Rhino 8 Release Date Question

I believe, if you speak with McNeel guys from sales directly, you could be granted with free update from 7 to 8. Worth trying.

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Nope. Will never happen.

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I think you might be wrong on this one. I know somebody that got to replace their license with the latest one after seeing this topic and talking to their reseller. Honestly feel a bit cheaded
It’s a valid question though which McNeel should have a policy for. Like, they don’t have a release date and don’t want to give it either, which is fair enough. But then they could have a system that if you bought half a year / a year before the latest release that you can exchange it or get it for an even bigger discount than the upgrade discount.

Edit: or have a subscription system in addition to the perpetual license option. So people can pay monthly until the new version comes out.

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I wrote it from memory bit I think it was already discussed on this forum and such case had a place.

One thing I can tell you after nearly 20 years of being a reseller is that McNeel has always been very clear to us on this point at every new release:

No. Free. Upgrades. Period.

This no matter when the client has bought the license, even if it’s just a couple of months before release.

Resellers are allowed to do their own thing - if they feel it is worth negotiating with the customer, they can sell licenses at different prices from ‘retail’, make discounts, even give stuff away for free… If they do that however, it is with their own money/profit margin in every case.

The current “we’re nearing release but we still don’t know when” period is somewhat difficult for both customers and resellers alike. Personally, despite the unknown release date, I have already started informing customers who inquire that the new version is on semi-final approach - especially new ones who are not familiar with the system and may be unaware how it works.

I always lay out the options very clearly - buy now and be able to use and make money with the current version (plus the WIP) until release - at the expense of paying another (optional) upgrade once it is released; or, if they can, hang on and wait - knowing that a definite release date has still not been determined. Up to the customer then to determine which path is best for them. As the OP states, it can be a difficult decision for an independent, individual user.

I also make sure they know that at upgrade time there is always a special introductory price which takes at least some of the sting out of the issue.

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It seems to me that an obvious solution to this kind of problem is to offer free upgrades to people who happen to buy just a few months before a new release. It just boosts a customer’s confidence to buy and it increases positive feelings about a company. You get a guarantee that if Rhino happens to be released within three months of your purchase, you get an upgrade for free.

It really inhibits sales, it seems to me, if McNeel doesn’t announce new versions until just days or weeks before the release, and a new release can come anywhere between a year and seven years. The uncertainty makes buying feel like a gamble. And I am not much of a gambler. I am finding it hard to make a decision and pull the trigger. And that period of uncertainty and hesitation in a would-be customer exists potentially for years before a release, given the historical length and variability of the release cycle.

Some software companies I know of, such as Escape Motions and Celsys, offer free upgrades to recent purchasers, and Escape Motions has a much shorter release cycle. I purchased Rebelle 5 last year before version 6 was released with confidence and without hesitation because of that. And I find that it still warms my feeling about the company that they did that.

People in my situation hesitate to buy. You don’t want people who want your product and are ready to pay to hesitate. It can mean that they look for alternatives (which I am doing now) or cracked versions (not what I will do) and never end up buying or becoming long-term Rhino users and so never end up further promoting the product. Right now, I am starting to learn FreeCAD and Fusion 360 Personal Edition to see if they, in combination with Plasticity, Blender, and ZBrush, which I have already, will meet my needs for at least the next few months. I wouldn’t have considered this if there were a more buyer-friendly policy.

I wrote McNeel and they basically told me that they can offer me nothing but the same small discount offered to everyone for upgrades for a short time after a new release. Now I feel a little soured on Rhino and the brand, to be frank. If I manage to find another solution, in the end it is possible I won’t buy Rhino at all. And Plasticity is improving very rapidly, and my needs are mostly artistic, so it’s certainly possible that by the time Rhino 8 is available, I will have settled into another workflow that suffices for my needs. I suspect I’ll still want Rhino, but we’ll see.

I was trying to think of an argument for not offering such free upgrades, and I just can’t think of a good one, aside from hoping that you get more money out of a few people if they buy late in the cycle and then upgrade immediately also. But in my own case, if I were to buy now, I certainly wouldn’t pay to upgrade when V8 comes out, unless it has some spectacular new features that are worth an additional $400 to me, which is unlikely. I can’t justify that much money for a few small tweaks just after shelling out $1,000. I can only justify $1,000 now because of the immense value the large existing toolset offers. Maybe I would upgrade another release cycle later or something. So for a customer like me, there is zero advantage to refusing to offer such free upgrades. All it does is cause me to hesitate and to look for alternatives and to withdraw from the product while I wait and to associate a feeling of frustration with the brand.

