Adobe moves to Creative Cloud, Cancels Creative Suite

[f64manray]

I agree. The current price is just to hook you in. Price increases should be expected. And they can squeeze the orange as hard as they can to get more juice. They've got you over the barrel, you know the software, you're comfortable with it, your past projects are tied to it and you're resistant to leave because of that. And they squeeze a little harder ....and just a little harder. And some seem willing to bend over for it, and think "what a deal Adobe! Thank you sir. May I have another?"

 

[Kraut69]

A copy of CS6, that lasts forever, makes a nice graduation gift. A subscription to the Cloud, that ends, will not be considered as a graduation gift.

 

[Geoff Gilson]

Some interesting posts I've read here. They're very revealing of people's attitudes to value and of ownership.


How many folks have phone contracts, utility bills, mortgages, food budgets, kids? There are always going to be regular costs to living. Changes happen, but I really don't see how Adobe CC is an earth-shaking one.
If you stop paying for your electricity, you certainly won't be able to keep working on your video editing!


As other posters have stated - if the subscription expense isn't affordable, then one is clearly not operating a sustainable business.

A copy of CS6, that lasts forever, makes a nice graduation gift. A subscription to the Cloud, that ends, will not be considered as a graduation gift.

Many features of CS6 will be outdated soon enough, and it'll be another box on the shelf.
I would love an extra year of CC subscription as a gift. Imagine what you can do in that time!

 

[Gillvane]

This illustrates a similar but not exact sort of problem when a company has you by the cajones.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-nook-goes-bust-will-your-e-books-too-2013-07-11?siteid=yhoof2

The Nook is probably going under, so no more nooks. The problem? What about all the books you bought as a nook owner? Well, there's a DRM (copyright protection) so they can only be used with Nook. You own the books...sort of. But they can only be used on a device that is going bye bye.

And this is the concern with a subscription based editing system. You own all the footage and the edits you made on it...sort of. What if you want to switch editing systems? What if Adobe raises it's price? What if the new update doesn't work with some of the edits you made? What if Adobe goes under (not likely but you never know in this rapidly changing economy).

You could end up like the Nook owners and their books. It's yours....kinda.

 

[Gillvane]

Some interesting posts I've read here. They're very revealing of people's attitudes to value and of ownership.


How many folks have phone contracts, utility bills, mortgages, food budgets, kids? There are always going to be regular costs to living. Changes happen, but I really don't see how Adobe CC is an earth-shaking one.
If you stop paying for your electricity, you certainly won't be able to keep working on your video editing!


As other posters have stated - if the subscription expense isn't affordable, then one is clearly not operating a sustainable business.

So the problem DOES seem to be ownership, and it does seem to be different than your examples.

The problem with your examples is they stand alone, they are not linked to something else you own. You pay a monthly mortgage. But you own the house and all the equity in it. You can simply sell and buy another house.

What if you had to pay the mortgage, but you could not sell the house?

You pay the food bill, but you consume the food and it's gone, the end, you buy more.

But what if the food you bought was in a special package that only went in an expensive cooker specifically for that package. Then the company that makes the food, changed the packaging so the food would not fit in that cooker any more?

IMO, the subscription model is very different from your examples because you own the edits you made. They are your intellectual property. But you have no guarantee you will always have access to them. You become dependent on Adobe for that, for life.

That's very different than I own the edits I made, AND I own the software that allows me to access those edits. Your decisions cannot render my property valueless, since i control the edits and the software that allows me to access them.

 

[starcentral]

Some interesting posts I've read here. They're very revealing of people's attitudes to value and of ownership.


How many folks have phone contracts, utility bills, mortgages, food budgets, kids? There are always going to be regular costs to living. Changes happen, but I really don't see how Adobe CC is an earth-shaking one.
If you stop paying for your electricity, you certainly won't be able to keep working on your video editing!


As other posters have stated - if the subscription expense isn't affordable, then one is clearly not operating a sustainable business.



