Dear All,

We are on the Asia side (Hong Kong) and recently, the local VAR approached us for the yearly subscription talks and we were introduced with a "long term engagement" plan. It is only specific to the China market and basically requires us to commit for a 3 years (up to 5) subscription package, paid yearly. But the official announcement is just a letter with a marketing speech without any real terms attached to it. In other words, nothing is said about the situation where my company end up in bankruptcy and we don't manage to pay, we don't know if we are still liable at what penalties etc.. Additionally, new and old customers are affected by that. How do you sell a Medium/High end CAD package to a new customer with 3 yr subscription engagement??

To some, it might not be a bad plan, cost is the same for 3 years in a row, no price hikes, no surprises. It's like a mobile plan (if you don't go over your data limit). To businesses where cash flow is aggressively controlled, it's different. The main problem is the inexistence of real terms and conditions (my VAR could not provide me with a copy of it except the letter announcing it and I can't find anything on DS website), I don't know how liable we are engaging ourselves into it. With the yearly plan, we pay for the coming year, easy, simple and efficient. With this, in practice, it is the same, we are just feeling chained.

So, this is probably the last straw. It's been a week since the beginning of the talks but I am disappointed to say the least in DS's policies, we will probably go ahead and update to the current 2018 SP2, then look for another CAD package (maybe they are all the same and I should just shut my mouth and have them get the best out of me).

Now I just hope that it will stay local. I am sorry to bring this point in the forum, but despite them pitching for improvement in VAR support etc... I just feel it not being right and a complete lack of interest in end user needs and benefits.

We paid the subscription yearly, I was ok about the whole backdating stuff being introduced, but a 3 years engagement is just over the top.

Thanks for reading my rant.