OK, but if I wait until next September I can get Vue 10 Studio at half price anyway.  I don't see that the subscription saves me any money, it just saves some time. I can get Vue 10 now at half price with the subsription or get it next year in September on sale. Am I understanding this right?

Being old school I just hate to pay for something in advaance.  I have been burnt before in such things so I guess I am a little leering and prefer to get what I pay for at the time I pay.

 I keep thinking of what would happen down the road if another company were to buy e-on or if they were to get to a point they could not survie any longer.

E-on sems to have found a business model that keeps them above water.  Cornucopia3D is on one end of their revenue while selling high-end plugins for Max, Maya, Cinema4D, XSI, etc is one their other revenue end.

If the economy ever returns, I'm sure 3D software companies will begin looking at each other again to see who to buy out.  For now, the software companies are downsized enough to stay profitable at least.  They just don't have the big cash they used to.

You also have to factor in the fact that you get much better access for bugs or issues, and private ftp space to upload those scenes that are giving you problems.

But yeah, $195 a year since they started the maintenance agreement (after the initial $295, of course), getting you a .5 release and a full version. That ain't bad for pro level software...... 

I've never seen such complicated and convoluted upgrade scemes--but E-on doesn't have the monopoly on confusing plans.  I recently bought Poser 9, since I pre-ordered it I got a substaintial discount--but the catch was that you had to buy a voucher far in advance (which was immediately charged to my credit card) and then I had to secure a voucher code.  The voucher code then had to be inputted as a new sale for the software in which it deducted the regular price for the upgrade from your shopping cart.  I didn't understand this weird sceme.  In the past when I pre-ordered software I wasn't charged until the thing shipped and that was automatic with no other action required.  Well you had to use this voucher code by a certain date or you lost your money.  I didn't understand the whole thing and missed the deadline by a day, but after sending a pleading on my knees email to Smith Micro they gave me a new code and I didn't loose my money.  I was, however, ready to dispute it on my credit card as I was not going to pay $75.00 for software I never recieved.  In my opinion I perfered when they kept things simple.

Well I've bit the bullet and purchased 10 Infinite...

I think this may be my last purchase though, updating all the time is getting too expensive what with upgrading Poser as well....

I have all the tools now to do what I want so no more for me...

...unless they get waterfalls working next go around......?

Just saying......