Introducing the new SONAR: New lineup, new features, plus membership

[Burillo]

not my first post on the issue, and....sarcasm for the rest....(see above post )

OK, my bad, it's not your first post. but i scrolled ten pages back, and nowhere did you bring up the financing thing, so my point still stands. so can you now please answer the question?

[whyterabbyt]

its easier to move the goalposts than admit that thing you were corrected on 30 times.

Obviously you are speaking from experience.

yes, i was here in this thread, experiencing someone do it. although since its more than likely you've actually got no interest in Sonar's new payment system whatsoever, that, that, like so many other things, is probably something you missed.

Treat yo'self to a deep fried mars bar, you deserve it

that's very nice of you, but my mother warned me to not accept sweets from strange men.
but please, dont feel insulted by that - im absolutely not calling you a strange man; honestly, there's absolutely nothing manly about you.

of course, she also warned me not to accept sweets from that kid at the back of the class who mumbled to himself and ate the plasticine, so, yes I'll decline the offer you've made based on your similarity to that guy, although he wasn't quite as free with the racial stereotyping as you clearly are.

[whyterabbyt]

Let me know if there are any other questions. I'll be watching this for another couple of hours before I self destruct

Someone asked earlier about a 'grace period' on interrupted payments to restore the minimum 12-month continuity. Im assuming that they meant that the 'missing' payments were made. Possible?

already answered. 14 days grace period. after that, the counter resets to zero.

Its the retrospective payment possibility I was wondering about. Cant remember who originally asked though.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

is it the first time i have mentioned that i think it is set up against the interests of those who may find it difficult to complete ??

no, it's not the first time, but that wasn't what discussion was about. you still haven't replied why do you feel entitled to bugfixes, and you also ignored another question numerous times, namely, what do you think Cakewalk should do when you interrupt your subscription.

also, i perfectly understand the situation. it's not that i am asking that people get bugfixes for nothing, when they haven't paid outright. clearly, cakewalk are going to receive money from a lot of people who will, with all the best will in the world, default on their payments. you seem to be suggesting "f**k'em !! they didn't pay fully, so....", whereas i think there should be some entitlement

great, we're finally back on track. so please, make the next step. what do you suggest Cakewalk should do in such a scenario? you keep flaunting this question each and every time it is asked.

i have made it clear many times what i feel cakewalk should do in the situation of incomplete subscription i.e to give the bugfixes that have accrued during the period the customer had been paying

it's all very well to keep throwing back that "bugfixes are part of a full product...you don't own the full product, why would you be entitled etc", but there is no reason why cakewalk couldn't separate that part of things, as pertains to certain legacy bugs that have needed fixing for some time. i understand where the bug-fixes can't be separated from other new additions

the subscription system is only an advantage if people can fulfill the obligation, otherwise people stand to lose all they have paid. i believe that some concession should be given to the fact that they have paid money to cakewalk, but end up with nothing

[LawrenceF]

i have made it clear many times what i feel cakewalk should do in the situation of incomplete subscription i.e to give the bugfixes that have accrued during the period the customer had been paying

What good will bug fixes do you if you don't have use of the software anyway? In your situation, before the first 12 months, it reverts to the demo... so... bug fixes for the demo?

[Burillo]

i have made it clear many times what i feel cakewalk should do in the situation of incomplete subscription i.e to give the bugfixes that have accrued during the period the customer had been paying

great. finally! and now, the million dollar question: how do you propose they do that without giving you access to the full version of their product?

it's all very well to keep throwing back that "bugfixes are part of a full product...you don't own the full product, why would you be entitled etc", but there is no reason why cakewalk couldn't separate that part of things, as pertains to certain legacy bugs that have needed fixing for some time. i understand where the bug-fixes can't be separated from other new additions

oh but there is reason. i have no idea about your background, but you clearly have no idea how software development works. how do you propose they separate a bug fix from a feature that arrived before this bug fix was released? do you want them to keep a million separate versions of Sonar just to make sure that no one gets any features they didn't pay for? whyterabbit's signature is very appropriate here...

the subscription system is only an advantage if people can fulfill the obligation, otherwise people stand to lose all they have paid. i believe that some concession should be given to the fact that they have paid money to cakewalk, but end up with nothing

with nothing? how about getting access to full version of Sonar (for a time period) without paying the full price? that's gotta be worth something?

