Naturally more people post negative feedback–and those who are not so-moved don’t bother. In the interest of balance, I feel the need to say I don’t care that much! Actually I am disappointed that a new feature (that doesn’t excite me that much ) is being peeled away from Classic licenses like mine, but I don’t see this as mean-spirited “predatory” money-grabbing. I don’t like the move toward subscription or web-based arrangments, but I don’t own the company–so who cares?
I do wish ongoing success and improvement for SketchUp, for my own selfish needs. So I hope they don’t shoot themselves in the foot with the Byzantine marketing tactics.
I am 100% with you mate on their “Our most loyal customers”. May be only a poor choice of words but the evidence of action makes it seem all the more insulting. I have been with them from SketchUp 6 and introduced this to a College I teach at (150-200 potential professional customers per annum) as well as spreading the good word far and wide through my own training business. No-one is buying the line that they can’t tell who is a paid up member (Classic license) and who is not re continued access to this High resolution (and others) feature.
Dear SketchUp team. I have been one of your biggest ‘fanboys’ for quite some time. I am currently a Pro user, paid up in the Maintenance model since it’s inception. I have and continue to teach and spread the word on the fantastic ability of this program (I do mention its foibles too …alas …such is life). This reply to Bluerocco’s post however is to ask why two SketchUp team members did not address the primary topic in this post, which I am sure you are aware has been echoed from many a user here on these forums as to who and how Trimble sees their ‘most loyal customers’, of which I formerly considered myself one. I implore you to address this quite important point.
because “Add Location” can’t be used without being online requesting the license server if the maintenance of a perpetual Classic license is active before enabling the “Large Area” functionality/controls seems to be no rocket since…
First, the M&S system was never designed to be a robust “entitlement system” which would have to handle software access for 100s of thousands of users per day. It’s a very basic system that allows us to see who has access to tech support and then it can also interface with certain finance systems to process major version upgrades.
Second, extending the M&S system would be a duplicate of our new subscription entitlements system. So even if it was robust enough (which it will never be) we’d be maintaining two systems that do the same thing. We just can’t do something like that while also delivering real feature improvements like the ones in 19.2. I know this is a hard pill to swallow for some users, but we’re choosing to be as efficient as we possibly can in order to deliver more improvements and new features to our users.
I’m glad you brought this up. We are still working on that program. I hope it’s not too much longer before we have something official to announce.
I have to sincerely apologize to all our long time M&S customers for the lack of messaging on that subject. I realize that it can’t feel good to support SketchUp for a long time and then have a bunch of uncertainty around future pricing. Please hang in there a bit longer. Also know that we absolutely see long time M&S customers as our most valuable set of core users. The changes we are making are actually aimed at better serving that group. That means delivering more relevant features, more often.
Wouldn’t it be possible to reuse the subscription system under the hood? People on M&S could have a “subscription” with no automatic renewal for a separate “M&S product”.
That’s awesome, glad to hear it. I feel like that’s the big thing that’s been missing for me. I’ve been happy with the status quo and so I don’t see the point in paying $180 more per year when I already had to commit to a higher upfront cost. If that per year cost was a bit reduced for folks who paid for Pro and have maintained an active M&S and the added benefits made sense, I would be comfortable making the switch.
I think a few things could help with that, first, understanding what Trimble Connect is all about. I subscribed to that with a co-worker for over a year and I just didn’t see a benefit to Trimble Connect. While there’s a huge community devoted to SketchUp explaining the benefits fo the software, there’s basically nothing about Trimble Connect. I eventually tried to cancel and literally couldn’t the button wasn’t available. I’m still not sure if they have sorted it out yet, I’ll know on my next expense report. The team at Trimble was surprised to find out a cancellation option wasn’t available for me after I sent them screenshots. I’m sure it’s great software, but there aren’t videos or users explaining why it’s great, the handy stuff you can do with it, and why it’s worth the extra money.
The AR/VR Mobile Viewer is compelling and possibly worth the extra money if you have a use-case. I imagine this did it for some architects that use SketchUp.
For me, once the premium online modeler works with dynamic components, I would find the change well worth the cost. I would also have co-workers who currently do not use SketchUp at all on SketchUp Shop.
A discount would be nice, but what would be equally compelling would be knowing more about how/why I should be using Trimble Connect and having the ability to get more of my coworkers involved with SketchUp by having them use the premium online modeler constrained by dynamic components. That way they don’t have to install software and I can build smart models that keep them from accidentally placing a car in mid-air.
This is good. Just one suggestion - to be able to customise it in Layout, to have e.g. area in several units. In my case, would really love to have area size in Square Metres and Square Feet (I’m in the UK, so both are used actively). Would really help in “cross-cultural” communications
Possibly, using a modifier key, for example, <>m - gives value in metres, <>ft - in feet.
Bruce, fully understand the reason. Although this is hugely frustrating, as I’ve spent almost half a year trying to find-out the way to migrate perpetual “classic” licenses that we have (and it’s a fair amount) to subscription model, I think going to almost every level of reseller/distributor/SketchUp/Trimble hierarchy (annoying people with keeping repeating this question, for which I’m really sorry). And still don’t have a clear path for this (without just throwing away existing licenses and buying subscription).
So while I fully understand the move to subscription and extra opportunities - this really could have been handled better.
Great! The new feature in Layout “dimensioning in isometric view” is awesome! Just what I need right now for drafting architectural details! Thanks @ SketchUp-Team!
Bryce, any suggestions on how much longer? I need to provide some updates internally, and so far I really struggle on this, as I have to explain what happens to all licenses that we already have (dozens). So something like “this summer” or “by next BaseCamp” would really help.
So tell us Bryce, how is this going to pan out in all honesty? Is it a slow death by second class citizen being conferred by deprivation of features to migrate us? Because I am starting to get the feeling we may as well set fire to our annual maintenance money on classic, or perhaps just not pay it until there is a significant enough upgrade and then maybe get a subscription if we still can be bothered. I mean what is the ‘pro training’ I paid for ‘Pro sketchup’ ages ago, in fact, I was made to pay for it twice because my old license lapsed. Why wouldn’t you want all your paid up users to know how to use your software thoroughly?
Actually I am disappointed that a new feature (that doesn’t excite me that much ) is being peeled away from Classic licenses like mine, but I don’t see this as mean-spirited “predatory” money-grabbing. I don’t like the move toward subscription or web-based arrangments, but I don’t own the company–so who cares?