It has been almost a year since PTC officially came out with subscription licensing as an option, but more often than not, we have customers asking us “Well what is it?” Our general response was “Well it’s a license you pay an annual fee for…” yet this doesn’t really explain everything PTC subscriptions entails; and for many of you, hearing this probably leads you to think “Well then, don’t I already have a subscription license since I pay for support every year?” If you are thinking that then you are not alone. Speaking from experience, this is almost exactly how all of our conversations went for the first few months that we started selling subscriptions as an option.
Not until I separated the subscription part from the licensing and looked at what subscription is in general and how it applies to real life, was I able to find how to best describe subscriptions in the PTC world.
The practice of subscription has been around for decades in many forms, whether it’s the monthly magazines of yester year, or streaming services such as Netflix, people have been paying monthly or annually to consume their needs and wants until it no longer suits them. This concept is being adopted at a rapid pace, by software companies of all sorts, not just PTC. You have household names like Microsoft and Adobe now offering their flagship software on subscription terms. You may ask, “Why are they doing this?” Well, a lot of it has to do with how we, as consumers, are always looking for the best and cheapest way to fulfill our needs or wants. The problem that companies are faced with is that our society is ever changing, and these needs and wants change at such quick rates that static products or software no longer can succeed as a long term solution.
Take Netflix for instance, prior to online subscription viewing of movies, the only way to view a movie at home was to purchase it and hope it is as good as the reviews led you to believe. Now, unless that movie is the greatest of all time and you can’t get enough of it, chances are you watched it once then it cluttered your shelves until you decided to discard it. For the cost of that one movie, you could have paid for a month of Netflix and watched a dozen movies or so; and by doing so, you would have increased your chances of finding one or more movies that you enjoy watching versus the one physical movie purchased ( at a premium ) that may never be viewed again.
It’s this same way of thinking that has now found its way into the software world. PTC has come out with cost friendly pricing to add on many of the extension functionality offered that would help you in situations such as these. PTC subscription facilitates the purchase of software in instances when the cost to expand is too great and the demand from your customers is not high enough to justify the expense. With the understanding that, it is hard to make a case to spend upwards of $5k on a product that may just sit on your shelf. Or you may have that one customer ask for something outside the realm of your current software capabilities; the customer is important to you so you look to expand, but when you only have this one project to offset the cost of the expansion, it’s hard to see where the profit for your company might reside. This is where subscription can become your secret weapon.
To be continued….
Please know that MRC along providing personalized support to you and your team, can also have your software purchase up and active in less than 72 hours. Unlike other vendors, MRC is centrally located which allows us to increase our speed and response to you.