Cashflow & tax rules
Vendors like subscription because it provides regular cash flow. It potentially also reduces competition and, thus, price wars once customers are locked in. Companies will generally go with what's most tax efficient and there is huge pressure to go from capex to opex for all manner of purchase. But they also like being able to outsource and offload the maintenance of devices: subscription can also include onsite replacements which don't need negotiating separately. You can see why third parties don't like this, because they get cut out. For customers the net effect may initially be small. But, as we can expect additional concentration in the industry, we'll no doubt see potential savings on the manufacturers side only and further concentration of capital.
The tax effect is to shift the write-offs to the manufacturers. This first started with the card industry in the early 2000s with leasing the preferred way of disposing of fleets of cars after that particular financial crash. And car manufacturers discovered the joy of regular cashflow combined with the ability to write off the excess vehicles it was producing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
