Do away with annual NEW releases

[Jim Smith]

I just bought a new road bike. My 15 year old hybrid is still quite rideable, but it's heavy I don't do the trails I used to. So It was time to purchase new rather than spend more money fixing & updating the old one.

 

So that got me thinking about VW. Prior to the Service Pack model, I upgraded every other year, now I get a full new version of the software every year and I love many of the new features.  The kicker is I have to spend hours re-doing lots of stuff like templates, tinkering with my workspace, teaching the spell check how to spell "colour" & other learning curve stuff. I used to do this every other year, now it's every year. Due to timing & project sizes I often will have very few projects started & completed in some versions of VW, zero projects "native to" VW 2015 for example.  

 

I'd like to propose that Nemetschek consider keeping the service select model but moving to a 18-24 month "New Package" release. New functionality could be added to the service packs to keep up with some changing needs, but a longer time to employ a version of VW would reduce one's user's non- billable time using the software. 

[Christiaan]

I'd rather there wasn't a big version release date at all; that improvements were simply pushed out as they're ready, big and small.

[Jim Smith]

I'd like that too, but was thinking that the Marketing folks would still like to have candy to sell!   

 

 

[rDesign]

On top of this is the feeling that the 12 month release schedule forces out releases whether they are ready or not. This means that ‘New Feature’ bugs, which should have been fixed before SP0, have to be discovered by End Users and don’t get fixed until a Service Pack months later.

 

I no longer bother installing a new version until at least SP1 is released.

[PVA - Admin]

Personally I would love to see a versionless or rolling release model. Release time is such a rush here and letting any given feature or set of features mature in a Beta or Labs-style environment before making them available to the general user base has worked well in a lot of other software packages. Oftentimes theres no way to know how long a given feature will need to mature before the initial feedback comes.

As for how payment would work for such a model, I'd think you'd be able to pay a subscription/maintenance fee monthly or yearly and users could choose to "hop off" or stop their renewals at any time and the product just stands still where it was when their account expired. Then if they wanted a new feature or set of features they could resume where they left off, i'd think something similar to how we handle it now where the recent subscribers for 2-3 years back get a decreasing discount depending on how long they had their subscription lapse, with some sort of cut off maximum renewal fee after 3-4 years or so.

I'd also like this model since it would lend itself very well to a rental model which many types of users want and need. Whether it be because they have a tight budget, because they have heavily seasonal workloads, or because they add and remove large segments of staff as needed and require a way to scale their license count up or down along with them.

(Not to mention it would mean I wouldn't have to keep so many things to myself until I'm unleashed on the general public every September.  )

[rDesign]

19 minutes ago, JimW said:

Personally I would love to see a versionless or rolling release model

 

I assume that this ^^^ won’t happen until the adoption of a single versionless .VWX file format:

 

 

[PVA - Admin]

Possibly, unless the versionless "version" (?) just settled on the current one. However from what I have heard the file format issue had a large number of barriers removed in under the hood work for 2018.

 

[Matt Overton]

6 hours ago, rDesign said:

 

I assume that this ^^^ won’t happen until the adoption of a single versionless .VWX file format:

 

 

I remember Biplab talking about how great the new file format of VWX was because it was extendable so new features add to the format instead of requiring conversion. I though that meant it was basically versionless already. Admittedly that was years ago and no plan survives battle as they say.

 

Not sure I understand why  we need to re-set up our system each version anyway and why we cen't just expect it to transfer to the next version with minimal effort?

 

To me it still would be better if there were versions but have the core release dedicated to speed and stability so it could be close to a drop in replacement to current workflow then release features over the year. So testing concentrates on each feature. Break up training and feature integration. Plus well the world is news hungry why drop all that information in one hit and compete against yourself for attention.

[Wesley Burrows]

I too wish it was a constant rolling release.    Pushing out hotfixes as they are available would be huge!    The constant,  "This has been fixed for Service Pack X",  which loosely translates to "We've fixed the bug,  but you won't see it for 3 months" is silly.     I think that is half of people's frustration.     

[P Retondo]

Count me as one who would not like to have a different file format every year.  We pay for Service Select to have access to the most up to date and powerful version of the program, with decent tech support.  That would not change if there weren't a yearly "version," I'd be happier with service pack upgrades and perhaps a big housecleaning every three years.

 

On the other hand, if VW were thinking about going to a subscription whereby I would have zero VW unless I paid for Service Select every year, I'd have to treat that like I do Autodesk, which has gone to that model.  In other words, I would purchase another software tool.

[zoomer]

But it is no problem about annual releases available or not.

Could be that subscribers get the features when they are ready during the year

and manual upgraders get it at the end of the cycle

or stay with their version for a few years.

 

What hinders is the no-features-during-major-releases-agreement.

And the changing file system and PIO incompatibilities between versions that

gives us some extra work.

[PVA - Admin]

22 hours ago, P Retondo said:

On the other hand, if VW were thinking about going to a subscription whereby I would have zero VW unless I paid for Service Select every year,

I'd never support this. I would want it such that if you ever stopped your subscription (once you had purchased the software whether by a lump initial investment for having paid dues for a set period) the software would just stop receiving updates, not stop functioning.

I would only approve of software that stopped when you stopped paying dues for a rental model offered in ADDITION to other purchasing options. I think a perpetual license option should always exist in conjunction with other offerings.

(IMHO even though I'd be prone to bias... Autodesk botched this idea entirely.)

[Jim Smith]

7 hours ago, JimW said:

I'd never support this....

It seems that several senior people from VW said as much at a couple of Design Summits.