Well said but will anything change?

Is Adobe listening to its users?

Interesting, but seems less shocking to me since Adobe laid off 1/3 of its Ottawa (Canada) workforce a few weeks back.

I have the Production Premium CS5.5 suite.   I wasn't happy when I bought CS5 and CS5.5 came out!    Anyway, I'm curious to see what will happen in all this. 

cheers,

Petey

I believe the only thing that Adobe will listen to is their bottom line. The pricing change may have an adverse effect on it and if it does Adobe will revert back to their old practice.  Asking users to upgrade to a buggy CS5 so they will elageable to upgrade to CS6 is no way to treat their install base.  While I have CS5 I will not upgrade to CS6 unless Adobe fix the Bug I reported and Fix the other CS5 bugs I read about and checked. CS5 is a buggy version of Photoshop I have upgraded from PS3 to PS5 to PS5.5 to PS7 to CS to CS2 and CS3 without problems. However when I upgraded to CS5 bugs effected many of my action, changes broke two of my Photoshop Plug-in Script,  Changes in CS5 UI broke other Actions I had recorded. Additionally Adobe removed function from Photoshop without providing a viable alternative so many users need to keep CS3 installed so the can use the PDF support that was removed and can not be installed into CS5. Adobe's support is now so bad I will no longer use it. Submit a bug report and you gat an automated response that your bug report will automatically be closed unless Adobe hear form you again. In fact even if they hear from you many times and they accept that you have indeed reported a bug they will still close you bug report and tell you Adobe may fix it is some future release. Who need that kind of support when Adobe and other Photoshop forums are more informative and knowledgeable then Adobe support personal. IMO Adobe seems to be butchering their Golden Cow.

I suspect Adobe prefers to whittle down the crowd of customers so that they are easier to listen to.

Delightful comment!

As an off / on again NAPP member (on now) you'd think that the way Kelby and Adobe are joined at the wallet Adobe might listen to him.

Let's hope so...

I guess it remains to be seen how Adobe users vote with their wallets. That is the only thing that this company will pay attention to at this point.

When they see a big decrease in real sales and a huge jump in pirated products, then they would pay attention.

Bob the Sign Guy wrote:

 

This scheme of forcing loyal, registered users into a monthly subscription pricing thing is exactly the type of thing only a greedy, bean-counting "suit" could propose. The whole idea is generating a greater amount of positive cash flow for Adobe at the much greater expensive of registered users.

It would be useful if you understood the Adobe Creative Cloud option...it's an additional option, not a forced initiative. You can choose to keep perpetual licensing of suites or point products OR choose a subscription model. There is no indication that anybody will be FORCED to do a subscription only option... The only forced aspect is the 1 version back policy change.

[quote]The only forced aspect is the 1 version back policy change.[/quote]

That is exactly what makes the subscription idea forced. If you sit out one version then you're treated like a customer who has never owned the product. That is a giant rip off.

Not every upgrade is worth buying. I've seen it mentioned in countless software reviews where a new release is recommended only if you're a couple or so versions back, but if you have the most recent release the new upgrade is too underwhelming to buy.

I paid $1400 to upgrade from CS3 Design Premium to CS5.5 Master Collection. If this new pricing model was already in place my upgrade cost would have spiked to the full $2500 fee, just as if I've never owned the product. I've been using Adobe Photoshop since version 2.5 and Illustrator since version 4. I deserve a little better treatment than someone who has never been a customer before. I very strongly advise Adobe to at least maintain a somewhat reasonable "any CS version upgrade price" option rather than gouging users with a full price fine for sitting out one version cycle. That is extremely bad customer service.

In this down economy the last thing that businesses and individuals want/need is another freaking revolving monthly bill. Pricing on Creative Cloud is ultimately more expensive than just buying the upgrade box when it becomes available. Add up all those monthly payments over 18 months. When you buy an upgrade box for one payment you also have the option not to buy it if the upgrade doesn't do much compared to the previous version. With Creative Cloud you have to be on the monthly bill hook forever just to be able to protect your software investment.

It wouldn't surprise if Adobe changes up terms to where someone couldn't sell their aging license to someone else.

BTW, IMHO the prices in the subscription plan are a giant rip-off for anyone using these products on a long term basis. Going by the prices in the Adobe Store, a one year subscription to Master Collection would cost over $1500 per year ($1548 is $129 X 12). The $129 price X 18 months is $2322.

