Is the upgrade to New Generation really free?
What happens at the end of the subscription period?
I have a Standard 5 computer subscription, which renews at $80 per year.
Even if the upgrade from Standard to Premium is "free" for my current subscription, when it's time to renew, will I be charged $80 (Standard plus the free Premium upgrade) or $160 (the normal Premium annual subscription)?
I'm already using a cloud service to backup critical files, so I won't use that Premium benefit. And while the New Generation features look interesting, they don't justify doubling my annual cost.
The renewal costs are not mentioned anywhere (that I can find) in the "free upgrade" offer.
At this point, it appears unlikely I'll install New Generation - and risk having to pay 2X more at renewal...
Unless Acronis can confirm I'll be able to get the premium features at the standard subscription renewal prices.
Weigh the pros and cons of the premium features for your needs and let that determine if the increased renewal price is worth it for your situation. The "free" upgrade right now is to get people to use it and try it out. It's a win/win for Acronis since, hopeufully, you'll like it and keep it and they get some additional user feedback to help polish it up and identify bugs. Based on the online price scheme and NG being sold separately as a premium product though, but it's pretty much a given that to keep those features, you'll be paying a higher price when it's renewal time.
The 1TB cloud storage being offered with the premium product (at least currently with purchases), can be nice for some - it's not really free though if you have to pay more when it comes time for renewal). Do you really need/want the ransomware protection and is the increase worth it to you? For me, it's not something I really need so I would skip it for myself and stick with the lower standard subscription. If ransomware is a big concern though, then the additional cost might be worth it for you (along with the increased storage space in the Cloud if that's part of the deal).
I personally can't justify doubling the susbscription price next year to maintain ransomeware features... 1) I've never been hit with ransomware and malware trouble has been almost non-existent for quite some time. 2) If I do run into that situation down the road, well, I have cloud backups, a local backup, a NAS backup and I take offline backups that don't connect to the PC when running. I have recovery options to choose from - a few that don't interact with the OS at all and should allow me to recover to a recent point just with my backups.
To each their own though. The premium features can be quite nice, you just have to be willing to pony up for them.
Acronis is our secondary backup product, so it's difficult to justify further increasing our annual costs for their software.
As a long time customer, we've already spent a lot on their products, and it's disappointing that major product improvements are not covered by the subscription commitment we've already made to Acronis.
For customers under contract, they should not only offer a free upgrade now, but also provide the "Premium" features at the "Standard" subscription price for renewals, in recognition of the commitment we've already made by purchasing their product - and committing to a subscription - at least for as long as we maintain our subscription. And then charge the higher fees only for new customers - or for those customers who declined the subscription service.
BP - some good points there. I'd encourage you to contact General Manager and VP - Gaidar directly via PM. He's very interested in product recommendations and customer feedback and I think you have a valid point - from the customer perspective. Ultimately, NG is a "new product" and will be in addition to the standard subscprition products so Acronis may not see it this way as you'll still be able to get the same features at the same prices as you have in the past, but unless customers speak up and provide feedback (other than just in the forum), it may fall on deaf ears. I'd also encourage you to submit the same feedback through the application feedback tool.
PM Gaidar