Changes to Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, Professional Edition

I decided to reply here instead of the other little thread that was going (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1419927?tstart=0). 

I'm sure I'm not the only small agency owner that has a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach right about now.  This policy / pricing model change sinks my entire digital publishing business.  We cater to small local companies and produce multiple multi-folio apps for them.  NONE of them can support a $4800 per year fee.  As it stands currenlty, we are able to spread out the costs so that no one client pays more than $1000 per year (and some are less).

Sorry if I sound like I'm just complaining, and believe me, I know I'm pissing into the wind here.  I'm just disappointed that Adobe couldn't figure out a pricing model that allowed for the small guys to at least get in the door with their clients.  People always get peeved that Apple / Amazon / etc take 30% of their revenue... but, that model at least lets you get in the door.  It costs $100 and some know-how to get an app produced and into the app store.

Adobe has now taken multi-folio apps off the table for almost any small agency like ours.  They instantly set a high barrier to entry, which I personally think is the wrong approach.  Make us pay more if we're successful, but don't kill us for trying and failing.  Which is what could happen now by forking over $4800 for a possibly untested app.  Before this policy change we could at least indulge our creativity with clients, and let clients with little / no budgets get into the game.  Now they're cut out... and unfortunately, so are we.

This is the only "rant" I've EVER put in a forum (if you can believe that), and I hope its my last.  I hope one day to not be in this position.  I hope my small company can get to the point where we can afford an Enterprise license.  I'm just afraid that dream became infinitely more difficult now as we can't "build" up to it any longer on our client base.  I, for one, won't stop serving the little local companies...

The whole time we lose with other vendors of digital publications by the high cost of downloads (yes - 0,21E is too high for many clients).

And now it will additionally terribly high price for the license. I dont understand Adobe politics and sincerely regret that three years ago I invested in it.

Other vendors takes money either for a license or for downloads.

Adobe want to charge BIG money for everything.

Good luck.

I can only agree with GPB.... It's a sad day for small agency's! I was even hoping that the single edition would expand to iPhone & Android... But now I know that's just a dream that's never gonna happen. I now have to skype with my first clinet to tell him what happened today. He has 2 different magazines, who come out on iPad and iPhone and planned to go for android . (One is twice a year , the other just once )

Grts N

Its the end of our digital publishing business. Readers are not buying magazines in the numbers the industry had hoped and now this.

This is greed at its worst and it's disgusting. This leaves publishers with ZERO options to pay one flat monthly fee (sub-$500) for multiple apps. The agency model for Professional Edition was a fantastic business model for publishers, but you guys are delusional if you think that agencies won't join up to buy one license together and/or launch a new digital publishing software to compete with Adobe. Adobe has made a lot of enemies today.

At least we know WHY Adobe is doing what it's doing.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/adobe-profit-slides-as-product-sales-decline-2013-12-12-1 6485312

The money and the out-of-the-clear-blue-sky shock, which hurts, believe me, put to one aside; these points need clarifying:

1. For monthly users, does the change also take effect from the renewal date. So in our case that would mean we have 9 days to sort out a new accounts and shift assets over?
2. Is Adobe providing some sort of easy way to move titles from one account to another? The system that existed last time I looked took an age - requiring downloading, changing accounts, uploading, republishing for *each issue*. Where is the documentation?
3. Does it mean creating a new version of the multi-viewer reader so that it links to the right account, submitting it to Apple for approval (which has never taken less than two weeks - so that blows the 9 day deadline)?
4. Has the option to purchase monthly licenses gone from the store?
5. What happens if there are two or more titles on an account when the deadline roles around? Do they all stop working? Does the original work and the rest stop?

Bob, can clarify this point in adobes email

"If you expect to publish three or more apps annually, we encourage you to contact your local reseller to discuss pricing for a multi-year Enterprise Edition license."

Does this mean an Enterprise license can publish multile Apps like Pro used to do?

Its easy to scream at Adobe and call them greedy.  Ultimately they are a business with shareholders, and they can do whatever their number crunchers feel is in their best interest.  So be it.

I'll be curious to see if they actually get the uptake that they are forecasting with this move.  I honestly don't believe that enough of the small people using Pro edition right now will simply fork over the extra money per app.  This certainly can't be about trying to get people onto Enterprise licenses, because the companies that need / can afford that will buy it regardless.

For a company that is supported by creative individuals, it seems like a poor decision in my eyes to squash that.  Creativity has to start small most of the time, and at times you fail.  Now we can't afford to fail at $4800 per year!  Who wants to take that risk...?

And yes, I understand single edition is still there... but it has obvious limitations despite being "free" to publish.  This is more about purchasing something, building your business around it, and then having it taken away in one email.  You hope when you use a company's products that they just get better over time.  This may be overlay dramatic, but I feel like Apple just took the screen off my iPhone and said "here's your new improved phone!".

Enterprise could always publish multiple apps as far as I knew.

I'm more curious about the rest of that statement... the multi-year enterprise edition license.  The last time I talked to Adobe an Enterprise license was around $50,000 per year.  This statement suggest that a multi-year enterprise license is similar, or less, in cost to 3 apps (which comes out to ~$15,000 per year).

I wasn't aware of this multi-year enterprise license... is this something new? 

But as every fall you make. It's requires us tos tep up again; an dthan you can choose to continue the same path or try another way; None of the both guarantees that you don't fall again.

But at least you'd tried. So I did a quick check and was like, hey there's alternatives for dps, and hey now they're price competetive....

The last time I talked to Adobe DPS  Enterprise was $125k a year (with a three year commitment) plus 25k setup cost.

With technology changing at the pace it does, and with the mysterious "free licensing of the .folio format" hanging out there, who wants to sign up for a 3-year commitment?

The problem is there are few, if any Adobe DPS alternatives that actually accept the .FOLIO file format right now. Pixelmags, Mag+, etc. all use PDF to publish their magazines. Why change the format of what you have? Let's all group together and collectively use one Enterprise license. DPS is a great software to use - but if Adobe thinks they're going to make millions and billions more because of this, they're gravely mistaken.

That was a shock today. I was thinking first to close my agency. The question of prices and licenses have been discussed right here. Thanks for that. The conduct of Adobe here is indecent. We have made contracts on the basis of the Adobe license. Maybe if Adobe would say that from 2015 there is no longer this type of license, it would be tolerable. So it is a kick in the *** for the Adobe loyal customers. I can not say who should pay the additional costs. I feel we will lose a lot of customers.

As a company who is using a monthly Pro subscription to publish/update 5 multi-folio apps for one client and has been advertising our digital publishing services to other clients, the terms of this change (immediately) seems extremely unfair.

What do we tell the customer we have contracted with to create and maintain these apps?  Adobe can price their products/services as high as they want to, but to "immediately" change the terms, without giving their customers any chance to plan for the change, is very disrespectful.

Immediate changes to pricing/terms are one of the primary concerns of those critical of the Creative Cloud model.  Now we have a very real example of how Adobe feels they can treat their paying customers, a vast majority of which are providing creative services to customers of their own.  If we can't count on fair treatment and forewarning of any changes that will increase the cost of doing business then how can we be expected to rely on Adobe products?  We could "immediately" increase prices on our customers, create additional hurdles for them to do business with us, etc. but we don't because we respect our customers and want to have a mutually beneficial relationship with them.  A warning so that they can have time to adapt to change is part of treating our customers well so that they remain our customers.  Why would Adobe make such drastic changes so quickly, in a way that alienates their customers (and negatively impacts their customers' clients)?

This is a huge change for many Pro subscribers and their clients, it should be treated as such.

Slow clap Adobe, well done, nice one! Like everyone else, as a small agency building for other clients, this news would put me out of business, IF, it wasn't for the fact that I've nearly always created single issue apps. so maybe I'm just a lucky one. But I fully back every other comment on here.  It's a disgrace that Adobe are giving such little notice for starters, even down to the small detail of the fact that the email came through as a blanket generic email, how difficult is it to be personal these days, Adobe will know this is a BIG deal to some companies, so can't be bothered to take the time to make the email personal - nice touch! Think thats enough for now, I'm almost speechless.

Even DPS Pro before today was pretty expensive for my company. We publish very specialized business magazines for small niche markets and only the fact that we could publish several apps for the same price made us dicide to go for DPS Pro 1,5 year ago. The number of new subscriptions for our apps were very disappointing so far and as we decided to publish most folios for free we just had more costs as we had to buy more fulfillments.

These changes to DPS Pro will make it impossible for us to continue with Adobe Digital Publishing software. I thought we we're all still figuring out how to intergrate digital publishing in our existing publishing business models and Adobe and guys like Bob Bringhurst and many others were on our side, as part of the same team so to speak.

