Articulate Storyline 3 and 360

I can see the advantages of the web based model you describe, except that not all parts of the world have the infrastructure in place to support such a model. An aggressive implementation of such a business model would surely give the vast majority of your potential customers consternation, perhaps more than fevered than your own. Markets such as India, Asia, Rural developed and not so developed, and even large cities are often at the mercy of spotty internet. How often does your internet go down? Would you whip out your phone and connect over 3G or 4G to carry on? That's fine if you can do that and/or not be stung by your mobile network with a big mobile data bill.

Also look at the what is being offered here with Articulate 360, it all or nothing and an annual cost to match, which is not ideal for everyone, but the company obviously feels that this model makes sense to their business plans, even though many people from their own point of view do not. You can suggest that Articulate as a company change their model, but they are under no obligation to do so. Articulate has a lot of very smart people who I suspect are playing a long game, with a hope to staying relevant and meaningful to as many customers across the world as possible (and that's a good thing). As time goes by, perhaps they will transition to more web-based apps as world wide infrastructure catches up, like you suggest. I'm not sure that wholly jumping into this ship now would be a good idea though. Maybe a bit of both, which is what the 360 model is attempting to do and what you elucidate to as part of a more rapid transition.

There is also the question of control. A SaaS model you describe is great if you want that. Personally I find them quite restrictive (a preference not a blanket statement) and in the long term expensive. Short term they are very handy for getting things up n' running and any software issues are usually dealt with by the vendor, but as time goes by I find their value to cost diminishes greatly, as you usually end paying for things you don't use, or the total ongoing cost ends up being more than setting it up and running it yourself. Also if you want to do something that's not in their scope, then you usually end up having to pay more for custom work, which you don't own. You also have to consider who is the local gatekeeper to the system, and if that's a different department, what hoops and compromises do you have to make to get work on the system, such corporate models do exist.

In terms of software solutions, I believe Articulate have a broad and well respected suite created by very talented individuals across the company. I'm not a fan of their all or nothing current subscription model as I don't see enough cost to value in it for my needs, but that is covered elsewhere in the forums. I think you are wrong to label Articulate foolish and their decision to continue standalone desktop software as regressive, simply because there is still a massive market that wants it, supported by the many comments in these forums. Also the reasons to move to a online web-based model are not compelling enough to many businesses and individuals for lots of reasons, but to be fair given time and increased infrastructure and cheaper, reliable internet, what you are suggesting is something most companies are transitioning or looking towards, but now is not the time. Perhaps the brashness/passion/strong belief/rudeness (whatever motivated you to choose them) of your words detracts from what is a good point and your opinion, one I don't agree with, but none the less can see what you are saying. 

I agree, the flexibility that standalone software has as a whole is great but... "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple"

I prefer the desktop approach over web based because it allows the application and content to be run realtime at the customer's location where internet access is not always available to visitors.

I'm with you there Matthew and often work outside on a porch or even just on a lawn chair. Since Storyline, Studio, Replay 360 don't need to be connected to the internet to work (it'll check for connection after 30 days while in trial and 99 days once subscribed) you're good to go on a little adventure and keep working! Of course you'll want to download the Content Library stuff you need before heading out on the train, plane and if in the rain, just be sure to wear your rain galoshes. As far as the other items, I create a whole Rise presentation while on airplane wifi...and if that's not spotty, I don't know what is! Granted, it's so easy it maybe only took me an hour or two (possibly I threw in a nap...). 

Mac version has certainly been a hot topic - just no information to share yet on that front. 

Would rather have software on my machine.  As we are not always connected or connected to the fastest internet speeds.

Hi Jack,

Just to clarify - the software itself is installed locally and no need for fast or an internet connection as mentioned above you can be offline for up to 99 days. At that point, if you hadn't connected to the internet for us to validate and confirm a current subscription, then the software would prompt you to log in again. 

We also still sell the standalone perpetual version of Storyline 2, and we're going to launch Storyline 3 later this year which will include a lot of the features you're seeing in Storyline 360 such as HTML5 only publish and the new responsive player.

SaaS has its advantages and its disadvantages.  Having Storyline as standalone software running local on the computer on a perpetual license is possibly the biggest advantage for small companies.  The Total Cost of Ownership in the long term is minimal as compares to the SaaS model.  We were using Adobe's CC for about two years, and we found that the accumulated subscription costs did not justify the two applications that we were using most of the time. On SaaS, the moment you end your subscription, you lose all access to the product.  That's not the case with a perpetual license on locally-installed software.

We recently upgraded to Storyline 3, mainly because we determined that there was a huge improvement over Storyline 2, including the full HTML5 option.  It seems Articulate is using really good standards and up-to-date technologies including React.  The HTML5 deployment is much faster than Storyline 2 one.   

To contrast the OP point, we never considered 360 as a viable option.  So don't dismiss the attractiveness of a desktop model, many of us prefer that (along with its licensing model) to SaaS which is tantamount to leasing a vehicle vs. owning it. 

Thanks Carlos -- all good feedback, and a part of the reason why we kept Storyline as a perpetual license as well. Glad Storyline 3 is working out for you!