The $50 subscription price some have been mentioning in regard to Scott Kelby's open letter only applied to a Photoshop Extended subscription alone. It does not include any other Creative Suite products. Overall, it is a lot cheaper to keep buying the upgrade boxes. The subscription model only seems useful if someone has to use a certain Adobe product on a very temporary basis.

It might even trun out that one could sell a license for an older version for more than Adobe allowed for prior upgrades.

For example, I did not think that CS5 had enough benefits over CS4 to cause me to upgrade. Had I been a new customer, I might conclude the same thing, that is, CS 5 did not justify the cost of buying it vs buying a license to a prior version at a discount. Therefore, a market might develope for licenses for past versions of Adobe products. There could be enough of a number of new buyers willing to buy prior license to meet the supply of those that want to upgrade.

I wonder if Adobe would actively support legal license transfers in a professional manner or if they would try to stone wall this?

You are quoting the current rental prices for the suite and Photoshop, but Scott was replying to this announcement where you can see that the Creative Suite Master Collection monthly subscription is going to be $50 a month - what you would now pay to rent Photoshop on its own.....

Even if the Creative Cloud pricing model holds true ($50 per month for everything in the Adobe Master Collection arsenal, as well as Muse, Edge, etc.) it's still more expensive than buying a Master Collection box upgrade from the previous version. $50 per month equals $600 per year. And that's $900 over 18 months, the typical Adobe CS product cycle. This pricing is along the lines of someone buying every upgrade. Many users choose to sit out one or two product generations and wait for an upgrade that is a big enough upgrade to buy. Users are already penalized badly enough for choosing that route. The 1 version back death penalty just makes it even more absolute.

There's lots of existing users who have suites in the CS2, CS3 and CS4 product generation. The clock is now ticking on their software investment, at least in terms of having it as a "perpetual license." If they don't immediately upgrade to CS5.5 before the CS6 product release they'll have only two choices if they even want to upgrade: pay full price for the traditional boxed software or go with the creative cloud model. Lots of people with aging software may just choose to tough it out by continuing to use the old programs.

As someone who was eagerly anticipating an upgrade to CS6 (currently on CS3) the moment it was released next year, I have to say this new policy leaves an extremely bad taste in my mouth.  Had this been announced, say... when CS5 was first released, I probably would've been more forgiving.  I wouldn't have minded upgrading from CS3 to CS5 in April 2010, and then CS5 to CS6 sometime in 2012.  I still wouldn't be particularly fond of the policy to exclude past versions, but I'd at least have had the chance to get a couple years use out of CS5 for that upgrade fee.  But the way this is being done, to qualify for an upgrade path to CS6 Master Collection upon its release, I'll need to purchase CS5.5 (assuming I bought it before the 20% deal expires, it'll cost me a little over $1100 USD) as it approaches the end of its life-cycle.  I'll get, what?  A few months use out of that, and then if I want CS6 (which I do), I'll have to upgrade to that for whatever the upgrade cost from 5.5 to 6 might be.  I'm sorry, but that's not something I'm going to be doing.

I hope Adobe comes to its senses and takes Scott Kelby's advice to hold off on this policy until CS7 rolls around.  At least that way, no existing users of pre-CS5 software will be stuck with a horrendous cost-of-entry in order to get into the upgrade cycle without lagging forever behind.  Yes, I could buy 5.5 now and then not upgrade until 6.5 was a few months away from being replaced by CS7 (essentially only having to pay once every 2 years or so)... but being forever sentenced to lag behind like that unless I absorb a ~$2000 double-upgrade within the span of a few months is off-putting enough to make me drop Adobe software for good.

While I do want CS6, I don't want it enough to just lay down and take this.  If Mr. Kelby's advice isn't heeded, I can assure Adobe that Master Collection CS3 will be the final version of any Adobe product I own.  If you truly want to institute this new upgrade policy (though I'd advise against it in general), wait until CS7.  If not, here's one customer you'll lose for sure; and based on the backlash this is receiving thus far in just a few weeks, I believe I would be far from the only one.  There are probably still many customers who haven't even heard, not regularly following the kind of tech or industry blogs it's been reported on (and certainly not following Adobe Press Announcements).  Imagine their outraged shock when they come to your website on the day CS6 is announced or released, only to find their software is no longer eligible for an upgrade.

