John, Gordon,

AFAIK Adobe hasn't said anything particular about that today, but generally-speaking the company does have a money-back Refund and Return Policy (even if you bought from elsewhere), if that's something you wanted to consider.

Hey John, actually there should be a refund available under regular policy for purchases within the past 30 days - that's normal. 

Also don't forget their tiered upgrade pricing whereby customers on more recent versions will pay less to upgrade to CS6 than those on older versions - meaning any outlay to get to CS5.5 would not be wasted but rather stepped closer.

I was devastated by this news.

I am not a pro user but a serious hobbyist.  I'll never recover the outlay for Adobe software.  I started with just PS, then went GoLive and moved on to Creative Suite.  I have been through three versions of that.  Everytime I have ever purchased or upgraded it has always been a difficult decision to manage family/hobby commitments.  I deleiberately skipped CS5 and the ambiguity of CS5.5 and have been regularly pondering the costs of CS6.    Now sadly, I think Adobe has priced me out.

Martin

I am one of those people who are extremely upset that they forced me to buy an upgrade (that i never wanted or needed) then say "oh, BTW you didn't have to upgrade, you're welcome" Nice attitude, but i'm not buying it. They had this plan in motion for some time, but figured the backlash for people who shelled out the money wouldn't be enoough of a concern to wrorry about it. Then they would look good in front of people who wanted the change. It's all BS IMO.

Adobe has yet to understand my concerns with CS5 photoshop not working correctly. They sent me the wrong version, refunded, sent another version and now claim they won't help because they refunded me for a version that I don't even have anymore. Hours on the phone, hours on chat, hours online in forums and still not one of my concerns addressed. I fill out the form to get a "call back" from adobe and after three appointments set up, NO CALLS! so i'm just wasting my time.

PLEASE people keep telling adobe how bad they are at customer service and maybe they will start to listen. I have a product I never wanted, that is not working correctly and no real help from Adobe.

I am one of those people who are extremely upset that they forced me to buy an upgrade (that i never wanted or needed) then say "oh, BTW you didn't have to upgrade, you're welcome"

Paul, nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to upgrade. Let's be rational here.

Adobe's policy, in a word, sucked. They recognized it was bad. They changed it. I am currently using Photoshop CS3 because I do a lot of scanning and the upgrades of Photoshop do not use TWAIN and do not support in-application scanning (by the way, Adobe's Acrobat Pro does support in-app scanning, so if Adobe were to just borrow a couple of software engineers from them for a month or so, they could write something up just great for Photoshop). So I dd not upgrade Photoshop.

I can get the full version of CS 5 Extended for just south of $300 if I do a search for the software. Upgrade pricing is right around $150 consistently if you are one level down. I would have spent $300 had I upgraded to CS4 and then CS5 and, if I upgraded before any discounts were available, I would have spent more than $300. Assuming I could get CS6 (which is, at this writing not released), my price would, if I was doing the upgrade mill routine be $450 to keep the current version of Photoshop. Certainly, within six months of its release, I would be able to buy a full version of Photoshop CS6 for around $300, saving $150 in the process.

Here is the lesson: Buy what you need and don't be controlled by external influences.

Adobe would love for everyone to pay them continually to keep developing their software. Development is expensive—everyone knows that. So Adobe is going to set pricing and everything else to maximize returns. Assume that.

Here is what you get (assuming you are in business in the United States) if you upgrade every cycle:

• You may be able to get a regular tax deduction for the business investment. So you may reduce your taxes by upgrading. Adobe gets the money and Uncle Sam gets less.
• You get a cheaper upgrade price, but we have all ready seen that it may not be cheaper if you hang on to what you have for a little longer and buy the full version every three versions.
• You get to use the new tools (if Adobe does put new tools into the software—and many times they don't).

Here is what you get if you don't upgrade every cycle:

• No tax deduction—but no outlay for the upgrade, either.
• Software that you know, which means you do not have to adapt your workflow.
• If you wait for three upgrades, there is a substantial savings if you buy full versions instead of upgrade versions.
• No need to upgrade your computer because the new software doesn't run on your older hardware.
  

So take your pick and make smart business decisions that work for you and are not influenced by any other company. And realize that, unless someone is holding a gun to your head, nobody is forcing you to do anything.

 

Paul, nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to upgrade. Let's be rational here.

