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

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03-24-2015 07:15 PM
MarkChilcott
Occasional Contributor III

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

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MarkChilcott
Occasional Contributor III

Hi Peoples,

I have had some correspondence with the ArcGIS for Desktop team, and can let you know they appreciate the feedback, and are listening to what you are saying.

It was never esri's intention for users to lose access to their work due to whatever reason they may have for not being able to continue with maintenance, and esri are seriously looking into ways in which this can be addressed in the future.

I would suggest once esri finalize the details, they will make a public announcement.

Thanks to all that read the thread, to the replies, and the professionalism of all.  We can, and do make a difference.

Cheers,

Mark

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54 Replies
GraemeBrowning
Occasional Contributor III

Surely that cannot be the case for the perpetual license that I purchased.

I just looked through that license agreement and I cannot see it say that anywhere so I'm really hoping that you did not get accurate information.

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MarkChilcott
Occasional Contributor III

Hi Graeme,

Our advice is:

"As long as your desktop licenses are maintained, the associated ArcGIS Pro licenses will remain available. Should you decide to not renew the maintenance, the core Desktop software (ArcMap, ArcCatalog) will continue to work, but the associated ArcGIS Pro licenses will be revoked."

Cheers,

Mark

GraemeBrowning
Occasional Contributor III

When maintenance lapses it would seem fair that ArcGIS Pro upgrades are withheld (like they are for the rest of ArcGIS for Desktop) but I cannot see why entitlement to use the last version downloaded should be revoked.  After all, I suspect that it is our ArcGIS for Desktop Maintenance (by far my biggest expenditure item each year) that will have been funding the development of ArcGIS Pro.

Perpetual ARC/INFO licenses rolling over to perpetual ArcGIS for Desktop licenses would seem to set the precedent for rolling over to perpetual ArcGIS Pro licenses.

To be able to access the upgrades is the only reason I pay Maintenance each year and I have been doing that on the assumption that entitlement to use the software supplied by that Maintenance would be uninterrupted even if my payment was not always made by its anniversary.

I'm glad you raised this here.

MarkChilcott
Occasional Contributor III

Hi Graeme,

It is interesting your have raised that point.  At the beginning of March, even though we had the purchase order in for our maintenance, we saw our licenses for ArcGIS Pro go to 0 (the big Zero).  It took Esri over a day to fix the problem.

This is what made us aware of what would seem a shift in the licensing of ArcGIS.  I don't think people are aware of this change.

I suspect a shift to subscription licenses should generate some debate and discussion, so please feel free to contact your Esri manager to discuss further and confirm this advice is correct.

Cheers,

Mark

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StephenLead
Regular Contributor III

This seems to be the way things are moving. Eg all of the Adobe products on my machine will stop working if I stop paying.

The happy trade-off with Adobe is that it's much cheaper for me to 'rent' than buy them outright - I'm not sure if this is the case with ArcGIS Pro.

StuartFletcher1
New Contributor III

Stephen,

Yes does seem to be the way things are going and I am happy with the Creative Cloud concept however in this case it appears that you are buying a product outright (i.e ArcMap + ArcGIS Pro) however it stops working if you dont pay maintenance. This is a completely different concept and as far as i'm concerned quite worrying.

It would be great if someone from ESRI Inc could clarify the situation as I must say the paradigm shift has not been explained well (and based on this thread understood well!).

Cheers,

Stuart

MattWilkie2
New Contributor II

My biggest concern, at the moment, is what happens when we need to open an old project that requires the old program? I'm in up to my eyeballs in ArcInfo and AML this month. That's not covered in the subscription temporary use model. If this were an Adobe project it wouldn't even be possible "rent" Acrobat v3 (or whatever) long enough to extract what is meaningful. 

Digital obsolescence is bad enough all on it's own, bringing subscriptions and expiring-because-of-a-date programs in to the mix is just a bad idea, through and through.Don't touch that tar baby.

SusanJones
Occasional Contributor II

ouch

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GraemeBrowning
Occasional Contributor III

Initial results from the Poll entitled seems to indicate that, if the information you got is correct, then it is going to be very unpopular.