Many features of CS6 will be outdated soon enough, and it'll be another box on the shelf.
I would love an extra year of CC subscription as a gift. Imagine what you can do in that time!

What happens when you need an entire suite like photoshop, after effects, premiere, illustrator, media encoder, audition, etc.. will it then be okay to spend hundreds and hundreds per month? Sorry but I can't afford that and its not about operating a sustainable business, how many of us are simply hobbyists, or professional hobbyists, or work on occassional projects from time to time for charities, friends or even family for FREE, etc.. ? I guess we should forget our hobbies or working on free projects because we're not making "enough money" to pay for Adobe's ongoing monthly subscription.

Your post entirely misses many aspects seen from a variety of user perspectives.

 

[Geoff Gilson]

And this is the concern with a subscription based editing system. You own all the footage and the edits you made on it...sort of. What if you want to switch editing systems? What if Adobe raises it's price? What if the new update doesn't work with some of the edits you made? What if Adobe goes under (not likely but you never know in this rapidly changing economy).

I admit this is a genuine concern of mine too. But not one that I consider to be anywhere near a deal breaker. CC works for me, now. That's what's most important.

Of course, take measures now that may save future bother, such as exporting an XML or AAF before archiving (at the least preserves most of your premiere project's editability, if not all,) but I don't think that worrying so much about what may come in the future is productive.

 

[Gillvane]

I admit this is a genuine concern of mine too. But not one that I consider to be anywhere near a deal breaker. CC works for me, now. That's what's most important.

Of course, take measures now that may save future bother, such as exporting an XML or AAF before archiving (at the least preserves most of your premiere project's editability, if not all,) but I don't think that worrying so much about what may come in the future is productive.

If you own your software and don't rent it, there is no worry. Whatever works for people is great and I'm sure many will love the new Adobe rental system. I'm just going to use something else, no big deal.

 

[Tzedekh]

With regards to the upgrades, a side effect of the accounting regulations brought on by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act impacts how publicly traded companies (in our case, Adobe, Avid, Apple, etc.,) sell their wares. Basically, if I am a publicly traded company and I sell you a product and claim 100% of that sale as revenue I then cannot offer you a feature upgrade (bug fixes are okay) to that product as that means I sold you something that was incomplete (at least according to SOX). I can sell you a feature upgrade but I cannot give it a way. If I sell you a product and I do *not* claim the sale of the product as revenue then I can offer you feature upgrades for free because the transaction isn't finalized until I claim the revenue from it (at least that's my layman's idea of what's going on).

I know you're just summarizing Adobe's explanation for the change, but I'm afraid I have to call BS on this one. While it's true that SOX requires charging for upgrades, doing so didn't require changing to a subscription-only model. In addition to Creative Cloud, Adobe could've continued to sell the product and sold the upgrades for, say, $0.99 each, or they could've made an optional annual service/subscription plan -- e.g., $xxx to buy CS and $12 a year (for up to three years) for bug fixes and upgrades. After that point, you could keep using the fully functioning software, but you couldn't upgrade it. But that would have undoubtedly eaten into profits. Increasing revenue -- and not accounting laws -- is the main reason for the switch.

 

[Bassman2003]

Why doesn't Adobe offer ownership of wherever you start your membership once you CC for 12 months? Clearly people do not mind the CC approach, but they do mind not having anything at all if a subscription ends. So if I start now, after 12 months of payments I could "own" today's versions for an additional fee. The low fee of subscription would keep me wanting the CC but if I had to go, I could have continuing access to my work. Seems like it could put the fire out for a lot of people.

 

[Tzedekh]

Why doesn't Adobe offer ownership of wherever you start your membership once you CC for 12 months? Clearly people do not mind the CC approach, but they do mind not having anything at all if a subscription ends. So if I start now, after 12 months of payments I could "own" today's versions for an additional fee. The low fee of subscription would keep me wanting the CC but if I had to go, I could have continuing access to my work. Seems like it could put the fire out for a lot of people.

I believe that I read somewhere that they were contemplating that very thing.