If Photoshop was the only Adobe application I had to worry about upgrading I wouldn't sweat it over the new licensing model. The reality is I use multiple Adobe applications frequently.

Whether or not a "casual user," small business or large business can afford to upgrade through every Adobe product cycle is one issue. That issue is compounded by the fact not every Adobe product upgrade is really worth buying.

Any long time Adobe customer has gone through the experience of being a little underwhelmed by an upgrade to the very next version. While new Photoshop features like Content Aware Fill are pretty nice (when they work as advertised) it's not quite as much of a game changing feature as the arrival of layers or the history palette back in the 1990s. Photoshop's new HDR and panorama stitching tools are improved. But they're arguably still outperformed by 1 or more third party applications. Not every causal Photoshop user or business using Photoshop has the need to mess with HDR images or stitched panoramas. I'm willing to bet most Photoshop users would probably still be able to do everything they need to do with the program even if they were using a 10 year old copy. Most of the program's basics are still there.

I don't think Adobe is taking this factor into account as it expects every individual or business user to upgrade through every product cycle, no matter how overwhelming or underwhelming the new upgrade may be. There is a very strong chance a great deal of both individual users and business users will just stick with the old versions of Adobe products they're using.

With Adobe demanding full price for an upgrade if a user sits out one version of a product cycle that will give individual and businesses users more incentive to just keep using old versions of Adobe software as long as the software keeps working. I would probably still be using CS3 applications if they worked on my Win7 64-bit machine. Having to pay full price for a new "perpetual license" would be a little easier if one just didn't bother upgrading that license "seat" for several years.

I've heard it from at least a few service bureaus their main reason for upgrading to the latest versions of Illustrator or InDesign is merely being able to open customer submitted files without having to ask those customers to save down to an earlier version. Even with having Illustrator CS5.1 out of habit I usually save finalized artwork down to something like CS3 so more collegues will be able to open the artwork without any problems.

Re: Disney customers willing to pay more for the prestige of getting park hopper passes, I don't think those people represent everyone in the United States. The reality is those "McMansion Owners" represent a small part of the general public. Personally, I think a trip to Disney World is quite overpriced and overrated.

Adobe is trying to make a very bold grab for increased positive cash flow. To paraphrase an old Star Wars metaphor, the more Adobe squeezes its registered users the more of us will slip through their fingers. I think this strategy is going to back-fire. Instead of increasing cash flow, I think the move will reduce Adobe's cash flow quite significantly.

Bob the Sign Guy wrote:

 

Adobe is trying to make a very bold grab for increased positive cash flow. To paraphrase an old Star Wars metaphor, the more Adobe squeezes its registered users the more of us will slip through their fingers. I think this strategy is going to back-fire. Instead of increasing cash flow, I think the move will reduce Adobe's cash flow quite significantly.

Time will tell whether they will make more or less money this way.

Clearly many companies are struggling for revenue during the current down turn, and will be looking to get more revenue from existing customers.  Trouble is, the down turn affects their customers too.  US and Europe are now facing the possible double-dip recession, and although the second dip is predicted to be less deep (in terms of growth rate hit) it may be longer, and have a more profound effect on spending patterns.  From surveys it appears consumers are no longer thinking of a quick hit, and so long as you keep your job you're OK.  Rather, people (it seems) are thinking that long-term they're not going to have as much money to spend.  For years, not just months.  That makes people consider cheaper options on any possible spend (one option being not to spend).  Businesses that were talking about spending a bit more as we come out of recession are battening down the hatches again.  For some businesses as well as for consumers, having the latest version of Photoshop is an option, not a necessity.  How many licenses you have is another choice. 

As I say, time will tell. 

While the downturn was partially responsible for my decision not to upgrade to CS5 when it first came out (my normal habit is to upgrade pricey software every second major release), I can say it's not responsible for my irritation now.  Now, it's mostly just the principle of the thing, when Adobe asks me to put down over $1100 (or $1400 if I don't make the purchase immediately within the next 3 weeks) right now just so that I'll be able to be eligibile to upgrade to the version I was planning to a few months down the road.  Even if it's only $550 to upgrade from 5.5 to 6, to me, that feels like exortion.  When I opted to not buy CS5 Master Collection for financial considerations during the downturn, I was trusting in Adobe's 3 version back policy to enable me to wait for CS6 and still get a discount on the upgrade (albeit, less of one than were I upgrading from CS5, but I believed I'd be better able to absorb the cost in another year or two, and that's proven to be correct).  If that trust turns out to have been misplaced, and Adobe chooses to throw loyalty long-time customers out the window with this last-minute announcement in a bid to grab a quick buck, then it  certainly won't be forgotten.  Not by me, nor by many others.

