FTM/FamilyTreeMaker Ancestry re-launch

pedroeibar1

I received an email form FTM/FamilyTreeMaker over the weekend – the long-expected change is now about to take place. There is a one-third discount offer available until March 31. Interesting that there is a integrated link to Familysearch.
This is the link to their support page.
Below is the main content of the email.

FTM 2017 has state of the art syncing technology, integration with FamilySearch®, color-coding, a photo repair tool and much more! It will be released in a week on March 31st and it's available to pre-order today. Have a look at the flyer from the conference which pretty much tells it all.
http://www.mackiev.com/RootsTech/FTM_flyer.png
PRE-ORDERS ARE OPEN!
First question — what's it cost? Well, it depends. First of all we wanted to say thank you to all those who took a chance on us by buying a MacKiev edition during our first year as publisher. If you PAID for a copy of FTM 2014.1 or Mac 3.1 (both introduced in March 2016), your copy of FTM 2017 is FREE and you will be notified by email when yours is available.
For the rest of you who own an older edition of Family Tree Maker, if you are ready to jump on in, now's the time to do it. For just one week, we are offering a pre-order price of £29.95, just until the launch on March 31st. After that it will be £39.95 for upgrades for a limited time. Click here to pre-order now! The full price, which is only for newcomers, is £79.95. All installers of FTM 2017 now contain a choice of editions — US, Canadian, UK and Australian so you don't need to worry about what edition you are getting.
GOODBYE TREESYNC. HELLO FAMILYSYNC!
Some more big news. To make way for our new FamilySync technology, Ancestry's award-winning TreeSync® will go offline forever next Wednesday, March 29th at midnight Utah time (where Ancestry lives). Then for the next two days we will be working together around the clock to deploy FamilySync so that it will be all set up and ready when FTM 2017 is released on March 31st.
So what should you be doing to get ready? Not much, really. FTM 2017 will open with your trees showing, and any linked Ancestry and FTM trees will still be linked — but with FamilySync. No breaking of links. No upload or download. Just pick up right where you left off.

pinkypinky

Hard to justify spending £79.95 on family tree software if you've never used it before.

pedroeibar1

In my OP I deliberately posted the bare essentials from their much longer email.

Since then I've discovered the cost element is badly explained and worded – it seems only recent ‘new’ customers get a free upgrade. Past FTM customers like me who previously purchased an upgrade to FTM 2014.1 (for £24.95) apparently do not qualify, which is very poor form. I would not have upgraded last year had I known I would be presented with another bill for $30 this month. I checked and discovered

Gosh, we didn't find your purchase. It seems we don't have a record of your purchase of a previous Software MacKiev edition of Family Tree Maker in our system (FTM 2014.1 or Mac 3.1)

I switched to FTM back in ’96 or ’97, paid $89.99 to buy the Broderbund FTM deluxe edition III and have paid for several upgrades since then, just to keep ‘live’, necessary when the software was upgraded. I think it is now time to part ways with FTM. It will be interesting to see what the usual bloggers write…..

BowWow

I used to use FTM 2009, but subsequently changed to FTM 2014 - but not the version that will give me a free upgrade. Seems I will have to pay again to get upgraded to FTM 2017.

However there seems to be serious issues with the launch -

https://support.mackiev.com/498640-RELEASE-OF-FTM-2017

Wont be upgrading anytime soon....