 

[Sol M.]

This illustrates a similar but not exact sort of problem when a company has you by the cajones.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-nook-goes-bust-will-your-e-books-too-2013-07-11?siteid=yhoof2

The Nook is probably going under, so no more nooks. The problem? What about all the books you bought as a nook owner? Well, there's a DRM (copyright protection) so they can only be used with Nook. You own the books...sort of. But they can only be used on a device that is going bye bye.

And this is the concern with a subscription based editing system. You own all the footage and the edits you made on it...sort of. What if you want to switch editing systems? What if Adobe raises it's price? What if the new update doesn't work with some of the edits you made? What if Adobe goes under (not likely but you never know in this rapidly changing economy).

You could end up like the Nook owners and their books. It's yours....kinda.

Going off topic, but just to clarify, this is nothing like the situation with Adobe CC. That article is 100% misinformation, firstly because BN sells ebooks in the ePub format, a standard recognized by basically any reader, not just the Nook. Even today you can load your BN-purchased books onto other devices that support Adobe Digital Editions (Sony, Kobo, and numerous apps on both iOS and Android).

Now, if you hear about Amazon ditching the Kindle, then you should be worried.

 

[Gillvane]

Going off topic, but just to clarify, this is nothing like the situation with Adobe CC. That article is 100% misinformation, firstly because BN sells ebooks in the ePub format, a standard recognized by basically any reader, not just the Nook. Even today you can load your BN-purchased books onto other devices that support Adobe Digital Editions (Sony, Kobo, and numerous apps on both iOS and Android).

Now, if you hear about Amazon ditching the Kindle, then you should be worried.

The DRM forbids transfer to another device once you purchase it. Otherwise you'd just send me all your books and I'd just send you all mine and we'd start a book club and that would be the end of digital book sales. That doesn't mean you can't but it for different devices.

The point is accessing content you already own. Not that you can't buy new content that works on other devices.

So the Nook disappears and you don't wanto to put more books on an end of life (EOL) product so you get a Kindle or something, but how do you get your nook books onto the Kindle?

No more Nook, but your books are tied to your Nook. See?

 

[Gillvane]

Why doesn't Adobe offer ownership of wherever you start your membership once you CC for 12 months? Clearly people do not mind the CC approach, but they do mind not having anything at all if a subscription ends. So if I start now, after 12 months of payments I could "own" today's versions for an additional fee. The low fee of subscription would keep me wanting the CC but if I had to go, I could have continuing access to my work. Seems like it could put the fire out for a lot of people.

This would allay 99% of fears from most users. Then your work is secure regardless of what Adobe does in the future.

 

[adkimery]

And this is the concern with a subscription based editing system. You own all the footage and the edits you made on it...sort of. What if you want to switch editing systems? What if Adobe raises it's price? What if the new update doesn't work with some of the edits you made? What if Adobe goes under (not likely but you never know in this rapidly changing economy).

Your examples aren't entirely unique to Adobe's subscription model though. I mean, switching projects from PPro to Avid is going to be difficult regardless of if you are using the subscription version of CS6 or the perpetual license version. Exporting an XML as part of your archiving process for a finished projected will help with 'future proofing' your work.

I know you're just summarizing Adobe's explanation for the change, but I'm afraid I have to call BS on this one. While it's true that SOX requires charging for upgrades, doing so didn't require changing to a subscription-only model. In addition to Creative Cloud, Adobe could've continued to sell the product and sold the upgrades for, say, $0.99 each, or they could've made an optional annual service/subscription plan -- e.g., $xxx to buy CS and $12 a year (for up to three years) for bug fixes and upgrades. After that point, you could keep using the fully functioning software, but you couldn't upgrade it. But that would have undoubtedly eaten into profits. Increasing revenue -- and not accounting laws -- is the main reason for the switch.

Why would Adobe only charge 99 cents per feature upgrade or $36 for 3 years worth of feature upgrades? How is that remotely sustainable? The previous CS upgrade prices were hundreds of dollars and new release went to a 12 month cycle a few years ago. Adobe's is a publicly traded business, not a charity or freeware project.