[chris.r]

Has someone brought up the question yet what happens when you pay for a year, then after another year has gone, you pay one month, will you be able to keep the upgraded version then? Like, after a year there will have been a significant number of new features and stuff.

I'll answer it. If you complete a year, you'll have build #12 for example. You'll own that outright. Now, say you decide to wait a year and come back, your renewal price will still be $199 or $19.99 a month but you'll have to again do 12 months at $19.99 in order to keep everything you own. You will get everything that has been released in the year you were away. You need to complete 12 months in order to keep everything in the monthly scenario (with upfront payment you are all set and you'll again get 12 more months of features on top of everything you missed out). If you fail to pay for 12 months, we will revert you to demo mode, and you'll have to rollback to build#12. This prevents people from doing one month, getting all the latest stuff, and then canceling and essentially getting a year or mores worth of innovations for $20.

Hi Andrew!
But we like to have all innovations for $20
In other words - we already miss the holiday sale prices for you stuff - please consider bring them back.

Sincerely yours
Chris

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

not my first post on the issue, and....sarcasm for the rest....(see above post )

OK, my bad, it's not your first post. but i scrolled ten pages back, and nowhere did you bring up the financing thing, so my point still stands. so can you now please answer the question?

you have enough in the last 2 pages to understand my position

ie :

- i don't believe that broken payment obligation entitles you to a full product

- i believe that fixes for legacy bugs, that can be separated from new features, should be given to anyone who had been paying monthly when those bugfixes landed

- i don't think retail, or buying stuff is evil, but neither do i support the attitude of "f**k it !! if they can't afford it then let 'em default". i would like to be convinced that there are enough checks in place that it isn't too easy to sign up to throw away money

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

i have made it clear many times what i feel cakewalk should do in the situation of incomplete subscription i.e to give the bugfixes that have accrued during the period the customer had been paying

What good will bug fixes do you if you don't have use of the software anyway? In your situation, before the first 12 months, it reverts to the demo... so... bug fixes for the demo?

on more than one occasion, i have made it clear that i am talking about legacy bugs

too busy sucking corporate cock to notice ??

[Burillo]

not my first post on the issue, and....sarcasm for the rest....(see above post )

OK, my bad, it's not your first post. but i scrolled ten pages back, and nowhere did you bring up the financing thing, so my point still stands. so can you now please answer the question?

you have enough in the last 2 pages to understand my position

i have enough quotes that state your position, but i have little to none that explain it in a coherent way.

- i don't believe that broken payment obligation entitles you to a full product

- i believe that fixes for legacy bugs, that can be separated from new features, should be given to anyone who had been paying monthly when those bugfixes landed

but they can't. what do you propose to do now?

- i don't think retail, or buying stuff is evil, but neither do i support the attitude of "f**k it !! if they can't afford it then let 'em default". i would like to be convinced that there are enough checks in place that it isn't too easy to sign up to throw away money

so what is your alternative? well, other than doing away with subscriptions at all.

[Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]]

Let me know if there are any other questions. I'll be watching this for another couple of hours before I self destruct

there was an interesting question raised somewhere as well.

let's say i pay for 15 months of support, then my subscription expires. then, the very next day you release a bug fix that fixes some bugs i really wanted to get fixed. do i get this update? i.e. is there any kind of "grace period" for updates after subscription expiration?

'

I imagine it would depend on the severity of the bug but the idea here is that working on smaller features incrementally won't introduce these kinds of issues. That being said, we want customers to be happy so we'd take that into consideration. Our ultimate goal is that we would be offering so much value that customers would just continue being members. We would definitely try to resolve issues like this though on a case by case basis.

