great!!! i will have my fingers cross for chaos group develope vray for rhino mac then!! (i’ve already email them about this matter!jaja)
Thanks!
Keep an eye on this forum and your email inbox for an announcement in the coming weeks. The announcement email will give you details about how to contact your local reseller to buy Rhino for Mac.
Do we actually have to buy physical media in this day & age? Will it be available on the App Store or direct download?
Nope. There is no physical media anymore for any McNeel products - Mac or Win. Mac Rhino will be download only, sold via your local reseller, but not via the App Store (fortunately).
–Mitch
Thanks @Helvetosaur there is a small reseller here, but when we did our upgrades to WinRhino 5 & Flamingo nXt, he had to order the Cds or DVDs . I didn’t want to have to wait too long.
Happy Friday, long weekend here 
Well, hopefully it will be faster with the all-electronic system. Orders from dealers to McNeel should also go faster, because there is no packaging and shipping, so even if the dealer is out of stock, it shouldn’t take as long to restock.
Considering that all the evals are now also 90 days, there should always be some leeway as long as the client doesn’t wait until the last day to order…
Long weekend here too… 
--Mitch
plus there are a lot of mac owners with no drives 
(i own 3 macs and zero cd/dvd drives)… so either download or deliver on usb/thunderbolt drives… or USB-C for the newest mac Mac - Apple
anyway… where does the local reseller fit into the equation? it’s not a direct download/transaction from mcneel?
It does seem like an odd arrangement to continue to use resellers for software that’s 100% digitally distributed.
Does it? Consider the following:
-
Resellers contribute their knowledge to everyone. There are at least
a dozen resellers I know that are present here on Discourse, some are
here every day and are among the most frequent posters. -
Resellers have contributed a great deal to the promotion and success
of Rhino over the years. If you are using Rhino right now, resellers
have been a part of bringing it to you. -
Resellers are in direct contact with clients, they are often the
first to know of bugs, client needs etc. They are part of the interface
between the client and McNeel. They provide a human side
to electronic bits and bytes, adding a voice and a face to Rhino. -
More than 50% of Rhino sales are in non-English speaking countries.
Local resellers communicate with clients and provide support and
training in local languages.
–Mitch
I don’t know that “odd” is the right word to use, but I agree that it’s an interesting question.
I suspect that one of the predominant reasons for McNeel using the reseller distribution model is that McNeel started off as a reseller for Autocad, and it’s something they understand pretty well. But as you point out some things have changed since then.
All of Mitch’s points are very valid except the second, which comes under the heading of “Yes, but what have you done for me lately?” The answer continues to be the other points.
Rhino resellers have been zealous promoters, evangelizers and educators for the product. It takes a lot of time and effort. They and their families have not yet learned to survive with no income, so they are compensated by making a profit on each product they sell. In the early days that was probably the best way to make it all work.
An alternative would be for McNeel to convert to a salaried “manufacturers rep” model, or even place employees in areas deemed ripe for development. Under these arrangements compensation is not tied to sales. With no need to stock inventory and physically handle product, that’s probably a better description of what’s really going on now. Maybe a title change is all that’s needed.
In any case, it’s McNeel’s call. They’ve managed to stay in business for nearly two decades or more, and in the software game that’s saying something. There’s plenty they could be doing better from a customer’s point of view, but if they’re not around as a company, there will be nothing to improve.
Mitch listed a few of the issues… and there are more:
- We are not experts in most of the disciplines where Rhino is used. Many of the dealers are very specialized and can provide both specialized support and training plus many of the 3rd party applications that are likely needed. It would be painful, if each user had to buy Rhino from one place, training from another, and a 3rd-party application from another… and then try to get support from us.
- Most of the 3rd-party product developers need a distribution channel for the reasons above. By their dealers being able to sell Rhino, those dealers have a more viable business. That benefits everyone.
- Rhino is a very incomplete solution for most users. They need other applications. Both Rhino plug-ins and other products. We want Rhino to be part of the solution as often is possible. If the dealers for those other products don’t have access to Rhino, they will likely try to sell something else instead.
- Buyers (often not the user) buy where they are in the habit of buying. We want to make it easy on the buyers.
- Local taxes, etc. are a nightmare for foreign companies. By being only a domestic US company we can keep our administrative overhead very low. Since local dealers are already setup to handle all the local VAT, etc., we can spend more money on development and support rather than tax forms for ~50,000 local taxing jurisdictions.
- These are just a few of the issues…
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Yep…dealers add significant value at both ends and feed the channel, etc.
And If one does not want to “deal” with a dealer, no worries, plenty of online point-click-download (dealer) options, as well as a “buy” section right on McNeel web site the last I checked.
It’s about depth…
I know you’re an accountant, so I’m not sure whether this is hyperbole, or an actual ballpark you come up with in an investigation into something or other?
It’s an impressive number.
There are 3,427 cities, towns and villages in Canada. I’m sure each one would like to collect a little VAT, HST, GST… blah, blah, blah… 50,000 was an extremely low guess.
Just figuring out who might have their hand out is a nightmare.
i think that’s where i’m a little confused on the issue.
does local mean per country/region of a continent -or- local as in the same zip code as me?
who is my local reseller?
(and can i buy through you even though you’re over there?)
Well, that depends on where you are in the world, I guess… As far as I know, the whole US is “local” 
You can also buy directly from Seattle.
Elsewhere in the world it is country-by-country or region (some countries do not have resellers).
There are a LOT of resellers in Europe - lots of different countries, lots of different languages.
No, unfortunately not… I can only sell here in Switzerland.
Cheers, --Mitch
Well, for example, in certain areas - like mine - resellers can send out products to known clients without advance payment, just with a simple invoice, and expect payment within 30 days. You won’t find THAT in an online store.
–Mitch
Good example. But c’mon, Mitch, I was just having a little fun. I know there are some of us who could get along just fine buying from McNeel and getting a little help from this forum.
But I’m also well aware that there are many (customers of you and the other resellers) who benefit greatly from a more intimate and personalized relationship. I’m also well aware of the fact that your help and advice here couldn’t be as good and plentiful as it is if you didn’t have a large base of Rhino users feeding you problems to respond to and learn from. I suspect you probably wouldn’t be as inclined to spend as much time here if you weren’t compensated via your profit on your sales, either.
But I’m inclined to ask: how will this particular example work under the download-only scheme - or, for that matter, how does it work even if the customer pays you up front? Do they download from your server? And how do you and McNeel keep track of what you’ve sold? Or maybe it’s none of my business. 
I suppose they download from the McNeel server just like they do now for SRs. The key code still will be provided by the local reseller - in an email with the invoice. The reseller orders a number of keys from McNeel. they both do their own bookkeeping.