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Changes To Onshape's Plans

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Comments

  • øyvind_kaurstadøyvind_kaurstad Member Posts: 234 ✭✭✭
    I've also signed up for the Leopard beta, but I haven't been let in yet. Anyway, I'm still learning F360, and I agree the UI is more clunky than OS, but I am getting used to it. At this point, I'm not sure I would return to OS even if they had reverted this (IMO) stupid decision. Maybe, maybe not.

    The one thing I miss the most from OS in F360 is the Final-button, that allows a preview of the rebuilt feature tree when editing a feature. I used this quite a lot in OS, and I miss it.
  • nyholkunyholku Member Posts: 58 PRO
    While I've given up on Onshape (not used it since the announcement) this thing keeps turning in my mind.

    Lately I've been thinking about this pricing model, especially in context of cloud based application.


    As hobbyist with reasonable income from day job I can afford easily my little hobbies. I have a nice little workshop with CNC plasma, two lathes and a decent size milling machine and everything that goes with them.

    So I'm willing pay several $1000 for a tool just to 'enjoy' it.


    When I die my heiress will sell the lathes and things but the software is worth nothing.

    Further my machine tools may lay dormant for months, even years, but they are there when the inspiration strikes.

    Now with a desktop software the thing is different because I know that within a year or two it will go sour.

    A new version of the operating system comes and the software won't work and I will have to buy the next version of the software as staying with the old OS is a dead end before long and drags you down. I have several friends that are stuck at 10 year old OSes and cannot use new software because of that, but the investment on their software is too dear to give up so it is a ball and a chain. 

    So I end up paying for the software more or less continuously.

    I also spend money more or less regularly on hardware and telecom, so why not.

    A further problem is that every now and then a software company decides to completely overhaul a product stopping support of an old version throwing away all my investment on it.

    A cloud based is slightly different, it will not go sour as it lives in the cloud but of course I'm still at mercy of the whims of the developers, if they decide I do not need a feature or that a feature needs a complete overhaul then there is nothing I can do. And it can happen without a notice.

    As to cost of subscription based software, it tends to be huge. I bet most people hooked on Netflix or Spotify don't want to think about that if they are 30 years old they can confidently expect to pay 50 years the monthly payment of whatever it is. Even a lowly $10/month adds up to $6000 and nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

    The same with CAD, if it is subscription based I would get hooked on it and would like it to be available at a moments notice. I would simply hate to put in hundreds or thousands of hours on some CAD design and not have access to it anytime in the future. Thus with todays Onshape subscription model I would end up paying (I'm +50 so no more than 30 years to go) $1200/year*30 years = $36000 ... could buy a decent classic Mustang or Jaguar for that money! Oops done that already but you get the picture.

    So I have the means and I'm ready to spend but the pricing model does not work for me.

     Not sure which kind of model would... it is a dilemma.

    Have a nice weekend.


  • OpenR2OpenR2 OS Professional Posts: 188 ✭✭✭
    edited December 2016
    Well the problem is that there is no real money to be made is software on its own anymore. A hit piece of software used to be like printing money. Rarely is that the case anymore.

    So two attempts have bubbled up to find another solid revenue stream. Services around software written at a loss...or subscription services. 

    For some software like word or excel...what services can you bundle around them? The only way to grow is to get more users. To do that you can make it more accessible....get rid of any prerequisite infrastructure or hidden costs....the cloud. You can also lower the immediate cost...a student can digest $10 a month a lot easier than $120 on time fee. This model relies on a month after month after month subscription.

    For other software, there is a mirade of support software that you can create, bundle, develop around the main core. There are consultant opportunities. There are R&D components. For this software you can develop the core at a loss but make a tremendous amount of money around services. If you can use these services to save a user $10Million you can honestly and ethically, with your head held high, charge them $2Million for it. This model is usually focus on addressing a fixed industry/customer problem with a fixed deliverable at a fixed price.

    Software is also a dynamic landscape. Software solutions that were cutting edge 3 years ago and would fit the services model are now commodity and have moved into the cloud/subscription model. A whole new set of services based solution then start to be developed at the high end. This seems to be an ever repeating cycle.

    is Onshape's long term plan a never ending continual growth of subscriptions? Or does it just need to reach a certain number of subscriptions to keep development going and then the services model will start? 

    Intetesting stuff.

  • OpenR2OpenR2 OS Professional Posts: 188 ✭✭✭
    Another twist to this conversation is that the big OEMs are leveraging the same cloud technology just behind thier firewalls.

    The same mass array of CPUs, memory, graphics, and disk that can be dynamically pooled, dynamically reallocated, reconfigured, and reimaged with minimal staff and maximum resilience is being stood up everywhere. This will in turn drive all software vendors to mod thier software to run in these environments.

