[fsloth]

Given that Opex costs are lower than full license, I claim it still feels less risky. As an AEC firm, when you have a project going on, you can pay the Opex, and when not, you don't need to pay - and probably go bankrupt anyway since you need to have ongoing projects.

I think opex saas model might actually be beneficial for AEC industry. Generall you would have paid the yearly license anyway - some products have so called "maintenance" licenses where you basically pay for the company to fix bugs in older versions. And get a release every year or so - patiently waiting for your bugfux.

If licensing moves to Saas, then I would expect customer expectations for better service to rise, bringing in more rapid innovation and quality.

At this point all the CAD houses have been sitting on decades old legacy products and basically charged rent for minimal added value. I would imagine with more frequent releases and more flexible licensing models customer value would increase.

For example if you pay for product x some opex in project and find it dissatisfactory then you can try in next project product y if it works better without paying the expensive yearly license.

Should be good for competition as well (Autodesk is not the only AEC software house, even though they seem the dominant gorilla).