Also, it perhaps seems silly, but for some, being out of date with a product, knowing that others are enjoying better features, that you are left behind and aren’t a full and proper user, diminishes your warm feeling of connection and identity with the product.

I guess one other solution some might think of is a subscription model, but everyone hates that, myself included. This whole subscription model trend is a mistake, in my opinion, and might well prove to be only more profitable in the short term. I used to love Adobe. Now, because of their subscription and contract policies, I hate them and feel like their slave. I am constantly looking for ways to get out of their ecosystem, and I am not alone in this. When you invest in and buy something and feel like you “own” it, you sort of incorporate it into your sense of self, as part of your identity. That’s good for brand loyalty and positive feelings. If I constantly see a bill and a threat that if I don’t want to or can’t pay it anymore, this tool will be taken away, it generates bad feelings about the brand and makes me want to separate myself from it. The tool no longer feels like a part of me, but rather like something they own but are just allowing me to use as long as I keep paying. It makes you think about what happens to your project files if you end your subscriptions. You lose access to your files. That sucks. It makes you want to avoid building your life around such products in the first place.

It seems like you have a lot of feelings towards software and maybe, just maybe, you are over-thinking it too much, while not thinking about it logically enough.

Let me break down the math for you on a long term scale: Rhino 6 and 7 have been released about 3 years apart. That’s a shorter cycle than prior versions: Rhino 4 and 5 were release about 5 years apart if I recall correctly.

So let’s go with this “faster” release cycle of the last 2 versions:

Buying your license is U$1000, divided 36 months= ~$28/month.

If you come late in the cycle like you are now, to be up to date you will be spending U$1000 + $400 upgrade soon after. Or about ~$39/month for the first 3+ years.

After that, you will only be paying for upgrades and that’s about $400/36 [every three years]= ~11/month.

If you average it out on a 6 year cycle, even coming this late in the game to buy V7, and then soon after you buy V8, and 3 years later you buy V9, you are looking at $1000+$400+$400= $1800 / 72 [months]= ~25 month.

Even if they doubled the release cycle cadence and McNeel shipped a paid upgrade every 1.5 years, I think Rhino would still be one of the best values in terms of software cost/money-making potential not only in the CAD/3D industry, but probably in any industry.

My advice to you is that you judge the product, the company and the people making Rhino with a longer term lens, more objectively and more comparatively.

Also, maybe Rhino is not a valuable tool for you, in that case trying to get a free upgrade won’t change much that reality. So you are better of skipping it and looking for better value options for you.

I hope this helps.

G

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Would you consider “building your life” around a software that requires you to pay a monthly fee, forever?
Is that better?


You used the trial, you appreciated what you used?
That’s Rhino 7. Incredibly powerful. You can reach many different fields.
It have built-in grasshopper. And we should not discuss here how great it is. And even more how great it is, considering it’s “free” inside Rhino!

Why would you want Rhino 8 already??
Do you really need the new features? You can’t work with what’s in 7?
You can buy today Rhino 7 and have it forever. It’s yours! You can indeed “building your life” around a software that have a perpetual licence!

Forget Rhino 8. Consider upgrade later. At Rhino 9 or more!

… or, if you start working with rhino and earning your living with it, buy the upgrade tomorrow for 500$ and be grateful to have, again, to option to purchase a great software with perpetual licence, in 2023/2024.

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@gustojunk
@JNO512 gave some thoughts on marketing psychology and you responded with an economic analysis. A cost-benefit analysis doesn’t refute comments about what it takes to get someone to seize their mouse in a iron grip and click the buy button.

It’s the classic point about value vs closing the sale:
“After looking at the pros/cons, do you agree that this product is a great value?” (potential customer says “yes!”)
“I have one in the trunk of my car. Give me a minute- do you have your checkbook with you?” (potential customer starts making ‘umm’ noises while uncertainty and the potential con items rattle around in his head)
Closing the deal has a huge element of psychology in avoiding factors which cause uncertainty and/or anxiety.

