"At the end of September 2012, Mindjet MindManager will be changing to a new all inclusive, lower cost, subscription model"

http://mindjet.mindsystems.com/

Interesting; I also received the message but hadn't noticed that it was from Mindsystems, the Australian reseller of MindManager and developers of Amode, and not by Mindjet itself. In fact, I have received nothing from Mindjet.

It is not evident to me that the deal is worth it; I have stopped upgrading to MindManager since version 9 and found little reason to upgrade to the more recent version.

By the way, MindManager is now part of the Mindjet 'suite', including the sync/web service access Connect and SP link to SharePoint. It is no longer highlighted as a brand/product.

What I also found interesting is Mindsystems' offer: "Purchase direct with Mindsystems and recieve a FREE edition of Amode + Premium Support."

I guess they didn't manage to make Amode stand on its own :-(

I uttered lots of details as I perceived and sensed them, about that "paradigm shift" as I called it, and what's really frightening: It's the big players, with the big money, that make the vanguard in this strategic move of which the little sw user, imo, is more victim than beneficiary.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

What I also found interesting is Mindsystems' offer: "Purchase
direct with Mindsystems and recieve a FREE edition of Amode + Premium Support."
I
guess they didn't manage to make Amode stand on its own :-(

Yes, I also got the sense that Amode (at least in its current form) is more or less an abandoned product. Which is too bad because I use it daily, it's my main project management tool. It's excellent for personal projects where you want to track and update your progress daily.

Fredy wrote:

I uttered lots of details as I perceived and sensed them, about that "paradigm shift"
as I called it, and what's really frightening: It's the big players, with the big
money, that make the vanguard in this strategic move of which the little sw user, imo,
is more victim than beneficiary.

I avoid subscription-based software like the plague, 1st because it's expensive, 2nd because it discourages innovation, 3rd because it tends to induce cynicism in the given business ("people are too lazy or stupid to cancel their subscription even after they stop going to the gym or using the software").

However, I'm optimistic that it's the subscription-based businesses that will get lazy and that there will always be nimble new competitors just around the block who will come up with cheaper and better innovative software. It's all a numbers game. There just need to be enough disgruntled but sophisticated software users that are willing to refuse the subscription model and adopt and support a small software developer.

The announcements by Mindjet or Mindsystems are a irritating for me.

I have a valid MindManager 2012 Professional licence. 

Mindjet offered me to upgrade to the new Mindjet product including an all-inclusive 12 month licence for € 236,81€. 
The same offer by Mindsystems is AUD $ $188.85.

When I convert these values to Swiss Francs I get CHF 284.35 for Mindjet's offer and CHF 184.90 for Mindystem's offer.

Huh?! This is a difference of CHF 99.45 (= US$ 104) ! 

They promise:
"It lowers the entry cost for new users"
Hey, what is with the existing users? I don't see a benefit here.

Apart from this, the upgrading offer is too steep for me and it is still not clear for me what I will get in return for this money. I don't buy a such an expensive black box.

From October 1 to the 21st of December, the offer will increase to AUD 249 or 296,31 €. It isn't possible anymore after the 21st December to upgrade old buying licences. 

What do they write in the Marketing blurb? "You are being not forced to upgrade". Nice, but indirectly you are forced because if I don't upgrade until the 21st December then you have to pay for a new licence.

New features? Yes, but I am not impressed at all. They do not qualify for a new release, more for an update:
- Calculations between topics for planning and budgeting
- Synchronized task mangement 
- Improved usability

Especially the last one is hot air or just blabla. 

I hope to get more clarification from Mindjet during the next days.

Dominik

I have always been off by the MindManager price, and reading the user group did nothing to make me feel like investing in MM (that is when I would have had the money to do). Instead I began to use MindGenius, which has a rather nice feature set for planning and projects. For aesthetics I like NovaMind.
http://www.mindgenius.com/?_kk=mindgenius&_kt=8020e022-27bc-4aeb-a373-b4e2397393e4
http://www.novamind.com/

By the way, for those of us outside of the US, we need to watch very carefully what is actually billed to our credit cards. I purchased NovaMind for about US $150 - at a time when the Cdn $ was about 98 cents in relation to the US $ - however, I was charged about $170.

The culprit was Digital River, a company which handles transactions for a number of software developers.
http://corporate.digitalriver.com/store/digriv/ContentTheme/pbPage.Homepage/sectionName.home

At the most I should have been charged something less than $10, taking into account the exchange difference and any conversion charges.

I wonder if anyone else has had issues with Digital River. If so, perhaps we could discuss them under a new thread.

Daly

There is a clear paradigm shift in the software business model, driven by Google and other web services, from purchase to subscription-driven. With Microsoft moving its Office suite to such a pay-as-you-go system, programs that have long been 'attached' to Office, including MindManager, are bound to follow.

Jeremy Rifkin spoke of this years ago in The Age Of Access, calling it the 'end of ownership'.

From the client business's perspective the move makes sense, as there are less upfront costs. In the current state of the economy worldwide, it also makes sense for individual users.

I'm not sure how good this news is for the developers of much of the classic software we discuss here. As more people are exposed to software as a service (SAAS), purchased-license-driven software may become less accessible. Let's see how Neville/Surfulater does.

The move is supposed to bring in more steady/predictable growth to the SAAS business; yet when upfront costs are less, clients may more easily decide to change to another service after a while.

WinZip promised a lifetime license, but when it was sold, the new owner reneged.

At the rate things are moving to the cloud, I foresee the day when be are back to using almost dumb terminals with almost all processing being done in the cloud.