Adobe and Autodesk Show SaaS Subscription Models on the Rise

Pete Prestipino
by Pete Prestipino 28 Aug, 2013
Adobe and Autodesk Show SaaS Subscription Models on the Rise

Autodesk will follow the lead of Adobe, offering more options to rent its software rather than buying it outright.

CEO Carl Bass promised that by the end of the year an array of new rental options would be available, which he believed would give customers more subsciprtion options and increase the predictability of the company's revenue over time. 

Bass stressed that Autodesk wasn't upending its existing model, but augmenting it. 'Recall that, just 10 years ago, we added subscription maintenance to our revenue stream,' he said. 'That was a big change at the time, and there was no shortage of skeptics. Today, that's a billion-dollar business and represents over 40% of our revenue. Suffice it to say that transition was a huge success.' 

Analysts on the call immediately started drawing comparisons with Adobe's move earlier this year to a subscription-only pricing model for its Creative Cloud software.

Pete Prestipino
Pete Prestipino
Digital marketing executive with proven experience in all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO), performance-based advertising, consumer-generated/social media, email marketing, lead generation, Web design, usability, and analytics. - 20-year Internet marketing veteran, currently serving as the Digital Marketing Campaign Manager at Antenna Group (formerly Chicago Digital). - Former Editor-In-Chief of Website Magazine, and a regular speaker on Web technology digital marketing strategy - Author of several books on digital marketing Including Web 360: The Fundamentals of Web Success; Affiliate 360: The Fundamentals of Performance Marketing; Domains 360: The Fundamentals of Buying & Selling Domain Names, and SEO 360: The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization.