Corel changing to subscription basis?

[Gene Uselman]

From Signs101- I don't use Corel but I know a lot of you do.

If you visit Corel's web site and check out the product page for CorelDRAW 2019 you'll see a little tab for "purchase options." On that sub-page it contains the verbiage, "Later this year, upgrades (download and box products) will no longer be available. Add Upgrade Protection to your purchase to get future versions at a fraction of the cost or choose a subscription, to always stay current. To purchase Upgrade Protection, simply add it in-cart when you buy CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019."

This "upgrade protection" option costs $99 per year. I don't understand what that "protection" provides or the specific dollar amount "fraction of the cost" implies. To me it smells like they want a $99 revolving fee from users to let them have the opportunity to buy a new version of CorelDRAW (probably for at least another $99 on top of the $99 you're already paying) when the new version is released. In effect, the user is signing up for a subscription plan even though he has perpetual license software.

Anyone who wants to continue skipping product versions due to minimal improvements will have to pay the full version price (currently $499) when finally upgrading to a new perpetual license version. It's either that start paying a revolving fee: $99 per year just to have the opportunity to buy an upgrade or $16.50 per month (billed $198 annually) for the subscription version.

It's possible for users to choose staying with an old version of CorelDRAW permanently. But as we've seen, both Microsoft and Apple can make changes to their desktop operation systems that break older, legacy software (and hardware too). At some point the user is forced to upgrade software. That often happens when buying a new computer.