕
I'd love to see some kind of roadmap. They had one for NXG that showed what they'd like to do year by year so we could at least look forward to new features. I haven't seen one of those for LV.
@BertMcMahan wrote:
My realist hat just says they canned NXG and went to SAS just because NXG was really expensive and they could make more money by locking people in. 😕
I'd love to see some kind of roadmap. They had one for NXG that showed what they'd like to do year by year so we could at least look forward to new features. I haven't seen one of those for LV.
The difficulty with LabVIEW is that the product is distributed as an installer or EXE, and the development environment cannot be updated for modifications after distribution.
This is not the case with a subscription model such as Azure, so you can always use the latest version.
In other words, the benefits of the subscription model for us developers are not yet apparent.
If there is a roadmap, I'd love to see it, and I'd like to properly understand the appeal points of the subscription model when alliances or contract development companies propose LabVIEW to their customers.
I want to work with LabVIEW, but my vision for the future is not good.
@paul_cardinale wrote:
Of course there's the tremendous feature that if you let your subscription expire, your production lines go down.
My wild guess is that they've gone to SAS because they perceive it as a trendy way to make more money.
I view it as obnoxious; as abuse of customers (which I think is always a bad business practice).
I hope, please, that the guess is not true.
My LabVIEW-using friends love LabVIEW. I would like to believe that means they love NI.
I would like to know if NI has made any positive announcements about subscriptions for developer if I am missing something.
@Tepig wrote:
@paul_cardinale wrote:
Of course there's the tremendous feature that if you let your subscription expire, your production lines go down.
My wild guess is that they've gone to SAS because they perceive it as a trendy way to make more money.
I view it as obnoxious; as abuse of customers (which I think is always a bad business practice).
I hope, please, that the guess is not true.
My LabVIEW-using friends love LabVIEW. I would like to believe that means they love NI.
I would like to know if NI has made any positive announcements about subscriptions for developer if I am missing something.
Yeah, they're positive they'll make fistfuls of money.
@Kevin_Price wrote:
@BertMcMahan wrote:
Again, putting on my optimist hat- I'm hoping that, since 2021 had very few major improvements and since their NXG team isn't working on NXG anymore, they're spooling up to release a very large LV 20xx update to roll in some nice new IDE features and get away from year-specific versioning. With a more stable software base and more revenue, maybe they can make some big leaps forward, growing their user base, getting more users, then lowering the cost.
My realist hat just says they canned NXG and went to SAS just because NXG was really expensive and they could make more money by locking people in. 😕
I outgrew my optimist hat a long time ago and even before that it kept getting chewed up by dogs. Still have my realist hat though.
The subscription model's just a way to realize the sales benefit of lock-in.
Gillette did it -- make razors cheap, then sell people blades perpetually
Kodak did it -- make cameras cheap, then sell people film perpetually
HP did it -- make inkjet printers cheap, then sell people overpriced ink perpetually
The list goes on. With tangible products, you try to get the "consuming engine" into people's hands and then you keep selling them the consumable part. With software subscriptions, you're selling them the ability to continue to access their prior work and maintain continuity. Different in its way, but still all about lock-in.
It might turn out that some of the extra revenue goes into funding things that end up providing benefits to us users. But don't kid yourself -- that's neither the motivation nor the main goal.
One more "not a fan", NI.
-Kevin P
Well, they did the "perpetual part". Let's see if it ever becomes "cheap".
