Articulate 360

This is such a bad strategy.
It means the customer will always be confused and afraid about which software to use. 
You should only implement changes when they are ready in both platforms, to guarantee compatibility. Or get rid of the standalone product altogether.
Someone must talk to your CEO, this is a big mistake.

It is not a problem that your reply was not clear. It is a problem with a poorly designed, confusing product development strategy. Actually it is all wishful thinking and blind trust in things that may or may not happen.
I can't base the development production of my agency in such frail foundations. 
I'm stuck with 360  for at least a year, but I will be assessing Adobe in the meantime. It's a shame, because I love Articulate's customer service and have been a client for many years.
Your CEO is making a big, big mistake. 

Absolutely right. As a small agency, I think the price is outrageous. 
It is even worse, because there is no monthly option (fundamental for small agencies with no steady influx of projects) and the second year will have no discount for existing customers.
I don't feel secure buying Storyline 2 because it seems S3 is coming and the upgrade will be expensive. Also, I don't trust they will not drop the standalone software eventually, when they see it makes no sense at all to have two selling models. 

The pricing is fine for SL2, and you can pay a little extra to be able to get the upgrade to SL3 for pre-bought essentially. For a much cheaper price.

Best to ask sales about that though, I don't want to communicate the wrong information!

Jake, I made a mistake. Because I have SL1 and was experiencing bugs with Windows 10 (SL1 is NOT supported on W10), I  finished a project  with a free 360 trial. Now I'm stuck.
Even if I cancel after one year, how can I trust Articulate will not quit support in SL2 in the same way? Also, Articulate calls a minor upgrade a whole new release. Even 360 is not much different than SL1. 
This subscription model will mean trouble if the client wants a minor change in the future. If they want to update a paragraph, the agency must subscribe again for a whole year! Maybe it would be nice to have a freelancer who would provide this kind of service. 
Unfortunately, I will have to start assessing Adobe this next year. 

Just read the comments in this thread and you will see nobody agrees with the people at DevLearn.
We are actual customers who use your product in a daily basis.

Hi Marcos, 

While I don't necessarily condone the tone, it's probably because I haven't paid out the money for a subscription.  So, I kinda get it.  

And I very much understand and agree with the 'small customers' argument.  For me, 360 takes collaboration off the table for a number of my clients, whom I share files with so they could make small edits. 360 is not even remotely close to being an option for many of my clients, and it would be embarrassing to suggest it to them as a viable option.

And again you're right ... with a split roadmap that may or may not converge, and may or may not split again, it creates a double-path of expenses with projects until Storyline 2 is defunct.   And if 360 is an indicator of Storyline 3 functionality, I suspect Storyline 2 won't be defunct for quite some time (there's nothing really that improves the learning in 360 that I can't do in Storyline 2).  

I will continue to watch the forums, and continue to cross my fingers hoping that common sense prevails with their marketing strategy.  My 3 death knells for the new Storyline 3 are:
- significantly higher price point (i.e. more than 15%)
- no significant learning value added (i.e. not just 'pretty')
- built in forced redundancy

I could handle 1, maybe even 2 of these, but not 3.  And if I was to base it entirely on 360, all three would be hit and I'd be planning my exit strategy from the platform.  However, I've still got twinklings of hope based on Articulates amazing products and approach pre-360, I just hope that the numbers and feedback are getting to the people that matter, not just smashing the Forum Leaders around.

Yes, I hope the CEO reads the forum from time to time.
The support people at Articulate are great, it pains me to see them getting this flak. Obviously, it is not their fault. 
To tell you the truth, I can't remember a situation where I felt so uncomfortable making a purchase decision. As a marketing strategy, the whole move was a nightmare for customers.

It was so easy to avoid as well, all that needed to happen was for SL3 perpetual to come out at the same time.

Then everyone is happy and can choose the best thing for them.

In a marketing perspective, it is the ONLY roadmap that makes sense.
- Only upgrade S360 when the standalone product is 100% compatible with the subscription model. 
- provide a "save as" command to let people open projects with older versions.

Or go all the way and drop for good the standalone version. 
You realize that, because Aticulate sells minor upgrades as if they were full releases, a customer who buys the standalone product will actually pay the same price of the subscription to stay up to date with the latest product, right? 

This is the worst designed development roadmap I have ever seen, marketing-wise.

So well put Jake. That would've made everyone happy and been fair to us loyal SL customers. Every day that goes by that SL3 isn't released is another bit of pressure pushing us away to the competition. 

Personally, I find I'm liking A360, especially SL360 and Content Library, more and more each day.

That said, might be nice if users could pick and choose what parts of the A360 suite that they wanted and just pay for that. 

Kind of like the concept of ala carte pricing for cable TV.  Why pay for channels (or software) you might never use?

Failing that, it might be nice then if there were three A360 packages offered:

1. The current whole package
2. A SL360 package (minus just Studio 360)
3. A Studio 360 package (minus just SL360)

Probably a logistical nightmare to implement but it might make more more customers happier.

Helena,

Just to confirm, Rise is not included with the Articulate 360 subscription, correct? It  must be purchased separately? 

I thought that was a little confusing too. 

Thanks in advance!

Hi Jennifer,

Indeed Rise is included with your 360 subscription.   Perhaps, the attached picture of the desktop tray that is installed with Articulate 360 on your Windows system helps illustrate all the goodness that is included with your 360 subscription.  

Hi Jennifer,

Rise is included with the Articulate 360 subscription - you get access to all the 360 tools in one subscription such as Storyline, Studio, Content Library, Articulate Review, Articulate Live, Peek, Preso, and Rise! It's a long list, so that can be confusing - this FAQ article has a lot of really great details and information and if you have specific questions you may also want to reach out to our Success team. 

Thank you for clarifying!

Thanks so much for clarifying, Ashley!

Any idea when spinner/ dial functionality may come to SL2?

Hi Kathy,

At this time there aren't plans to include that feature in earlier versions of Storyline, although you will see the same features in the next perpetual release of Storyline version 3 slated for later this year (2017). Stay tuned for information as we get closer to that release timing!

"Stay tuned" isn't really acceptable for businesses weighing up actual options for purchase in the very near future.

Our IT dept. has mandated that everything available through our LMS this year MUST be HTML5. We're not interested in outlaying for 360 when it's a) subscription only and b) only includes 1 product we will use.

The right thing to do business-wise for all of the (seemingly MANY folks) not happy with 360, and chomping at the bit for Storyline 3 would be to allow a "downgrade" option.

Allow me to purchase the 1 year subscription to 360, yet give me the option to refund the price difference when Storyline 3 comes out.

Pros: You get my money now, You don't lose a client to Adobe Captivate, You POTENTIALLY get me using the other parts of the package in the meantime (and I end up sticking with 360 because I can demonstrate / convince the company of the value).

Cons: There's a chance I'll still want the X price difference back upon Storyline 3 being released

Hi Scott,

Our Success team are the pricing experts and I'd recommend reaching out to them if you had specific questions about your upgrade costs and our return policy if you decided Articulate 360 wasn't for you. 

I purchased a perpetual version of Studio '13 for $1400 almost 4 years ago. It would have costed me $4000 of Articulate 360 for the same period of use. And I can keep using Studio for as long as it meets my needs and pay nothing more. And even if I upgrade when the next version comes out I will save money.

The cost analysis is quite simple, I won't subscribe to 360 because it is not worth the price.

As I've continue to receive the negative replies to this thread for months in my inbox, I'm actually a bit shocked that Articulate hasn't shut down this topic. It's a constant reminder of poor business practice, and it has only cemented my decision to never again champion Articulate's software within my organization.

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