ArcGIS Pro License : Subscription license - will expire when maintenance stops

MarkChilcott · ‎03-24-2015

Hi Peoples,

After discussions with Esri Australia, it is our understanding ArcGIS Pro is only available as a subscription, cloud based license that will expire if you choose to stop paying maintenance. This would appear to be a paradigm shift in the current permanent license model.

It is also striking there appears to be no Esri documentation spelling this out.

Were other people aware that ArcGIS Pro is a cloud based subscription license, that expires if you stop maintenance?

What do you think?

Additional notes:

ArcGIS Pro licensing:
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis-pro/licensing

Cheers,

Mark

Robert_LeClair · ‎03-27-2015

You are correct that ArcGIS for Desktop (not including ArcGIS Pro) are perpetual licenses. If you discontinue maintenance, then a user can continue to use ArcGIS for Desktop (i.e. ArcMap, ArcCatalog, etc.) without future upgrades. ArcGIS Pro uses a new licensing model that is subscription based. As long as user is current on maintenance, they may continue to use ArcGIS Pro. Many software companies moved to the subscription based licensing model a while ago. With ArcGIS Pro, Esri uses this model. It is a paradigm shift from perpetual licenses certainly.

As to the why's of changing the licensing model, I'd had to defer to the ArcGIS Pro team as I'm an ArcGIS Pro Instructor for Esri. Hope this clarifies the question.

GraemeBrowning · ‎03-27-2015

To summarize, you seem to be confirming that if ArcGIS for Desktop Maintenance lapses then licenses for its ArcGIS Pro application are revoked.

For me that is incredibly disappointing because:

I am otherwise very excited about ArcGIS Pro
I feel like something I bought into from my own pocket has significantly evaporated

Changing license models in exchange for a much reduced annual cost (perhaps $1,000 for Standard) would be far more palatable.

Robert_LeClair · ‎04-09-2015

Graeme - correct. If maintenance lapses or is not renewed, then the use of ArcGIS Pro is not available. But your ArcMap/ArcCatalog licenses remain at their last maintained release. As far as software costs, that's a question for our sales team as well as the executive team - well above my pay grade.

RichardDaniels · ‎01-14-2016

They are not acutally "revoked", your ArcGIS Online subscription expires thus you can't log on and get the license. You can fource ArcGIS Pro to "download" the license (while you are still on maintenance) the first time you login so you don't have to connect to AGOL every time you start ArcGIS Pro.

Rich

WoodyHynes · ‎03-27-2015

When you purchase ArcGIS for Desktop you now receive access to a number of new things.

First of all, you still get the latest and greatest version of ArcMap and ArcCatalog as you have in the past. These applications continue to be licensed as they have in the past. Additionally, at no extra cost, you receive access to a new application called ArcGIS Pro and access to ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS (your choice) via a Named User account. In turn providing you with access to data, ready-to-use apps, and the entire ArcGIS platform.

Your first year of maintenance is included in your purchase and this entitles you to updates to the software, software support and additional benefits. If you choose not to renew your maintenance after that first year, your access to all of these additional pieces (ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Updates, Support, Etc.) no longer applies. Also, to answer a related question on the poll thread, the yearly cost of maintenance is not the full price of buying new software.

GraemeBrowning · ‎03-27-2015

My position is not that of a new user/license. I have chosen in the past to renew Maintenance and this year the timing on that was entirely based on gaining access to ArcGIS Pro 1.0.

It would not concern me in the least to lose access to ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS when/if my Maintenance lapses. Last year I used 0 of my 100 credits and so far this year I have used 1 of 100 credits. After using ArcGIS Pro for some time, I suspect I may start to use more, maybe all, of those credits, but at the moment I look at ArcGIS Pro first and foremost as being a replacement for ArcMap as my desktop GIS application which is why I assumed that the flagship desktop licensing model I signed up for would remain perpetual. The importance and positioning of ArcGIS Pro as a desktop application is evident from the opening sentence of its Help:

"ArcGIS Pro is the essential application for creating and working with spatial data on your desktop."

I'm not sure if you realize how expensive ArcGIS for Desktop maintenance is in Australia but on the related poll thread I am talking about the Annual Maintenance and not the purchase price.

MarkChilcott · ‎03-29-2015

One of the main questions here is have Esri been up front, honest, and transparent in relation to what would appear to be a new license model?

Have Esri made it clear ArcGIS Pro is a subscription, temporary-use license?

Can anyone point out in the documentation where is specifically says ArcGIS Pro will expire when maintenance is not paid?

No - they have not. And this is what makes people suspicious.

MarcoGiana2 · ‎04-01-2015

I'd say, that is one good reason to try and lock your database technology with ESRI goedatabases, and use native spatial database technology with the RDBMS of your choice. This was if it does expire, you can still access your corporate data with opensource GIS software like QGIS.

MattWilkie2 · ‎04-23-2015

At the risk of trending off-topic, it's not access to the data that's the biggest risk. It's possible, and not very hard, to read native Esri file-gdb and to some extent SDE with QGIS and friends in place (as a matter of fact using the open source file-gdb driver you can read more data types than the official Esri file-gdb driver can). You don't get everything, relationship classes come to mind, but the core there.

Similarly I can still read all the data for any of our thousands of archived ArcView 3 projects with any current GIS program today, regardless of whether they are free or very expensive. However without running the program we can't get to the projects, and that's important.

Projects are where the business logic is, the queries stacked on queries. It's where the cartography is.It's where the value added thought goes. In ArcGIS Desktop it's in the .mxd's custom chained tools and scripts and models. ArcGIS Pro has it's own version of the same. In any given working-on-gis day I'll spend a quarter to a third of time on raw data creation and manipulation, the rest of the time is on things that aren't captured in shapefiles or database tables.

In short, I'm not (very) concerned about losing access to the data. Data value is portable, more or less, with a relatively low investment and time and energy compared to exporting Project value.

TomShindler · ‎04-23-2015

Bottom line on this change of policy for esri is that we users are being asked to invest a HUGE amount of labor in a platform that we must not only buy, but also rent forever, at unknown rates, in order to access the fruits of that labor. It is NOT about data, it’s about projects, processes, cartography, layout, etc. That’s the work that we will lose if at some point we either can’t or won’t pay the protection fee.

Even though we are an esri shop, I don’t know if I can, in good conscience, recommend use of this tool over the existing ArcGIS, given the vulnerability we will expose ourselves to.

Tom Shindler

GIS & Permit System Coordinator

tshindler@co.clallam.wa.us

360-417-2260