Benefit of New Subscription Model

[billko]

Maybe they should've done a "gofundme".

[RTSLVU]

The benefit is we get to pay for all their latest acquisitions...

https://tracxn.com/d/acquisitions/acquisitionsbyNational-Instruments-Corporation

If you sign up for a free account you can see everything they have acquired

[billko]

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@RTSLVU wrote:

The benefit is we get to pay for all their latest acquisitions...

https://tracxn.com/d/acquisitions/acquisitionsbyNational-Instruments-Corporation

If you sign up for a free account you can see everything they have acquired

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I heard something about NI gobbling up some companies.

[Frozen]

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@paul_cardinale wrote:

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@RTSLVU wrote:

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@paul_cardinale wrote:

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Our production lines are scattered around the planet (most of them on the opposite side).

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Sure, but then who is using the IDE to troubleshoot on the production line?

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An engineer, remoting in to a factory on the other side of the world.

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Get them a laptop!

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Yeah, all of us engineers have laptops.  We're just too lazy to pick them up and carry them 12,000 miles to a factory.

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At a previous company, I have travelled the 11,000 km multiple times a year to support the production line ⛩

I have never like the SaaS model either. It has all the benefits for the company and several disadvantages for the consumer.

[Tepig · Accepted solution]

Thank you all. It's unfortunate, but I've come to realize that there's no benefit to us as development specialists,

nor to our customers who use LabVIEW, to subscribe.

I am glad that I am not the one noticing the benefits.

A friend of mine writes on his company's website that

"National Instruments will not take LabVIEW away from engineers."

I agree with the comment but, how about NI?

I had thought about starting a business in LabVIEW,

but I think it will be very difficult because it is so influenced by NI's business. It's a shame.

Anyway, thank you all very much.

[Kevin_Price]

FWIW, I just defined a forum signature for myself and whuddya know?  It seems to apply retroactively to my entire 20+ year history of posts!    Fine by me...

I have no inside track to NI's powers-that-be, this is my only voice.  Others may be better connected.  So, if you're of similar mind, please join.

-Kevin P

[pawhan11]

Saas model will give better support and new features, plus predictable income. Problem is that pricing is just too high IMHO compared to other programming IDEs out there. M$ charges 45$ for VS, tools from JetBrains are 65$, Matlab is comparable to NI but they have perpetual and annual license types. It will probably make sense to buy it for FPGA and RT but not for general purpose applications.

[rolfk]

It's peanuts if you compare it with the LabVIEW price but the IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate is $149 for individual licenses.

They do however offer discounts for the second and third year if you extend your license without interruption, which at least gives some incentive to not just buy a subscription incidentally when needed. The current NI pricing really does not give any incentive to anyone to keep a license subscription active if they do not foresee to use LabVIEW in a particular year. And if they do need it anyways, they always could decide to purchase the subscription the moment the need arises for another year (if NI sales is at least responsive, which seems to be sometimes a problem too). But the quoted lead time at Farnell and other distributors is 2 to 3 days for a LabVIEW license, so that should be manageable if you can't get hold of NI sales directly.

[Taggart]

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@BertMcMahan wrote:

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.

Can <> will.  They also can decide to just pocket all that money or pay it out as dividends to shareholders. There is a reason they are green now. It is a rather appropriate color.

[danny_t]

The SSP inflation over the last couple of years was hard to swallow, but the increase this year to get LabVIEW Professional is horrendous. 

As I had a major project in C# last two years and only a small amount of LabVIEW work I hardly covered the cost of my SSP license as it was. Normally I tend to have small short projects and thought mainly LabVIEW I never know what the next one will be or when. I do not generate a lot of profit but I enjoy what I do and make enough for me.

But I am having to seriously considered if it is going to be economical for me to continue with LabVIEW or move to Python or C# and I find this very sad 😥 and also quite angry 😠 after using a promoting their products and software for years.

I feel like NI are abandoning and do not care about the small individual programmer and it is ironic that it is occurring at a time that the LabVIEW community is growing from strength to strength. I am not saying nor expecting NI to provide their software for free but the cost is prohibitive for small scale operations like mine.

The MS Visual Studio Professional subscription was around £50/month one developer, when my project ended I could cancel it and if I got a new project needing it I could just start it again. With NI I have commit to a one of upfront payment with no idea of how much money it will generate in return.

So I am VERY ANGRY about this and sometime in the next two months face the situation do I stop using LabVIEW, close my company and go permanent  somewhere. Slightly disappointed that there is not more general talk about this within the community.