When Adobe announced CC was the future and CS6 would be the end of perpetual license I was surprised they didn't have a longer transition period where subscription and perpetual license were offered side by side but the more I thought about it the more I realized it would most likely turn into a huge headache for Adobe and for users. The problem w/making CC optional is you end up with two separate product lines for each application. For example, if PPro CS7 came out along side PPro CC then you would already have a branching path for the same application as new PPro feature updates and bug fixes came out the other day. Yes, the bug fixes would apply to the PPro CS7 but the new features wouldn't. Once PPro CS7 and PPro CC have diverged in terms of features they will also likely diverge in terms of bug fixes so which app gets precedent? No matter which customer base is given priority the other side will complain.

Sure, Adobe could offer to sell the feature updates to the CS7 users but they would just feel like they were getting nickel and dimed to death and you'd still have the problem (more of a problem actually) of divergent forms of the same app. People that bought PPro CS7 would probably start complaining that Adobe intentionally sandbags the perpetual license version (and/or over charges for optional access to feature upgrades) in order to 'encourage' users to switch to CC. It would turn into a fiasco in short order, IMO.

Finally, of course increasing revenue was a big motivating factor. Adobe is a publicly traded company and the shareholders want Adobe to increase revenue so their investment in company grows too (FWIW, currently Adobe's stock is hovering near an all time high).

A couple things I'd like to see Adobe do (to make CC a better value to customers) would be to bring back the CS bundle options and have different price tiers for CC since as it stands now the only option is basically to subscript to the Master Collection which is most likely overkill for most users. The other things is I think they should have a 'loyalty program' so that after X number of years of being on the subscription plan you can opt out of you can opt out and you'll own (have a perpetual license for) whatever version of the apps you are currently using.

-Andrew

 

[keylight]

Why doesn't Adobe offer ownership of wherever you start your membership once you CC for 12 months? Clearly people do not mind the CC approach, but they do mind not having anything at all if a subscription ends. So if I start now, after 12 months of payments I could "own" today's versions for an additional fee. The low fee of subscription would keep me wanting the CC but if I had to go, I could have continuing access to my work. Seems like it could put the fire out for a lot of people.

I believe that I read somewhere that they were contemplating that very thing.

This would allay 99% of fears from most users. Then your work is secure regardless of what Adobe does in the future.

The idea has been proposed by a lot of people (myself included), but never a word or hint from Adobe on it. They'll never do it for the simple reason that it goes against the entire purpose of the subscription only model....

Pay to Play.

If Adobe did this, then I could keep using CS6 for 3 years, buy a 1 year subscription of CC (for $600) then pay to keep wherever CC is at the end of the subscription (say another $600, just for sake of the example). Effectively, I've just gotten 4 years worth of upgrades past CS6, for $1200. This is what Adobe does NOT want. They want 4 years of upgrades (at current pricing) to cost $2400. And they want that 5th year to cost another $600. And the 6th, and 7th, 8th, 9th....

Still a good idea, but Adobe doesn't want people to be able to walk away.

Or put another way (to incorporate the false but amusing "they're doing it to defeat piracy" meme):

Adobe wants Crackheads not Cracks.

:shocked:

 

[Surf it Mike]

This is the elephant in the room for Adobe.........

It has nothing to do with an annual or a monthly charge. It has everything to do with the "legacy issue" . Until this is solved many will not sign upto a lifetime of subscriptions.

Please can anyone name me one piece of software that has continuously been used after 5 years, 10 years, 20 years in this business ? Such faith in the ever changing industry on the cutting edge of technology or for that matter Wall Street .

 

[Gillvane]

Your examples aren't entirely unique to Adobe's subscription model though. I mean, switching projects from PPro to Avid is going to be difficult regardless of if you are using the subscription version of CS6 or the perpetual license version. Exporting an XML as part of your archiving process for a finished projected will help with 'future proofing' your work.