As I think I'm not the only one who thinks it's impossible to continue with Adobe DPS under this new policy I wonder if Adobe has thought this over well enough. Shouldn't there be at least an offer to existing DPS Pro clients who have based their whole digital publishing strategy on the original idea of DPS Pro that you could publish several multi folio apps from within the same subscription to DPS Pro? 

Terrible news

I'm a small publisher and I guess that the professional edition, have been a bad business for Adobe. Its very sad.

And I guess, that Adobe ar ready to hand over customers to other digital publishing solutions, like MAG+, AQUAFADAS etc....

I feel that DPS is a great product, and the support is magnificent for DPS Professionel........

Last hope - Im very curious about the multi year enterprice license.

Three or more apps, nobody will pay quarter/half or millions for that. You could buy a lot of NEW DPS Professional solutions for that price.

I need to find a solution for my clients

This is very disturbing and poorly handled change in the Pro license and leaves us as small publisher questioning our decision to trust Adobe with our digital publishing future. We are now seriously considering leaving the Adobe DPS platform as we fear what other major changes to the licence might be sprung on us.

Another hard problem is the cost of folios pack if you go over 250/1000 of the first year.

Is this cost the same? And minimum is 5000 or 10000 folios?

yes exactly, how can we have any faith in Adobe now, not to change the T&C's so dramatically... and effectively without notice, how can we build or continue a business, under these conditions?

This without a doubt will cripple our digital publishing initatives not to mention cause or clients to go elsewhere for their needs. Adobe has given no thought with respect to what this means to our annual contracts. Here's the kicker, our renewal is up in 14 days! How are we supposed to restrategize how we develop our apps for our cients with such short notice. We were extremely satisfied with the relationship we HAD with Adobe. I never really considered other alternatives like Mag+  but if this license change does happen Adobe gives us no alternative but to discontinue that relationship with all of our Adobe products for our entire staff.

I'm trying to get more info on the current Enterprise license pricing, etc.  If I get anything I'll pass it along in the thread. 

I also have to agree with everyone about the "effective immediately" opening to our email today from Adobe.  It would have been nice to figure out how to try and save our client relationships (ie: give us more time!)... or better yet, simply grandfather in the current / past DPS Pro subscribers.  You know, taking care of those that supported you in the past!  I better stop with the sarcasm or Adobe might stop taking my money for my CC Team subscription...

I do want to apologize to Bob B and all the great Adobe people on this forum.  I know this isn't their fault...

as i have mentioned before i was (in past tense) planning a multilingual magazine (spanish, english and portuguese) each one in a different app using adobe dps. now ill have to pay three pro versions of dps, plus the folios...

if i build a native app  (enabled for inapp purchases and suscriptions) where ill be able to control all aspects (galleries, images, sound, video, etc) and where i wont depend on a third party (adobe) ill spend the same amount of money.

bye bye adobe

well said, GPB, the Adobe team and other fantastic contributors to this forum have been amazing over the last 3 years or so. Those of us that have been here since pre-release have seen some ups and downs, and generally the downs are only due to poor communications from Adobe top level. Sadly this is another instance. However, in the past Adobe have listened to the criticism, and all credit to them have changed or amend their plans. Lets hope there is some middle ground here for the guys that are most affected. I also have to say, that such a major change in T&C's just adds fuel to the argument against the Creative Cloud. It works for me at the moment, but what if another year down the line, something changes, and boom CC subs are doubled (or worse) because the biz model isn't working? oh dear oh dear oh dear!

It looks like Adobe want to make DPS a niche, premium product for big publishers only. This move will obviously drive a lot of people AWAY from DPS.

I just had a long phone conversation with an Adobe rep.  He apologized for how the announcement was handled, which was appreciated.  He also stated that small agency customers such as myself are a very very small minority in the DPS world (with multi-folio apps, at least), which I think we all could have assumed based on how this all went down.

Adobe is trying to work something out with my agency to move onto an Enterprise Level 1 license.  I need to have further discussions with Adobe on this, but it appears that they may require more from our side than we're able to provide.  Specifically they'd like us to work toward converting one or more of our larger clients to their own license, and I just don't know how feasible that is.  I understand that Adobe needs to grow their enterprise business, but as of right now, it leaves little to no room for the "little guys".

