Covid-19: AutoDesk delays the move to 'Named-User licenses' from May to August 2020.

Like many corporations at this unprecedented time, AutoDesk has recognised that the next 6 months will be challenging for manufacturing companies globally. Therefore, they have offered a welcome delay to the very recent 'only Named-User License" transition announcement. The AutoDesk statement is as follows:-

[W]e are committed to minimizing disruption, and … are making some changes to make doing business with us easier. We realize these extraordinary times may create cash flow constraints for our customers. To offer some relief, we will extend contract payment terms to 60 days for all customers and partners, for orders placed directly with Autodesk now through August 7, 2020.

We will extend the ability to purchase new multi-user subscription plans to August 7, 2020, and move the retirement to August 7, 2021. While we communicated that we would begin transitioning customers to named users starting May 7, 2020, we do not want to introduce a change at a time when business-as-usual is hard enough.

With the initial announcement about the transition to 'Named-User' licensing only made last month, this will give organisations some much-needed breathing space to really analyse and understand the impact on their businesses (see recommendations below).

Wait, what is all this about AutoDesk moving to Named-User licensing?

Sorry, let me rewind a little and explain the new AutoDesk announcements and license policy. Stick with it, as I know there has been a lot of licensing transition with AutoDesk and you may be getting close to license change fatigue!

AutoDesk is waging a war on software piracy and non-compliant companies (using more software installs than they are contracted to use), whilst also planning how best to transition customers to higher revenue-generating SAAS tools. AutoDesk is transferring every global software user from a license serial number to become a 'named-user' - please see the explanation video here posted in February 2020.

Details on the transition to named user campaign can be found here. It is worth noting that there are 400,000 customers still on Maintenance deals, so many companies will be looking at how best to transition before the 7th August 2020.

Network and perpetual licenses are now dead. AutoDesk “is moving completely to plans that are based on people, to provide you with an improved experience.”

I believe by moving all AutoDesk software users onto a named-user license, it will provide AutoDesk with much greater insights into customer behaviour. With some data crunching, they can begin to personalise at scale; either communication, learning journeys, software recommendations, etc. This is a clever move by AutoDesk, even if financially it penalises some large customers. Will this be a license model other software providers such as Dassault Systèmes, PTC and Siemens PLM fellow?

Why understanding license use is critical to cost-effective asset management

If you are currently on a maintenance plan with AutoDesk, the writing is on the wall, you must transition before 7th August 2021. In fact, AutoDesk raised the price of multi-user subscription licenses by 33% on the 7th February 2020 as a method to dissuade new purchases.

Let's look at an example of the impact of this transition. If you are a medium-sized company with 100 AutoCAD designers sharing a 60 user network license, you will be spending approx $96,000 per year currently.

At the next renewal round you will be looking at the following costs:-

• Trade-in 60 network seats for 120 named-user subscriptions (at $2,125 each for 60 seats. If you have multi-user (network) perpetual or subscription licenses, you must trade them in for two named-user subscriptions) = $127,500
• Purchase 100 Premium subscription updates ($300 each. Premium will facilitate SSO and licensing compliance reporting for CAD/IT managers) = $30,000

The new annual cost for 100 AutoCAD designers = $157,500

This is clearly a substantial increase in cost, $61,500 extra to be precise. Plus you now have 20 additional named-user licenses that you don't have engineers for.

This raises a couple of questions, should you drop 10 network seats prior to the transition, ensuring you hit the appropriate number of licensed named-users? Making the overall cost (50 x $2,125)+(100 x $300) = $136,250?

I would recommend that over the next year you use a license asset management tool such as LAMUM from TeamEDA. Which provides 100's of detailed reports on license usage plus many additional tools such as automated chargeback calculations.

Discovering the actual use of AutoDesk software in your organization will put you in the driving seat for transition negotiations (everything in this world can be negotiated on)!

Paul Empringham - [email protected]