perpetual licenses?

[Ernest Burden III]

I've seen Autodesk selling products with several different types of licenses. One is call 'perpetual'. That implied it goes on forever, or at least a long time, especially since they also have 'annual' licensing. Am I interpreting that correctly? I checked the ADSK site to clear it up, but it doesn't seem to explain the difference, just offers them as purchase choices.

 

Does anyone know about Max/Acad perpetual licenses?

[Chad Warner]

I think the perpetual license only applies to educational versions of the software. I believe the difference is you can buy a cheaper version that only lasts a year or so, or get the perpetual one for more money, but does not time out.

 

If you're looking at professional licenses, I would recommend the subscription plan. You have to pay every year, but it keeps your costs consistent, and you don't have to worry about paying an upgrade fee when you want to upgrade.

[AJLynn]

I've never seen a non-educational copy of Max with a time limit. Do you have a link? Anyway, as Chad said, subscription can be a good idea - it gives you all the upgrades, sometimes a midseason update and some reasonably useful online training materials and lets you install it on your home PC.

 

Of course, I still don't see any good reason to use Max when you have C4D with every 3rd party rendered ever made for it

[Ernest Burden III]

I've never seen a non-educational copy of Max with a time limit.

 

I am talking about an educational sale. I now teach 3D drawing at a design school in New York, and I got an email from the school reminding me of the various software discounts open to students and faculty. AutoCad and Viz and Revit and Max are among them, along with products from Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and others.

 

I am quite happy to stick with C4D, but being able to have Max available for a very reasonable cost is interesting. The school had asked me if I wanted to teach a class in Max, and I can't--I don't know it. I can teach drawing and rendering, just not on Max. I can see why it would be in the software makers' interests to have faculty familiar with their products.

 

So I was looking into it, just wasn't sure about that 'perpetual' license. It sounds like the way to go if I decide to get any of the Autodesk products.

[AJLynn]

Ah, so it actually is an educational license. In that case, yes, it's exactly what it sounds like, just remember they issue upgrades every year.

[Jorbu]

This is somewhat off topic, but still related to adsk educational licenses discusion. I teach 3D Viz at a local interior design college and one of my students pointed me to this link....

 

http://students5.autodesk.com/?tagent=autodesksite1006&lbon=1

 

....it is adsk sponsored student community and the best part is they offer free educational licenses for some of the software. It doesn't include MAX but is does have VIZ 2007 and VIZ 2008 along with Revit and other adsk titles. All you need is a valid school e-mail adress and you can register as either a student or instructor. The license is good for 18 months. Not really sure if you can renew that after the 18 months.

 

Seems like a good resource and if you're a student or instructor, you can't beat some free software, if nothing else, to try it out at least.

[AJLynn]

I guess since some ridiculous percentage of students' software isn't legit they might as well just give it away. Reasonable idea, it's like selling the video game console below cost and making it up with games - the more students are graduating knowing a bunch of Autodesk software, the better.