Articulate 360

I expect new installations of 360 have the potential to be buggy on install for a percentage of people. You are not obliged to subscribe to 360, as there is a perpetual licence version of something with the storyline name on it being released between January and December probably next year. The vagueness of the communication from Articulate as a company is highly counterproductive at times on this. 

It kind of makes you wonder what is Storyline 360 as a product. Is it the next version of Storyline? If it is, well it's not that comprehensive a product update, but does some good things, sorts out a few existing issues, has a better player, but begs the question where are the PMP or upgrade versions of it? If it's not the next version then is it a half step of current good to go features of the next version, in which I can understand a subscription update model (although not the price) a version 2.7, 2.8 or 2.9 if you will. As time goes by features will be installed until parity is reached with whatever 3.0 is which will then get a perpetual release. Then further from that perpetual licence people get critical updates, not product updates as opposed to subscribers who get 3.1, 3.2 and so on. I think as a subscription that makes sense, although not what is being offered at the moment, which is a selection of things that duplicate functionality. If you only use or require 30% of what's on offer, it does not matter how good the 30% is, you are paying for and not using 70% of a product. That makes no business sense no matter how much you love or don't love any product from anyone, unless it's cost is comparative in value to subscribing for individual products, which we don't know with the Articulate 360 as there is no individual subscription pricing, only one big price tag, which in Australia is $1300 a year for an individual licence.

It's also worth mentioning that such a big price tag is not backed up by Articulates history in clear communication on when a product is going to be updated next. For an example look at this launch. If I am paying a subscription, I want and expect regular updates, road map of development, potential and actual development timelines for the next incremental update. No one is expecting you to reveal code or reveal what you are working on in great detail, just when the next update is expected, and that just does not happen.  Knowing is to manage not only my own, but also business expectations with what is being bought and potentially locking myself and the company in to a single vendor. A vague response helps no one, and only causes uncertainty.

I honestly think that there is some good stuff in the bundle, I really do. Those who use each component will be happy with the hard work the Articulate Team have put in to it. I suspect though, Rise and Storyline 360 are why people have paid the admission price, and no matter how great, how many contracts you have, how fast you are, you are still not using the rest of what you are paying for, and that is not a value for money no matter how hard you try and spin it.

Hey, Tim.

Really sorry for the confusion on support for Storyline 1 and 2.  Articulate will continue to support the last 2 perpetual versions of each product (currently SL1, SL2, ST09, and ST13) as well as our new subscription tools.  Our perpetual customers got us where we are today, so we're committed to you, and we won't abandon you.  Please let me know what other questions you couldn't find answers for on our site and I'll be happy to point you in the right direction.  Or, if you'd prefer, you can reach out to Sales here or Support here.

If you’d like to learn more about our thoughts on pricing and plans for our perpetual licenses, check out this post from our VP of Operations.

As for the technical trouble installing our software, I've taken the liberty of submitting a Support Case on your behalf.  You should expect to get help from our team on that ASAP.

I was happy to see the new features in 360, and ESPECIALLY Articulate Review. I strictly develop training for applications (something I keep hearing Captivate does better than SL). I've really enjoyed SL2. HOWEVER, I tried out Articulate Review, invited a couple of SMEs to check out the review process. At issue is when you use screen recordings whether video or view/try modes spread out across slides, Articulate Review compresses the size on the screen to make room for the feedback comments. The reviewers cannot even make heads or tails of the application screens, they get too blurry and distorted. The one thing I was really excited about we cannot even use here.

Given the price point and the fact that we can't actually use some of the new features, I'll be going back and doing another comparison with Captivate. Sad.

Hi Duane,

Thanks for sharing a bit more detail here, and I know I mentioned in this other discussion with you the ability to hide the comments on the side and get a bit more screen real estate.  It's good feedback though in terms of overall display and ensuring folks can see the finer details of your course, so I appreciate you sharing that with us. 

Look what's happening in the UK. affinity/Serif is making softwate such as Affinity Designer and Photo, proce < 100£: not per year but as an unique price; in contrast with the prices of Adobe >800€ with a annually fee. Who is the winner????????

Hi Guys

I'm sure many of you are doing the same as myself at the moment and doing a bit of research on how closely 360 matches your requirements to decide whether to take the plunge. What would be really helpful is if articulate staff or a hero could confirm that there will be a standalone storyline 3 or only a version available through 360? And if there is a version 3 will it match the version provided in 360?

Thank you

Harri

Hi Harri,  

Thanks for checking out Articulate 360.  Be sure to download a free trial and see how you can transform your legacy Articulate Storyline (or Studio) courses into responsive, HTML5 only courses, by opening then in their 360 versions and merely hitting the Publish key.  Also, folks are really loving Review and Rise, so I encourage you to check those out during your trial as well.