    The PLM versioning, effectivity, and configuration currently deployed at these OEMs is far far far more mature than what is currently in Onshape. Of course at a price point and support structure that costs orders of magnitudes more than Onshape.

    It will be interesting to see if the promise of individual software vendors hosting complete environments takes off and gets a footing before those very same customers stand up a similar internal solution.

    It will be interesting to see which philosophy is sustainable and in the end generating the most value add for the end user.

    Will Onshape be able to grown an entire functional PLM suite in the cloud before the existing internal OEMs stand up thier own internal cloud underneath existing mature PLM infrastructure? Or is there an emerging hybrid work flow leveraging components from both solutions?

  • michael3424michael3424 Member Posts: 674 ✭✭✭✭
    If Onshape were as cheap as Netflix ($10/month) I'd sign up right away.  And if Netflix were as much as Onshape ($100-125/month) I'd drop it like a hot potatoe.
  • 3dcad3dcad Member, OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 2,470 PRO
    edited December 2016
    At some point all these cloud SaaS services open up new business for someone gathering a right package for you at fixed price. After few years when buying a computer you might actually just buy certain services for certain time and get devices in same deal. For example package with 1pb filebox + office software + 3d cad + email + tv + phone = $200-500 / month (including devices and connection).
    I don't see very bright future for cloud ecosystem so that everybody needs to find and create separate account (and always login) and pay for subscription into several systems.
    //rami
  • OpenR2OpenR2 OS Professional Posts: 188 ✭✭✭
    A true SaaS service would be pay as you use. I would like to pay $120 for professional services for the week out of every 12 weeks that I need to use the service. Give me the choice to also pay weekly or monthly. And not while I'm not using it....possibly just a monthly dormate storage fee.
  • BjornHeideBjornHeide Member Posts: 10 ✭✭✭

    OnShape is fighting an uphill battle moving engineers off traditional desktop CAD.  They do have a unique value proposition but their long term success will be measured by maximizing adoption.  A portion of those that use the product will upgrade to professionals so maximizing those who invest in learning and using the tool set is critical.

    OnShape's recent decision to eliminate any private storage documents will dramatically curtail adoption at the worst possible time in the project life cycle and this will prevent future potential professional users from ever adopting the product.

    Joe has written one of the best summaries of the situation I've read so far, although I see that there are many pages of comments I haven't read, but frankly, why bother?  I've already invested too much time into OnShape if this is the direction they are taking. 

    I'm in a similar boat as Joe.  I'm an engineering professional working with a startup company as a sideline.  I'm working on a prototype for a new product for the company, but right now it's not our main product and it's too early to say if it's even a viable product.  It's way too early to spend $100/month or more on it, especially as I have to shoehorn development time in with my primary employer and volunteer activities.  I could envision OnShape being worthwhile some day in the future if the product takes off, or if we get another engineer on board and I want to collaborate with him/her, but now is not the time.

    I suspect that OnShape is in a bind because they are not getting the anticipated sign-ups for the Professional plan.  I have gotten two sales calls from them recently.  I further suspect that they are hoping that the plan changes will entice some existing users to switch to the Professional plan.  Maybe it will in a few cases, but I don't think many.  As other commenters have pointed out, there are other options out there, and the all-or-nothing pricing structure means there is no easy path from hobbyist/tinkerer to semi-professional. 

    The recent plan change announcement erodes two key elements in my relationship with OnShape: trust and confidence.  Humans are risk-averse.  It really bothers us to lose something, even something we don't really own.  So I'm not surprised to see words like "betrayal" being used in the comments.  I too feel like they reneged on an implied deal.  Typically a company rewards their early adopters.  It's how you build a loyal core of users who will spread the word.  By taking away the private documents with no grandfathering for existing private documents, it feels like OnShape is abandoning its early adopters.  This announcement damages the trust that users have put into the company.

    Judging from all the negative reactions to the change, and my suspicions about OnShape's current situation above, I can't say I have much confidence in OnShape's future.  I think they have just did a lot of damage to their brand, and if they stick with this plan change, they may not be around a year from now.  I hope that's not the case, as I have really liked the product, but I'm preparing myself for the worst. 
    Amen
  • nyholkunyholku Member Posts: 58 PRO


    OpenR2 said:
    The PLM versioning, effectivity, and configuration currently deployed at these OEMs is far far far more mature than what is currently in Onshape. Of course at a price point and support structure that costs orders of magnitudes more than Onshape.



    Well yes and no, or rather no and yes ;)

    Can't name no names but I've got windows seat to a train crash slowly happening which is a big name PLM system being deployed and mature, effectivity and support are not what I would use to describe what I see and but price point is definitely a magnitude more than Onshape. 