As far as the Disney World comments go, I don't agree.  This is true for some things, perhaps (like Disney World, although I'd argue its visitors aren't necessarily representative of the behaviour of the masses under normal circumstances), but not even close to being true for everything.  Look at what's happened to Netflix when they announced unwelcome changes to certain fundamental aspects of their service, which included drastic price increases.  Customer backlash, plummeting stock values, quick backpedallling, apologies.  And that was all over much less cost to the customer, in terms of dollars spent, than these new changes Adobe is making.

Personally, if it comes to that, I'm simply not going to participate in a coercive upgrade model.  I look forward to Adobe's response to Kelby's open letter, ideally sometime in the next couple weeks before that 20% off deal expires.  The more people who rush to purchase CS5.5 before the end of the year for that paltry 20%, the more potentially upset customers who'll feel that they were extorted if Adobe backpedals on this decision and it turns out their CS3 or CS4 product would've been eligible after all.  The clock is ticking.

There are some grey spots in the communication that, I feel, Adobe should answer.

1)Historically, there has always been a grace period, that allowed get the newer version for free if you purchased the old one very close, or after the announcement, and before the actual disponibility of the new version of the Creative Suite. This would allow, this time, to upgrade from CS3 onwards to CS5.5, and get CS "next", bypassing, this time, the one version limit.

I am wondering if Adobe did not have to react due to the lenghtening of the release cycle of full versions.

Before, major versions were released 18 months apart.

Three versions back then was 54 months, so 4years and 6 months.

Now, under the new releases model, a three "full versions" gap would equal 60 months, but with 6 point versions apart...

But the change to a single full version is quite harsh, and is computed by many as the trick to make the Creative Cloud cheaper than an upgrade.

But in fact the Creative Cloud is already cheaper if you add the point versions upgrades, subscriptions to Muse, Carousel and maybe Edge, plus the price of whatever tablet apps are released.

Compared to the Master Suite.

If one uses only, say the Video Production, and has no need for the other offerings, going the Creative Cloud way is more expensive.

(BTW, the text on this page is confusing, master collection should be removed from the upgrade plans below the three first ones:

2)Another point that is not clear: there does not seem to be an upgrade plan for existing owners of suites to the creative cloud. If the stated goal is to move all customers into a subscription, some incentive should be there for historical customers.

Hope Adobe will listen to their users.

cd key www.onlinecdkeyseller.com

If they'd knocked a few hundred dollars off the full sell price (and maybe some off the upgrade price as well), it seems to me people might have ignored the "one version back" upgrade policy change in their zeal to talk about how great Adobe was for making their software more affordable to more users.

There's an element of truth to that.

Off topic a little: When the Creative Suites were first introduced in 2003, the rush to get the deeply discounted software was akin to Black Friday.

I remember howls of protest in these forums when people gradually realized that they could not upgrade single components of the Suites. Only Suite to Suite upgrades were (and are) available.

There was nothing new about that policy. It was always part of the Suite deal (pardon the pun). But the low entry price meant many ignored the fine print.

Interestingly, this time around, rather than being viewed as a good deal, the limited-time 20% off CS5.5 offer is being viewed more cynically, primarily due to its poor timing and its clear link to the one-version-back policy - as Kelby points out - I suspect.

One aspect of the Creative Cloud I find a little more interesting is the inclusion of Typekit to give users access to possibly thousands of typefaces for use as web fonts on web sites. The Typekit service on its own seems to be pretty reasonably priced. Although one can bundle only so many type families into a web site design before falling into areas of bad taste. Still, just about all the type I own has licensing which expressly forbids bundling into web sites using techniques like @font-face. Considering the various subscriptions Typekit offers I wonder which tier Creative Cloud customers will be placed.

I would be much more excited about the Creative Cloud if type licensing access extended over into various forms of print use.

