Rubrik has become the latest vendor to make its software available via a subscription license as part of an effort to provide more clarity into the cost of employing a cloud-based approach to data protection.
The three-year Rubrik Go subscription license option makes it simpler for customers to understand their true data protection licensing costs, says Bertrand Yansouni, vice president of worldwide channel for Rubrik.
As part of that license, customers also receive automatic product updates over the life of the contract.
From a partner perspective, subscription pricing also eliminates the need for partners to engage in “true-up” conversations later on should a customer wind up consuming more cloud resources than they initially licensed, adds Yansouni.
Another benefit of this approach is that a subscription license reduces the upfront customers incur when licensing Rubrik software.
Rubrik will continue to provide existing perpetual and life of device software contracts, but it’s becoming increasingly clear vendors are trying to generate subscription-based revenue that is much more predictable. Investors are also rewarding vendors that have predictable streams of revenue with higher stock valuations.
The challenge partners often encounter when making that transition is that the amount of revenue initially generated is lower. Over time, those subscription licenses tend to be more profitable for partners. But transitioning to a subscription-based licensing model can have a significant impact on the way the balance sheet of a solution provider.
The challenge, of course, is getting customers to commit to a multi-year contract in the age of the cloud. Many customers want to pay for software today on a pure consumption model modeled on the way they purchase cloud infrastructure per month. It may take a while for this transition to play out, but the days when customers were willing to part with large amounts of dollars upfront to acquire software and hardware may be coming to a close.
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