We talked at length about how a large part of my agency's developing business model is to create DPS apps for small, local companies.  For instance, we have a couple of small furniture store clients that we were working with to produce multi-folio apps for.  Something that NONE of their competitors has, and a potentially huge marketing opportunity!  Again, this is one example, and I have many more.  Under the old DPS model, we could do this.  We could pick up enough small clients and offset the $6-9,000 / year cost of DPS Pro.  Now, with moving to a per-app pricing model... this part of our business model can't work.  It's sad, because even though its such a small part of the Adobe DPS world, I think it holds great potential and opportunity for growth... for my small agency, and for Adobe.  For now at least, that can't happen.  I think its a hole in Adobe's strategy, and the only thing we can do is wait to see how long before they feel it necessary to pursue filling it...

Without giving a ver-batim account of my conversations with the Adobe rep, I'll try to keep everyone updated if you're interested.  You may not be a fit for what Adobe is selling, but I think it at least warrants talking to Adobe if you're a small agency such as ours affected by this.  We just have to swallow our medicine and realize they are NOT going to backtrack on this pricing model change, at least not anytime soon...

Yep my other company is in the same boat as you. Small agency publishing essentailly creating a tablet market for small localized (City/state) customers.  Which is also why I think we're a very, very small portion of the market... It's a whole new opportunity for small businesses who in the past might have been happy with a simple flash/html flip book and or mobile site). My reseller was contacting Adobe to also see about Entry Level Enterprise Solutions. Just need a pricing structure so we have something to shoot for and maintain with growth. 

I'm highly optimistic that Adobe will resolve this dilemma put forth to their small and medium size customers. However I've been given strict instructions by my superiors to provide alternative options. After speaking with the Adobe Rep, I had the exact same conevrsation GPB had, I dont see this going away rather force us into an Enterprise level that is just not a good business model for us given the low number of clients we have. We just started seeing some growth with this side of the business and it's sad that Adobe has chosen to pull the plug on us like this. Still the Adobe platform is truly a great product for making these applications quickly and easily so I'm putting some faith that they will listen to the small guy.

Thank you karinvw for posting options, I'm sure everyone else is doing the same thing I am so it would be helpful to know what is out there.

Just got off the phone with my rep to discuss what my options are in the wake of the pro account changes.

I was told I could move into a global account for $650,000 a year, or a North American account for $375,000 a year. Keep in mind I was told $125k a year just 6 months ago.

I love the transparency and consistency of the enterprise pricing.

Thanks for the new info, Bob.  I was going to email the address you gave about some clarification (and I probably still will)... but does this mean it doesn't affect apps ALREADY published only... or anything that we publish before our current contract runs out?

For instance, we have several multi-folio apps in development, and have an annual Pro license that runs out in June.  Can we still publish our apps in development as long as its before our June license cut-off... or does this only apply to apps ALREADY in the app store(s)?

The same could be said for monthly subscribers... can they rush to get apps published before their monthly renewal (if that's even possible)?

Thanks,

Greg

This is some of the best news today. And what I had originally hoped for... essentially grandfathering in existing multi-folio apps. Thank you a million folios

Bob:

Were on a monthly subscription with only 9 days until renewal. What does this mean for the app currently under development?

It has not gone to Apple for review and it will for sure not be approved before our renewal is up.

In my agency that will not help. We are not able to finish the production of the three new apps in the next two weeks. If we then pay for each new app Euro 300 per month, then we must reduce the income for our work. With 10 new apps, the designers have 3000 euros vinous income every month. For some agencies, this "compromise" is only a short-term rescue. In the long run this will not work. This case also shows that Adobe is definitely not a partner you can trust.

A complete business model based on Adobe services has just died.

Thanks for the update Bob. Adobe should probably have mentioned that in the original communication.

In any event as an agency who is interested in growing my business I still dont think this goes far enough. If I was just going to keep my current client list and add no more, than it could be viable (assuming Adobe dont change the rules again in 6 months).

But I want to grow my clients so Im not going to pay the licencing costs for 2 publishing systems as there is no way I will use DPS Pro for new clients. I am also not interested in keeping my skill set up for 2 publishing systems where one will do. My goal remains to find a new publishing system that satisfies my needs and move all my DPS Pro Apps (30+) over to the new publisher (and other viable publishers do exist despite a previous post on here getting removed).

On a more 'relationship' based note I dont want to work with Adobe anymore. Bob, Neil and others in here have been fantastic. But that 'effective immediately' email still galls me to my core. It wouldnt have cost Adobe one cent to have crafted an email that treats their loyal customers with some respect. The fact they didnt bother tells me all I need to know about what they think of me and my business.

Create new apps and place for approval and then not publish. And hope for best.