First: you don’t have to sell me (I bought recently, during the WIP period) and I’m not taking a side, just saying that he has a strong point.

Fear and uncertainty are important in whether someone clicks the buy button.

That goes at least double if you’re a Rhino lover trying to get your employer to buy in: if an individual buyer has a little angst, how about the person thinking about lobbying their boss to spend $20k on software for the whole team? In the back of that advocate’s mind may be the fear that the week after the purchase the help files and support forum will be full of descriptions of features they love but don’t have.

I realize that software is different because you can buy an upgrade, but this textbook example of the marketing and psychology issues involved is on point:
Osborne effect - Wikipedia

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What you call marketing psychology, I prefer to call it marketing non-sense, or marketing bullshit. Most software companies have created this distortion of reality. And along with their astronomical prices, non-existing support, draconian and use-hostile licensing schemes they have manufactured all kinds of placebos to make people with poor business sense think they are getting a deal.

I run a business. For me software is just tools. Buying something out of love would be for a puppy; a fancy hobby toy like a motorcycle or a snow sports kit, or a bottle o wine.

The $20K for a team example of 20 licenses is an absolute no-brainer. Try to buy 20 licenses of anything else for 3D or CAD today. Even non-CAD. I’m saying that as someone who buys software for a team of almost 20. And I also buy Adobe, Solidworks, Dropbox, MSFT suite, etc. Even Pantone books and calipers cost close to the Rhino price.

The Osborne effect belongs in the history class IMO. Today, are people not buying iPhones because they know a new one is coming? Or not buying any other tools they needs today because a new one is coming? If you can wait, you don’t need it. In that case, don’t just wait, save the money altogether.

I’m genuinely trying to help someone who has a lot of psychology and emotions about software to get their head out of the sand, and look around. Helping them make a sensible business decision. It’s the only way I can positively and genuinely help them. Maybe I succeed, maybe they need another 10-20 years of software relationships to figure this out. Maybe they thinks I’m nuts. It’s all good.

G

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What you call marketing psychology, I prefer to call it marketing non-sense, or marketing bullshit.

Acknowledging that an uncertain and cliff-based version sales model generates anxiety in some potential buyers is not ‘marketing bullshit’.

The Osborne effect belongs in the history class IMO. Today, are people not buying iPhones because they know a new one is coming?

Hours ago you engaged with a potential customer who says that the decision to purchase has been difficult because of uncertainty about the purchase based on missing out on the new-and-improved version.

And you want to consign such factors to the dustbin of history?

The only explanation I can come up with, because I believe that @JNO512 was sincere, is that you think people with such hesitancy are a negligible fraction of the market.

If so, I disagree. You never hear from most of them so you never get a chance to convince them of the value; they’re just potential clients who never became actual. McNeel probably has figures on how many people buy within a month or two of version updates: if there’s a significant spike then the number of such people is not negligible.

I tend to evaluate a lot of things the way you seem to do yourself and seem to be advocating for. I also recognize that this is not the way many (most?) people look at the world.

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Probably very few. Because:

Resellers are usually notified perhaps two months (maybe even less) before the release date is finally fixed. No public announcement is made at that time. A short while later, resellers can start buying stock of new versions - which means they can actually start supply their customers with them about a month before the release is officially announced - a so-called “soft launch”. Note: we’re nowhere near that point yet and the resellers don’t currently know any more about the release date than you do…

Any reseller worth their salt keeps track of the WIP progress though, and starts informing their customers of the impending release well before the two month period leading up to the publicly announced date. That just makes good sense in terms of customer relations.

If within that two-month period before release a customer decides to buy directly from McNeel or someone else via an online store and their credit card without doing a bit of asking first - well, either they already know the score and accept it, or unfortunately for them, they just haven’t done much research.

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This is either a really surprising (to me) fact or a miscommunication.

I purchased directly through the McNeel website.

I had thought of myself as having researched pricing and upgrade policies fairly well within the website and fora. I had no idea until just now that one could get a month or so of an offer which seems to be functionally equivalent to the free version upgrade people have been asking about and more like two months of warning if one asks the right question of the right insider (not involving any unauthorized info disclosures, obviously- this is an authorized dealer passing on a legitimate offer).

