I do not work for Trimble, I work for a company that is just a ‘Partner’ and distribute it in our region.
I bought version 5 a long time ago. I payed when there was an upgrade. Then Google pushes a free version, then Trimble came with a ‘Maintenance and Support’ plan, which was actually a subscription, I guess, you would pay one, two or three years ahead and always had the right to download and use ‘the latest and greatest’
That ‘M&S’ was actually marketed as a way for companies to have lower costs evenly spread throughout the years, instead of having high costs when faced with an Upgrade because of lack of support from OS or equipment etc.
That was the moment were my confusion started, btw.
Read if you want
I was just a one-man-operation that needed to communicate with larger companies that used AD etc. Initial startup costs of version 5 (about 250 dollars in my memory) were vaporised all along, anyway, so the 120 maintenance per year did not sound that bad at all, compared with the prices off the other software.
Then, I started to train other folks that wanted to use SketchUp and working with that Partner of SketchUp, learned more about the licensing system and actually started to read (some of) the EULA.
The thing that striked me most was that the user of the software never ‘owns the software’ itself but only the right to use it.
That reminded me of the middle ages, when the guilds or corporations of different disciplines determined whether you might practice carpentary or blacksmith etc.
So you can build the most beautiful things with your tools that you bought or crafted, if you weren’t licensed, you weren’t allowed to make a living out of it.
We got a lot of support questions like this:
‘I have downloaded the trial/educational/teacher version, should I reinstall when I buy the Pro version?
There are no different types of SketchUp Pro, I always say, there are just different ways to ‘Activate’ it.
If you bought the Student license, it will activate the same SketchUp Pro as the girl/guy who activates it with his Trimble ID which was assigned a SketchUp Pro plan. (Students get the most out of the deal, btw, they can use the Energy-and daylight visualisation, as well)
Old school ‘upgraders’ tend not to see the benefits of the 300 dollar/y Subscription, yet.
We see clients who hadn’ t payed the M&S for a while in two minds, but new clients, who never used it, do not seem to be hassled at all with the subscription model.
The marketing machine of Trimble (SketchUp) may have made some ‘tomatoe-tomatoe’ errors on the different plans & pricing pages (there was once a possibility to edit and create Dynamic Components for the web-based Shop version)
They could also have chosen to let go of the classic license and force everyone to the new subscription…(like some other software, or new startups that drug their potential user with free software, Digi base,TwinMotion )
(pointless to discuss, this is just what it is now)