LabVIEW Subscription and Perpetual Licenses Now Available

[Ettepet]

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@rwunderl wrote:

At 3.5X the subscription cost, it seems like a similar if a bit higher factor than in the past. However, the overall cost is still much higher than (about double?) what it used to be.

Thanks for pointing this out, as I was not expecting the significant price hike.

I would assume the current solution replaces acquiring the product, and the possibility of late fees.  If this is the case you could buy a new version of the product every few years, in case (like many) you don't need support.

[rolfk]

The MSP cost around 25% of the perpetual license cost which includes 1 year of MSP. So if you only intend to upgrade every 5 year or longer you are right.

Also don't forget to download and archive any installers before your MSP expires. Without active subscription or MSP, you loose access to all downloads but the most recently released one. But since your MSP is not active anymore you couldn't activate that version, only the older one that was officially released at the time your MSP expired. Without the installer archived safely on your own storage space, you might end up in a tight space if you need to reinstall LabVIEW after your machine crashed or was replaced with a new hardware.

[Ettepet]

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@rolfk wrote:

The MSP cost around 25% of the perpetual license cost which includes 1 year of MSP.

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So the old mechanism is still in place, and the cost of extending your Perpetual license has indeed dropped. 

Why is NI/Emerson not more transparent about how pricing works?  More people would be cheering seeing costs have just been lowered to  around 70% of what they were (at least in Europe, and for a "LabVIEW Professional" license).

[rwunderl]

The pricing is right on the website (here). The prices show up if you wiggle around a bit (press Select then Back; maybe you have to be logged in?). Maybe it's buggy because the web developers don't use LabVIEW? Anyway, you can add the items right to your cart and buy. I'm referring here only to the cost of an individual perpetual license, as the volume licenses are priced individually for each company based on the number of seats. Volume licenses are by definition subscriptions anyway.

The pricing used to be such that if you bought perpetual licenses every 3 years versus maintaining the service subscription it was a wash. I am saying that is still true, perhaps only a bit worse. The perpetual license is exactly 3.5X the cost of the subscription according to the pricing I see on the website at the link above. That meshes nicely with the practice of LabVIEW not supporting drivers more than 3 years back. Not. If you wait 4 years to upgrade, reverting to the previous code is much more cumbersome (just use a system image at that point). A 5 year (minimum) upgrade cycle would be the only thing that starts making sense with this pricing.

In any case the current pricing puts you at over $20k for one seat of LabVIEW Pro with RT and FPGA (perpetual). The Sound and Vibration toolkit appears to still only be available as a subscription (so add another $2k/yr). Oh, you'd like Shared Variable OPC access? Pay some more for a DSC module subscription; a product that hasn't seen an update in 15 years!

I'm over it. I'd rather use free Python and free DAQmx drivers for free forever.

[rwunderl]

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@rwunderl wrote:

I'm over it. I'd rather use free Python and free DAQmx drivers for free forever.

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By the way, I know there is no free lunch. My development time is still my development time, and it may indeed be increased by using Python (at least until I am more proficient). The implication here is that I'm paying for the DAQmx driver and Python module development (which NI maintains) with my NI hardware purchases. That at least I still have some faith in.

[rolfk]

As far as the DSC Toolkit is concerned you should consider that definitely legacy technology, that is only supported for backwards compatibility reason with some bigger existing accounts that NI has. It's still only written in the stars if it ever gets support for 64-bit LabVIEW. My guess is that it won't, the work required for that would be immense and I think NI is planning on sunsetting that together with the LabVIEW 32-bit version within a few years.

[EricR]

@Gregory  - this isn't yet available.  We are currently working on all of the other products and plan to release perpetual options of them with the next major software release in Feb 2025.

[EricR]

@GretchenSkellyZimmer 

My apologies on the reply you previously received.  Answers to your questions:

1. If you previously owned a LabVIEW Perpetual License and you are now renewing its service (the SSP stands for Software Service Program), then yes, you are getting/renewing that service.  If you are buying a new LabVIEW Perpetual license it comes with the first year of that Software Service Program included. 
2. You can choose to renew that Software Service Program each year in order to maintain access to new versions/features, support, training, and the other benefits of the software service program. Whether you choose to renew that service or not, the LabVIEW version you purchase is yours to continue using by definition of a "perpetual" license.  Exact terms for this are in the EULA if you want the legal details.
3. You can also choose to renew your Software Service Program in any future year, even if you didn't renew it last year.  There are late-fees that apply depending on how long its been since you last renewed.  Right now, NI is waiving all late fees through the end of June 2025.  
4.  Most NI single-seat licenses are sold as "user-based" meaning the license is assigned to a person.  You can change that if you need to assign the license to a specific machine instead but that is less common and requires conversations with NI to assign licenses that way.  In both cases you can change the machine that license is assigned to.  Its easier to do with the user-based license (the default configuration).

[EricR]

@danny_t  - 

Thank you for the question.  

We are still evaluating other pricing.  I would be interested in learning more details about the scenario you are talking about.  Feel free to email me directly: eric.reffett@emerson.com

[Mike_King]

@BertMcMahan wrote:

RIP native Datagrid control 😞

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I noticed that too.  Too bad they were already 20yrs behind even planning on that one.  Sad. Another fail.