 

They most certainly held a virtual gun when they told me outright that" if i wanted to upgrade to CS6 or future version of Photoshop, i had to buy cs5!" That is the equivalent of a "virtual: gun in my opinion. How can you say it is not? It's a do this or you can't do that situation is it not? then for them to say oh, never mind you don't have to buy this, to upgrade to that, which was them LYING to the customers.

I also don't believe they did this because of the customer backlash to the policy. They had to have something like this planned ahead of time.  If you were not forced to buy a product that one , you didn't want, 2nd still doesn't work on my machine, and third -you can't get ANY customer service to help you with the program working correctly or getting credit towards CS6, then you really don't have a leg to stand on. Talk to me when you spend hours on the phone trying to get a program to work that you were forced to buy.

macuser88 wrote:

 

Adobe’s world­wide upgrade policy was set to change after Decem­ber 31, 2011.

 

That's not correct -- their upgrade policy was not set to change on December 31, 2011 - the policy would change only when CS6 comes out, for upgrades at that time.

Adobe would have no way of definitively knowing when a customer purchased or upgraded to Creative Suite 5.5, so there could be no earlier cutoff.

The only thing that was set to expire on 12/31/2011 was the additional 20% discount on upgrades to CS5.5 - but towards the end of December that offer was extended.

The difference now is that owning CS5 or CS5.5 is no longer a requirement to get future upgrade pricing to CS6, at least though the end of 2012.

So that December 31, 2011 date was a misunderstanding on significance, but to be fair, Adobe's communication on the issue was sparse and complex enough to be misread.



I'm STILL waiting for Adobe to call me back after weeks of trying. HELLO ADOBE????

I've filled out several call back request with no "call back". On Twitter with "Bing" and she didn't have all the information she needed to give me the correct answer, what do I have to do to get a response from adobe?

mhollis55 wrote:

 

Buy my product, Paul. It will prevent hair loss, remove loose teeth and cause you to have increased vitality. If you buy my product, you will live 135 years.

 

There, now I have lied to you.

 

Does it change any decisions you are going to make?

 

Seriously, I understand you feel tricked. So claim the purchase on your tax return and move on.

Because Tax writeoffs make everything ok, ..... I honestly don't know why you feel the need to waste my time with nonsense. - please troll elsewhere.

John Waller wrote:

 

Most people are happy they made the policy better,

 

Most of the online comments I've seen related to the "better policy" are focussed on the extraordinarily poor timing of the change and the fact that they feel duped into the CS5.5 upgrade.

 

Must say, it feels like a major misstep by Adobe and suggests that they're losing touch with user sentiment in some areas like this.

This is one of my major points. If they want people (me) to believe that they didn't have this in place already, then they should've let people know (who bought the product because they were specifically told by Adobe they had to buy it or they would pay full price) that the policy has changed and offer special pricing, or a coupon or SOMETHING/ ANYTHING.  I found out by reading the news aboutt he change and I was PIIIIISSSSSEEEED. Then after calling adobe more than once to complain with no solution, no case opened, nothing, it lead me to complain everywhere!  How many people that thought they had to buy CS5, or bought it and haven't found out yet they didn't need to buy it? How many companies that used year end $, or only had one shot to upgrade until next year now find out about it and can't do anything? Sure they will refund, but Let me tell you that procedure is not easy to go through when Adobe ignores you for over a month.  I believe it's on purpose thinkg you will eventually give up.

This has been a major headache for me and with no compenasation offered for the people who did unwillingly buy a product they didn't want. It's a kick in the (you know what)

The only thing Adobe had to do was send an email to people who bought CS5.5 and say "sorry here is a complimentary price on upgrading to cs6" SOMETHING! it could've been some made up number, but at the least it would've let peole know that Adobe carred about it's customers. Then for those who bought something they never wanted to buy, they woul've felt like the got compensation of some kind.

I agree with you, Paul. I also upgraded to CS5.5 because of Adobe 'virtual gun' that I would not be able to upgrade to CS6 from CS4. So I feel very cheated.

I contacted Adobe by Twitter (@Adobe_care) and a guy named Rohit Kumar DM'ed me that I was offered a free copy of Lightroom 3 (which I already own and is almost replaced by LR4) or to return my CS5.5 if bought directly form Adobe (which I did not.. I bought it through a Dutch reseller). I offered them to give me a free upgrade from LR3 to LR4 but haven't heard from then since then (which was almost one week ago).