Adobe has never been very generous in terms of the amount of type it bundles into applications or suites. Over the years the offerings in type have become ever more paltry. I was very underwhelmed by the lack of bundled type I found in Master Collection CS5.5. And the bonus download of Adobe Text could have at least featured more weights -like what was delivered with Adobe Garamond PremierPro in CS2. 34 weights in PremierPro; just 6 in Adobe Text. Competitors like Corel and Deneba have gone considerably farther with their type offerings. The only thing I can say against them is their bundled fonts often have limited character sets, and applications like CorelDRAW still don't have full OpenType feature support to access extended character sets. OTOH, I get the feeling most users don't really care about things like ligatures, fraction numeral sets, alternative characters, etc. Likewise, a pretty significant portion of the bundled type in Adobe Master Collection CS5.5 was in the form of "legacy" TrueType fonts with limited character sets.

Quality type is expensive. However, one of the reasons why good type is so expensive is so very few people are willing to pay extra for it. If the base of paying users is dramatically expanded somehow then the price of foundry quality type could be radically reduced while still giving typeface designers good pay for their work.

Unfortunately more and more large American businesses are more steeped to selling stock to shareholders instead of selling product to customers.

Lots of graphic designers are caught in a squeeze. The broader economy is still pretty bad, making it necessary for many to work even harder chasing after a limited number of projects. A lot of markets have been poisoned by self-taught amateurs who don't know what to charge for certain types of work. Sadly, the average customer doesn't know the difference between good design and bad design. So they'll save a buck and get their stuff from someone likely to set everything in freaking Arial and Comic Sans, with the lettering distorted to boot. Amateur hour has affected most niches of creative work. I recently saw an article (I think at the Forbes web site) listing 10 jobs where the earnings weren't worth the hassle or overhead to pursue. Professional photographer was listed among those jobs. Anyone with a DSLR suddenly thinks he's Eddie Adams. By that logic, if I buy the same model of Les Paul used by Zack Wylde shouldn't I be able to play just as well as him?

Anyway, the simple point of that rant is many designers do not have it easy. If Adobe wants to start hitting users with a sort of Apple style "Mac tax" for the priveledge of using their software products it's just going to make the situation a little bit tougher still.

Re: the perspective grid in Illustrator. I rarely ever used that feature when it was introduced in Macromedia Freehand. It may come in handy for certain kinds of graphic effects. In terms of creating a 3D illustration or 3D technical drawing, I would rather use a real 3D modeling program to get the job done or sketch something by hand, scan it and then dress it up in Illustrator and/or Photoshop. For me the bigger improvement in Illustrator CS5 was the addition of adjustable variable stroke widths, controls over arrow heads and dashed lines and more graphics tablet oriented drawing tools (like the bristle brush) to give vector-based artwork a more natural feel. It lessens to need to draw/paint something by hand and scan/trace the results.

For me, it's not so much the priciple of the change, it's the lack of funds.

<Homer Simpson> Stupid economy! </Homer Simpson>

I suppose, if I do get the CS5.5 upgrade, but don't fall into the grace period, I'd still have like two years to get the upgrade to CS6.0 before I'd be SOL about upgrading to CS7.0. Maybe I'll win the Lotto or something.

I wonder how this will play out with Adobe's European customers, as they already pay much more than Americans do.

That amazed me too - I think it must have noticed that there was a similar wall with edge nearby.  I honestly did not retouch this - all I did was Edit - Fill after selecting all around the light pole, a few pixels out.  The only things after were to crop and downsample the image before posting it here.

You have pointed out some minor issues where the palm leaves were copied from nearby by the tool, but I'll bet you'd never notice them if you weren't shown exactly what to look for and where to look for it.

-Noel

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

For Photographers it seems to me the improved quality of the Camera Raw converter ("2010 Process") alone is worth the upgrade price for Photoshop.

Agreed, but I get the improved Camera Raw with Lightroom.  That's a much cheaper upgrade, and for me worth upgrading every time.  I upgraded to Photoshop CS5 (from CS3) but can't justify upgrading every time, so I'm probably stuck with CS5 for the indefinite future. 

PS - very impressed by your content aware demo, and have had similarly unbelievable results.  It's a real time-saver, but I think that comes in Elements now, doesn't it? 

Lawrence,

Sort of like "desktop publishing" hurt design, and typography, as ANY underling could output a brochure...

Hunt, the retired "architectural photographer"