Hi Radu,
Current customers with perpetual licenses are eligible to renew support and will continue to receive technical support, bug fixes and updates to existing functionality. Enhancements coming to perpetual customers in 2020 include improvements to the speed and performance of our tolerancing abilities. New capabilities, like an increased number of instances and High-Yield Optimization, will be featured exclusively on our subscription licenses. New capabilities coming to subscription in 2020 include TrueFreeForm
, Tolerance Data Visualization, live manufacturability updates, and interactive worst offenders.
If you’re interested in subscription, you would need to exchange your perpetual license for a new subscription to qualify for our migration offer. You also have the option to retain your perpetual license and purchase a new subscription separately. Both of these options can be outlined in more detail by your account manager (who you can find in your MyZemax profile page).
We have an FAQ about subscription that also contains a lot of this information, which you can access here.
Hello Alissa,
Thank you for the reply.
I have a few more questions:
1) How is a new OpticStudio user that buys a subscription licence that eventually expires going to have access to the design data they generated while their subscription was active? Will they have access to a free of charge data viewer that would also include a limited set of analysis functions or they will just have to buy a licence whenever they need to look something up?
2) Will the perpetual licence version of the software be able to access and modify data files generated using the subscription version of the software?
3) What exactly is the Consultant Programme being presented as a pathway for small private users/ consultants to receive discounted price subscription licenses I heard about recently ? Who qualifies for being included in the programme, what discount one can expect as a user participating in the programme and what is Zemax LLC expecting in return from these users?
Thank you.
Hi Radu,
1) When the subscription license expires, OpticStudio will no longer launch, though your data files will remain intact. In order to open the files for analysis down the road, you would need either a new license to OpticStudio or our upcoming product OpticsViewer. OpticsViewer is intended as a complement to OpticStudio for use by non-optical engineers who need to view design data during the design and manufacturing workflow, but could be used as a tool for reviewing old designs. We do not currently have plans for a free viewer.
2) Yes, the subscription and perpetual licenses will be able to open files created by one another. Good question! The subscription license will enable additional functionalities, but the behavior when sharing a file would be like creating a file in OpticStudio 19.4 and opening it in OpticStudio 15 -- it's possible that you might have used some functionality in 19.4 that isn't available in 15, and those pieces would simply be disabled, but the remainder of the file would stay intact. The main risk is in using a surface/object type that is only supported in one license/version (
TrueFreeForm would be an example) as the surface would be unavailable when that file is opened with a license/version that doesn't support that capability.
3) Also a good question. The consultant program is under development presently, but you can sign up to receive more info
at this webpage as details are finalized.
Hello Alissa,
Thank you for your answers. I noticed there is no active link where one could sign up to receive more info about the Strategic Partner Program on the page you mention.
Works for me...
Apparently not if you're using a Firefox browser in Private Mode as I did. :-)
Thank you, Mark.
I bought a Premium license when offered because it had some capability that I needed at the time. With the subscription model, is it fair to say that the Premium license will now be restricted in terms of technical capability compared to the subscription model?
thanks,
John
Hi John,
The premium perpetual license you purchased is going to continue to have all the functionality as it had at your time of purchase, and those features/functions will continue to see updates and improvements. However, it is fair to say that new capabilities, the things that OpticStudio has never done before, will be going into the subscription model only - this could be in Standard, Professional, or Premium, depending on the use case of the new capability.
