CheckMag | The death of perpetual licenses

In the past, all professional software could be had for a one-time payment and the optional after sales services fee. The only recurring source of income that software developers could earn was through providing software updates for a price. It could be argued that Microsoft kick-started the subscription-based licensing trend with Office 365 starting in 2011. Not long after that, Adobe killed Creative Suite in 2012 and introduced Creative Cloud in 2013; Autodesk halted all perpetual licensing sales after 2016.

Lately, even video games are not safe from this phenomenon. Recently, Ubisoft announced that The Crew will be made completely unplayable by March 31, 2024 because of the servers being shut down. Imagine paying full price for a game that doesn’t even have an offline mode.

The lack of competition and brand imprinting on consumers led to the slow demise of perpetual licenses. In the absence of perpetual licensed software, open-source software can be seen as a potential replacement. But the uncertain development path of open-source software can be off putting to some. For example, Blender might be wildly successful as an alternative to SketchUP but the same can’t be said for LibreCAD as an alternative to AutoCAD.

Occasionally tech giants such as Google release free software such as Google Docs, Sheet and Slides. These three web apps can be easily used as replacements to MS 365. Other smaller firms might give you access to a free version in order to get you into the ecosystem such as Black Magic Design with Davinci Resolve.

But not all hope is lost for perpetual licenses. In an exclusive article by XDA, Microsoft is planning to launch MS Office 2024 somewhere in the third or fourth quarter of 2024. It’s good to see a company the size of Microsoft still putting in the effort to keep perpetual licensing somewhat alive.

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