Please correct me if I misunderstand and this soft release is not in fact equivalent to “get V7 now and V8 when it releases all for a price the same as V7 now” for a month+ before the unannounced release date.

Actually this will only lead to one thing – maintenance fees. Frankly f :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: that.

“free upgrades” for a 10% annual fee. Howbout no.

You buy V7, you own V7. You want to upgrade V7 to V8 you buy upgrade discount, period – you own V8.

Good luck with that. Last time I did an evaluation like that, was about a year ago, and I realized Rhino is dominating more than ever before. Rhino is probably within the top 3 CAD’s the world has to offer.

Due to Rhino’s affordability, power, and ease of license ownership, it’s basically #1 in what the world has to offer.

lol :eyes:

Time is money. You’ll probably just waste time and mental capital by doing all that. Granted, Plasticity is interesting because it offers access to parasolids (for a “small” fee) which is probably a trap in the long run. And Blender is probably worth learning. Zbrush is probably also worth learning. But Fusion360 is a money pit and security risk on the cloud. FreeCAD is interesting, but time is money, and Rhino is where it’s at – imo.

What’s more buyer-friendly than having no annual fees, and actually owning a license without endless lease agreement rip-off bs?

I don’t see this happening ever, unless Rhino sells out and does what the rest of the CAD’s do with rip-off endless lease agreements.

How long until Plasticity cost more than $1k with endless lease agreements for access to parasolid?

How much time will you spend until then on said tangent?

Pretty sure 90% of the companies that own other high end CAD’s, also still own Rhino :smile:

The rest of the world just charges you annual fees, and calls it a day. Want to spend $100-$150 every year for temporary lease of $1k program?

A lifetime license of Rhino7 for $1k, and option to upgrade to V8 at a discount for $400 with zero annual maintenance fees :thinking: :thought_balloon: :tipping_hand_man:t4:

Everyone has their own strategies and ways of looking at it I suppose. I think Rhino makes it very simple, fair and affordable. $1k is microscopic in the grand scheme of the industries that it gives access to.

And for $1k, Rhino literally offers the most power of any CAD program that exists – for $1k and no-endless-fees.

K then stop lol! :sweat_smile: We don’t want endless fees :sweat_smile:

Exactly so you get it then :sweat_smile: omg adobe make me mad too :rofl: :sweat_smile:

:100:

Exactly. This is the number one criteria for the big question of ‘which CAD?’ and ‘which CAM?’ etc.

Time is money.

Just buy V7 rn and start asap hammering the forums with ideas like the rest of us chumps :sweat_smile: we got to make Rhino better every day and make the developers pile bigger everyday with bunch of endless ideas :smiley: :smile:

Then no other CAD will be able to catch up to Rhino. Rhino too fast :blush:

Eventually I got to learn how to make these Eto Frameworks :sweat_smile:

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A good indicator or a release coming soon is when the WIP graduates into Beta (at least that was my way of finding out when V7 was released.).

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Hi -

What about the person that bought a license 1 day before those three months?

Is there anything, in your opinion, that has to be fixed before Rhino 8 can be released?
-wim

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Yes… me. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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… seriously?

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The latest WIP version is crashing for no reason and it wasn’t just for me !

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Same here, already reported. Working with big SubD and moving control points randomly put cpu to 100% load forever or even crashes.

@wim

Who works with subd globally get a feeling to be left behind from devs. No rhinocommon improvment. G1xx is cool, but please don’t stop. What about custom face-packing while ToNurbs?

  • Analysis tools windows/docking rework probably pushed to RH9 , or simply forgotten/ignored/unseen … ok, but at least make the floating windows of analysis tool a little more “serious” … currently they open with random sizes.

The fear is that you guys will slow down developing/fixing after release (as with any other software house), or start pushing “the fixes” on the newly WIP/9 version.
If you actually plan to not slow down about those matters and to achieve them for RH8, you could’ve release 8 months ago (I’m ready to pay!)
… but I suspect it’s more complex than this.


As always I surely look pedant and salty, but I love Rhino and McNeel staff! Thank you for the great work! :stuck_out_tongue:
Looking forward Rhino 8 release.

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