[Burillo]

on more than one occasion, i have made it clear that i am talking about legacy bugs

there are no "legacy bugs". once the new version is released, those "legacy bugs" become part of the new version. they don't exist in a separate reality. you can fix them, but at some point you will have to integrate them back into Sonar. into that Sonar, where all new features also exist. features, which, according to you, should be made available to some people, but not for others, despite all of them technically using the same Sonar edition. so, what you're saying is, Sonar developers should further split Sonar into versions delineated by bug fixes.

in other words, it's not possible to release bug fixes separately from new features. well, technically it is possible, but it's way more effort than you think it is. so much that i don't think anyone *in the world* does that. not to mention the QA nightmare it will bring.

[Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]]

Has someone brought up the question yet what happens when you pay for a year, then after another year has gone, you pay one month, will you be able to keep the upgraded version then? Like, after a year there will have been a significant number of new features and stuff.

I'll answer it. If you complete a year, you'll have build #12 for example. You'll own that outright. Now, say you decide to wait a year and come back, your renewal price will still be $199 or $19.99 a month but you'll have to again do 12 months at $19.99 in order to keep everything you own. You will get everything that has been released in the year you were away. You need to complete 12 months in order to keep everything in the monthly scenario (with upfront payment you are all set and you'll again get 12 more months of features on top of everything you missed out). If you fail to pay for 12 months, we will revert you to demo mode, and you'll have to rollback to build#12. This prevents people from doing one month, getting all the latest stuff, and then canceling and essentially getting a year or mores worth of innovations for $20.

Hi Andrew!
But we like to have all innovations for $20
In other words - we already miss the holiday sale prices for you stuff - please consider bring them back.

Sincerely yours
Chris

Ah well we can't do that unfortunately. But for existing customers, they will essentially be getting what would have been X4 and also X5. So let's call it 2 for 1 upgrades right now

[Tracing Arcs]

You'll have to forgive me if this has already been raised ( but 26 pages is not fun). If I was to upgrade from my Sonar Producer 8.5 to Platinum, for a one off payment, (I believe Cakewalk state this as $199 in the UK here this may be £130) for a year. I will be dependent on Cakewalk actually issuing bugfixes within that time period.
My concern is that within the 12 months, not much may come forth from Cakewalk, or a particular problem may not be fixed within the 12 months.
I did not upgrade earlier due to the problems I read about with X1/X2. And only now being addressed with X3.
I could be stuck after 12 months with a buggy product still, and the only recourse is to consider paying for another year, in the hope it would be fixed within that time.

[whyterabbyt]

i have made it clear many times what i feel cakewalk should do in the situation of incomplete subscription i.e to give the bugfixes that have accrued during the period the customer had been paying

So you want them to have a pile of bugfixes to software they won't own?

Seriously, Im not sure how you perceive this.

If someone doesnt own Sonar, then they're not going to own Sonar until they've paid for it. That's after one year's worth of payments, either up-front or 12 installments.

If someone does own Sonar, they dont get to own an upgraded version until they've paid for it. That's after one year's worth of payments, either up-front or 12 installments.

In either case, this is exactly the same as the 'previous' sales system. You dont get updates for a major version you dont own.

But you're saying they should get bugfixes for an upgraded version which they dont yet own? why? no other company does that.

it's all very well to keep throwing back that "bugfixes are part of a full product...you don't own the full product, why would you be entitled etc", but there is no reason why cakewalk couldn't separate that part of things, as pertains to certain legacy bugs that have needed fixing for some time. i understand where the bug-fixes can't be separated from other new additions

Okay, so if they separate out the bugfixes, but people havent actually bought the product... then you want them to get the bugfixes despite not owning the product.

Whit?

the subscription system is only an advantage if people can fulfill the obligation, otherwise people stand to lose all they have paid. i believe that some concession should be given to the fact that they have paid money to cakewalk, but end up with nothing

A concession like what? On top of the 'nothing' of being able to use the software for 1-11 months without having to buy it outright first?