No more perpetual licenses?

The "One-time Purchase" option for RadiAnt DICOM Viewer is no longer offered.
On 2021.01.01 we introduced the RadiAnt DICOM Viewer Subscription Plans, while permanent licenses were still offered for a limited time.
Now the only option to purchase RadiAnt DICOM Viewer is the Subscription Plan.
For the plan options and pricing please refer to: https://www.radiantviewer.com/store/pricing/

This step was inevitable for our business to remain viable in the coming years.
The monthly cost is really low, so it should not be an issue for most of our users. Just compare it to the subscription price of Osirix (which is 19x higher).
And the numbers speak volumes - the subscription plans were purchased much more frequently than the permanent licenses while there were still available. Which reassured us that this is the right direction.

I do unterstand the step. But I have already an active purchased permanent license? What exactly does the change mean for me? Will I have to change to a subscription plan in the future? Will there be a special price for permanent license owners (not that you are that expensive, but it would sound fair to me...).
Thank you!
Best,
VetMed

Permanent licenses will remain permanent, covering all updates released within their maintenance period. In a few weeks we will also introduce significantly lower subscription pricing for the owners of permanent licenses. They certainly deserve it!

As always - your are the best!
VetMed

Any plans to link license to account, not to device?
Like game launchers (Steam etc).

Yes, there are some plans. But this option needs to be carefully designed.
With the current licensing system the internet connection is only required for activation. With the licensing system linked to the account, an internet connection would be required to run RadiAnt. And we do not want situations when users have problems with accessing our viewer... So it's certainly not happening in the coming weeks.

@VetMed

We're launching today a special offer for the owners of permanent licenses with expired support. One-year plan can be purchased with almost 50% discount, for 20 EUR. This is also less than what had to be paid for maintenance renewal up to now (26 EUR / 1 year). Hopefully this makes our transition to the subscription model more palatable for those who supported us by purchasing licenses during last 10 years :-)

The only thing I'm truly worried is how to buy Radiant as corporate/public sector.
I work in a polish hospital, some perma-licences were provided once...
I understand that It is a general trend right now to migrate towards subscription model, but I don't believe I could convince the management to buy expiring license of ANY software for my department... From my point of view - overpriced, but permanent - that would be the way.

@boskar

Our data after 4 months of selling subscription plans show that the corporate or public sector generally doesn't have problems with purchasing time-based licenses. Yes, there will certainly be some lost sales. But the permanent licenses were slowly becoming a burden, so to speak. Maintenance was renewed very rarely and despite this fact many users still expected support, required assistance with re-activation when their computer was replaced, couldn't understand that they cannot install the latest version, etc. With the subscription plans these issues are all gone. And I think we're really charging a reasonable amount for the product our users tell us they love.

I do believe that permanent licenses should be an option, at least for a transitional period. I understand the reason to choose a subscription model when I think from the developers' perspective (some of them you've already mentioned on the previous post). For my case, RadiAnt already does what I need it to do (view and convert ultrasound clips) and I don't really require additional features, so I can, as a personal user, justify the purchase of a permanent license, however the subscription model, while reasonably priced, is not ideal for the user who is happy with current functionnality. Your remark on people with permanent users not buying renewals is probably a manifestation of this fact (people are happy with it, so they see no reason to buy a newer version, as it already does what they need it to do). Of course, this model is not ideal for the developers, but it has been the main way people sold software for a long time and while many developers (like Adobe) change to subscription plans, people start to react to many subscriptions you have to buy and in the long run this isn't sustainable for the users.

RadiAnt, of course, has the final say on the pricing system they want to sell/license their software, but I think there should be a short transition period, where people who were considering to buy a permanent license can do so. I know that the two models were offered for a period of time together, but there was no mention that permanent licenses were going to be removed as an option.

@DrMaestro

We appreciate your comments.
However, there certainly was a transitional period. We started showing banner in trial version some time in December. And we waited for three months until all users had opportunity to see if the banner is something they can live with or to purchase a license. There was also a mention in a blog post about subscriptions that permanent licenses are available for a limited time.
With the subscription, we think, one has to ask oneself whether the value provided by RadiAnt justifies spending $4 monthly for access to the software. If RadiAnt does not provide any meaningful value to a user, perhaps they can make do with some free viewer.
Well, there's always a banner-less beta version (there are some "out-of-beta" periods, but still...)