I don't have to switch a project from one to the other, just because I'm now using something else. I'd just boot up the old project in the old software because I'd still have it.

With a subscription, I have to re-subscribe. Maybe the company is out of business. Maybe the new updates don't work with my edit, etc. Maybe the price has trippled now. With the subscription I have no control over my edits because I have no control over the changes that will be made to teh software or the license or the fee. The owner of the software, which isn't me, has me by the cajones and all my projects depend on them.

If I own the software my IP is secure. My project is not hostage to the software that I need to rent for it to work. It's just sitting on a hard drive any time I want to change an edit in an older project, no worries, works just like it did originally, no extra fees, no problems.

Do I change edits in projects that are a year old? Yes, I do. What will the subscription be lke in a year? I have no way to know.

 

[Tzedekh]

Why would Adobe only charge 99 cents per feature upgrade or $36 for 3 years worth of feature upgrades? How is that remotely sustainable? The previous CS upgrade prices were hundreds of dollars and new release went to a 12 month cycle a few years ago. Adobe's is a publicly traded business, not a charity or freeware project.

That wasn't my point, and you probably knew that. My point was that Adobe blamed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for not being allowed to offer free feature upgrades and thus for motivating them to move to a subscription-only model, which would permit more frequent release of new features without running afoul of SOX. I provided a solution that would allow them to offer essentially free (or very low-cost) upgrades if indeed it was their desire to do so in the face of government meddling. I also indicated that I considered it cynical to blame SOX when the real motive was to maximize ongoing revenues and compel continual upgrades.

But is it sustainable? Probably. If Adobe charged, say, the equivalent of two to three years' subscription fees to purchase the product and a nominal ongoing fee (which, like the CC subscription fee, could be paid in advance) to circumvent SOX, they'd be no worse off than they'd be if they had simply collected two to three years' subscription fees. They could even offer a discount for those committing such a large outlay in advance. The difference? The buyer would be able to upgrade the apps only for a limited time (as opposed to those on the subscription plan) but would have a perpetual license to the latest upgrade covered by the contract. The software, however, would no longer be upgradeable.

When Adobe announced CC was the future and CS6 would be the end of perpetual license I was surprised they didn't have a longer transition period where subscription and perpetual license were offered side by side but the more I thought about it the more I realized it would most likely turn into a huge headache for Adobe and for users. The problem w/making CC optional is you end up with two separate product lines for each application. For example, if PPro CS7 came out along side PPro CC then you would already have a branching path for the same application as new PPro feature updates and bug fixes came out the other day. Yes, the bug fixes would apply to the PPro CS7 but the new features wouldn't. Once PPro CS7 and PPro CC have diverged in terms of features they will also likely diverge in terms of bug fixes so which app gets precedent? No matter which customer base is given priority the other side will complain.

I don't believe this is necessarily so. Besides, the subscription model ensures divergent versions. I don't really see this as any more of a problem than with the subscription model.

Sure, Adobe could offer to sell the feature updates to the CS7 users but they would just feel like they were getting nickel and dimed to death and you'd still have the problem (more of a problem actually) of divergent forms of the same app. People that bought PPro CS7 would probably start complaining that Adobe intentionally sandbags the perpetual license version (and/or over charges for optional access to feature upgrades) in order to 'encourage' users to switch to CC. It would turn into a fiasco in short order, IMO.

I don't see how divergent forms of the same app are avoidable. As to being nickel-and-dimed, if software purchase is an option, some people will put up with it in order to own their software.

 

[keylight]

RE: Sar-Ox... The FASB changed the rules in 2009 to allow for companies to take the bulk of the sales revenue at the time of sale, and hold back only a small part of the revenue for future upgrades and account for it over an extended period of time. It isn't clear to me if this is only for software sold with hardware, but it seems that it should apply for any product that isn't "complete" at the time of sale.

A very good article on this can be found here: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/10/21/inside-apples-iphone-subscription-accounting-changes/