    Yeah the support is there but when the software is what it is... 

    cheer Kusti
  • OpenR2OpenR2 OS Professional Posts: 188 ✭✭✭
    I've had the opposite experience with the big name PLM software. The software  is fine but the support...sometimes you wonder if they know how to even spell PLM.
  • øyvind_kaurstadøyvind_kaurstad Member Posts: 234 ✭✭✭
    Well, tomorrow is the day when the current free plan really becomes the "Forced share plan". I'm sorry to see that there has been no official response to any of the numerous postings in this thread, but I'm not surprised. I haven't used Onshape much (almost nothing) since the announcement, and as long as I can't have any privacy without going Pro, I'm not going to either. I think @kustaa_2 summarized it well in the posting from December 10, btw.
  • mahirmahir Member, Developers Posts: 1,291 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2016
    Yep, at this point Onshape is just a sandbox for me to mess around in, but no way am I doing anything important here. At most, I might do some FeatureScript for fun just as a programming exercise.
  • michael3424michael3424 Member Posts: 674 ✭✭✭✭
    Thanks for the reminder - I need to export a bunch of dumb solids from one of my private documents.  The memory of needing to do that and replicating the work in another CAD program is going to linger for quite a while.
  • kinsleymarkkinsleymark Member Posts: 35 ✭✭✭
    I thought this was an interesting response from a Fusion360 employee on the F360 forums:

    "....I want to make sure I fully understand your question, but it sounds like you're asking if we can guarantee hobbyist/startup access to Fusion 360 for free, indefinitely.  Is that correct?
    In short, while we cannot make that guarantee, at this point in time we are 100% committed to our hobbyists and startups (they're a HUGE part of what helped us with our early success), and have every intention of continuing to offer Fusion 360 to them free of charge if their making less than $100k/yr."

    Onshape and F360 can do whatever they want with their company and products. They know their business much better than I/we do. I just think it's very interesting the completely opposite approaches to this market.

  • kurt_wojtechkurt_wojtech Member Posts: 2
    6 month ago, i was looking for a hobby cad system.
    Onshape was the perfect solution for me. Free and no high end PC machine. 10 documents and 500MB worked fine and my my documents are private.
    I don't like to make my documents public. Why should I?
    First these are my menatl properties and second who cares about my constructions?

    This is a regression and I am very angry that I have put time learning the programm and made my constructions with it.
    All my ideas now are trapped and I can't export the files without losing all parametric geometries.

    Onsahpe: Please consider the doubts of the community and rethink your dession!

    Regard, Kurt
  • sean_anderson339sean_anderson339 Member Posts: 2
    I am really disappointed that this is happening to OnShape but I will be looking for another CAD program.

    Buying a subscription was definitely my long term goal in order to be able to collaborate on multiple designs with multiple other people and I have encouraged them to get accounts and start practicing the functions as I have been.

    Now, there is no reason to get a subscription at any point because even if you hadn't taken away the ability to at least create a few designs, they now would have to buy their own subscriptions just to edit my private designs.

    This is terrible customer service honestly
  • lee_hickslee_hicks Member Posts: 2
    I'm in the same boat as a few of the other posters. I am a self bootstrapped startup that is working in lawn automation. Not having VC money means watching income and expenses like a hawk. I use OS to build adapters for adding actuators and enclosures. These are small, few item assemblies so I was able to use the free plan which has been great.

    Being primarily in software I do not expect people/engineers to write software for free. What the free plan did is allow me to deliver faster than pen and paper while pinching pennies. I have every intention of paying, but for something that makes business sense. Now that we are doing few integrations, since one adapter design works on similar product lines with zero changes, we don't use OS that often.

    What is really confusing is not offering a limited plan for small startups. Something like $50/mo for a cap on private projects, 10, 20, 50 just something lower than unlimited. One size fits all doesn't make sense to charge where OS utilization is everyday as in heavy manufacturing shops/CAD firms, vs our setup where OS is a tool that we use, but not as our primary tool.

    Since switching from OS to another competitor is a pain with just a few projects, I have no intention of changing down the road due the friction of moving projects themselves to retraining.
  • robert_welainrobert_welain Member Posts: 1
    I disagree. Especially with the guy who talks about homework planner! 
    It's wrong to live with such an attitude.
  • MBartlett21MBartlett21 Member, OS Professional, Developers Posts: 2,034 EDU


    Judging from all the negative reactions to the change, and my suspicions about OnShape's current situation above, I can't say I have much confidence in OnShape's future.  I think they have just did a lot of damage to their brand, and if they stick with this plan change, they may not be around a year from now.  I hope that's not the case, as I have really liked the product, but I'm preparing myself for the worst. 
    @john_wolter

    1 year later, Onshape is still going awesome.

    I really like how you can use Featurescript to create features.
    mb - draftsman - also FS author: View FeatureScripts
    IR for AS/NZS 1100
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