The short answer is no. It is not mandatory to transition to Castaway Cloud, but very soon Castaway Desktop will not be an option for anyone.
An explanation for this is below.
What's happening to Castaway Desktop?
Castaway Desktop has been a popular and powerful product much-loved by the market for 15 years.
For various operational reasons around technology changes and market feedback, after 5 years our company has now delivered Castaway Cloud.
Castaway Cloud has been available for sale since late 2024. The market's reception to this product has been positive and we are delighted with the feedback. We are especially delighted by the way Castaway Cloud meets our existing Castaway Desktop customer's expectations.
Since July 2024, Castaway Desktop has not been offered for sale and very soon, likely mid-2025, we will deprecate the product and no longer support Castaway Desktop. This means the Castaway Desktop server will be turned off, you will not be able to access the software and our Customer Success team will only be supporting Castaway Cloud.
OK, what happens if I do not transition?
If you choose not to transition to Castaway Cloud, you can certainly continue to subscribe to Castaway Desktop until the deprecation date only. Please be very clear in your understanding that this product will be deprecated. You will not be able to access it at all, even to save files and data in a library. You must prepare these files before deprecation.
Desktop software sounds like it could last until the computer you've downloaded it on is no longer serviceable. However, Castaway Desktop software and licence management is managed by a server we control and it is that server which will be turned off.