To answer your specific question, Articulate will indeed be releasing a perpetual version of Articulate Storyline that will be the follow on version to Articulate Storyline 2.   For more information perpetual vs. subscription and our plans for the new Storyline version, please refer to: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/articulate-360#reply-391802

Thanks -

Hi Mark

That's great thank you and I've already downloaded the demo and signed up for some webinars so I'm looking forward to seeing what 360 can do. 

Can you confirm if the next perpetual version of storyline will match the quality and features of the 360 version at the time of release?

Thank you 

Harri

Yes it will - minus those additional 360 services that are integrated into Storyline 360 (publish to Articulate Review, Content Library).  And by the time we launch, it may even have more features.  

I'm glad to hear that, Mark. At the moment the perpetual version of Storyline is the better option for me, so Im looking forward to the new version!

Hi Mark

Thank you, that clears things up for me.

I too was excited by the announcement. And too, was deflated when I saw the price. WHAT?! I spent a great deal of time networking with my peers at DevLearn 2016 and in many of the conversations we discussed 360. While most I spoke to were excited by the promise of the product, they were less enthusiastic about the price. Most of us were in agreement that we would not be subscribing. Some didn't know you would be continuing to support the stand-alone SL product so I let them know you would be.

So, what is a fair price? If you let the market decide, we'll know if what you set is fair based on the value of what your market perceives it to be--that is, if you listen. Based on my cursory polling, comparisons of competitors, and what I would have to do to adjust my current rate to absorb the new pricing model, I would say you're off by a lot. 

Some software I've used in the past did the same thing (moved to a subscription model). But some of them also polled their user base and asked what they would be willing to pay to continue to use the product. Some offered a few suggestions on what they were thinking and the users contributed to the conversation. That conversation really helped with buy-in and probably saved them a lot of headaches. You have an amazing community here. One of the reasons why I have continued to use, and persuade my customers to purchase and use your product. Based on community alone, Storyline towers above Captivate. So I wonder why you didn't  do that? 

I won't repeat what others have said but I agree with most of the comments regarding current SL enhancemets (waiting on SL3), long-standing bugs, and cost of 360 vs. Adobe. 

Let's hope Articulate is listening. 

I don't know how many people they asked during the Beta, but I know they asked me for pricing suggestions.

My price was just under half of what it is currently.

Hmm. So based on this thread I see no value in 360 and so will wait until S3 is out. We have two copies of S2 and I was about to ask my manager for 360.

I'm in the UK. So what discount would I get on an S2 to 360 upgrade.? How much will S3 cost as an upgrade?

Hi Rob,

Assuming you're a commercial (vs. academic) customer and were interested in Articulate 360 (non-Teams), you'd qualify for first year pricing of $599.  If you also had purchased a Platinum Membership Plan (PMP) with your Storyline 2, you'd qualify for lower prices on your first year and subsequent years (depending on your PMP-term).  

As a Storyline 2 customer, and assuming you had not purchased PMP, we anticipate upgrade pricing from Storyline 2 to Storyline 3 as a one-time charge of $699.  If you had purchased a PMP, you'd receive that upgrade at no additional charge.  

These prices are in US $.  As a UK customer, you might also want to check pricing with your local reseller, Omniplex, listed on our reseller page:  https://articulate.com/sales/resellers

What will S3 give me over S2 in terms of functionality? I'm using Litmos LMS in trial and want to make sure any future investment is tailored towards cloud based e-learning and the outreach and scaling that, that provdes

Rob, you should expect similar features to what's in Storyline 360 minus, of course, the Articulate 360 cloud services features that are in Storyline 360 (i.e. publish to Articulate Review, integration with Content Library), plus additional new features we're working on for Storyline 3.  For reference purposes, here is a comparison of Storyline 2 and Storyline 360:  https://www.articulate.com/360/storyline#compare

Question: To use the Review feature does each reviewer require Storyline 360?

As a reviewer, all you need is a browser and a login to Review.

Hi, Mark,

What will be the new features for Storyline 3? Will the HTML5 only publishing, dials, and HTML5 compliant format be some of the features? I keep asking this, but I find it very frustrating that there isn't really an answer for this or an answer for when Storyline 3 will be released, other than "sometime in 2017." I'm a user who won't be updating to 360 (as Storyline 2 has worked well for me and my company, and I don't need most of the other features on 360), and it would be great to have something less vague to these questions, or at the least, could we get e-mails about Storyline and Suite releases? Goodness knows I keep getting e-mails about 360. Seems like this courtesy should also be extended to Storyline and Suite.

Thanks ,

Rachel