back to article Adobe price hike: Your money or your files, frappuccino sippers

So, Adobe: can it justify shifting its Creative Suite to a contentious new licensing model? Some say it is making life more difficult and expensive for those users who'd prefer to simply purchase the software outright, while others say it's just a decent business trying to do right by everybody. I refer, of course, to the …

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  1. Anonymous IV

    "Can Adobe justify shifting its Creative Suite to a contentious new licensing model?2

    Trivial.

    Will it make more money for Adobe?

    If answer is Yes, then it's justified.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: "Can Adobe justify shifting its Creative Suite to a contentious new licensing model?2

      I guess that you are an Adobe shareholder. To me, as an Adobe user, I very much doubt that they could justify the change.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Can Adobe justify shifting its Creative Suite to a contentious new licensing model?2

        "I guess that you are an Adobe shareholder. To me, as an Adobe user, I very much doubt that they could justify the change."

        I'm not sure that the farmer worries too much about justifying his actions to the sheep.

        This move has, however, opened up a huge hole in Adobe's defences against competitors. The bar for a CS competitor has been lowered a great deal from "must be 10x better to have a chance" to something closer to "just has to open my files and let me do some reasonably decent work and save as PDF". Jesus, even Quark might stage a comeback.

        Subscriptions rob a product of momentum because the user has to keep pushing it; a bought package serves as its own reason to not change, whereas the rented package keeps asking the user to justify the cost every single month. That only works when there's no alternative.

      2. Simon Barker

        Re: "Can Adobe justify shifting its Creative Suite to a contentious new licensing model?2

        Depends on how you use it really, if you upgrade every new release then the subscription model would actually work out cheaper but I think most single users will upgrade every 3-4 years at which point it's cheaper with the old system.

        For most organisations I think Adobe has them by the short and curlies as based on past experience most people I've worked/known in design tend to favour working a certain way and that's going to discourage them from trying other products. Not forgetting the companies may also reason the same as Adobe that this new system is cheaper if they were going to upgrade with every new release anyway.

        Personally I can see myself using CS 2 for a very long time to come, there's not been any new features I especially care about or need (which I can see being true for many others) and as other posters have mentioned with this subscription model Adobe is more likely to make fewer improvements as more people are locked in. Not to mention I don't like the idea of renting my tools...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Its just makes it more difficult for new talent to enter the industry. Most of us started on pirate software to get the experience to be able to get the job. Now we have the job we can buy it.

    Hopefully they will have some kind of cheaper student version.

    1. Kebablog

      You think this will stop pirate software?

      1. Danny 14
        Facepalm

        adobe still offer CS2 for people to download and use with the posted key (if you purchased it of course!) It gets to something when that will do what most people require.

        (copyright infringement is bad in a civil way mmkay? so is stealing but that is a different argument/crime etc etc)

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Its just makes it more difficult for new talent to enter the industry

      Why? Surely they still offer a free trial at the very least?

      I haven't looked, but do they allow short-term subscriptions that cost less than buying a boxed copy?

      1. Mike Moyle

        Re: Its just makes it more difficult for new talent to enter the industry

        "I haven't looked, but do they allow short-term subscriptions that cost less than buying a boxed copy?"

        Individual programs are available @ $20/month (annual subscription) or $30/month (no contract); quit at any time.

    3. Amorous Cowherder
      Pirate

      Ha ha! Funny!

      Knowing how much this software is used by the world and his dog, I give it less than 24 hours after each release and there will be patches and patched versions available from your local "freetard trough" site!

    4. big_D Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Not so sure...

      I think a lot more people can afford 50 quid to "get-to-know" the products, rather than splurge 3K on it.

      I would say that it lowers the barrier of entry, a new start-up or self-employed person doesn't have to find a huge lump sum, they can give the equivalent of that lump sum out over 4 to 5 years... And if it doesn't work out, they can cancel their subscription.

  3. thomas k.

    valid assumption?

    This is predicated on the assumption that the 'creative' types will continue to use Adobe's software regardless of how it's sold. Is it really so superior to the competition (honest question, as I'm not very familiar with this type of software - I mostly use Paint) that a lot of people won't simply abandon it in favor of something else?

    1. chekri

      Re: valid assumption?

      Unfortunately it is that much better than the competition - well Photoshop is at least.

      There is Paint Shop Pro, Pixelmator or even Gimp or Paint.net but none of these have the immense amount of functionality and automation that you get with photoshop.

      I wish it weren't so and that we had a decent competitor to take over the lead.

      1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

        Re: valid assumption?

        The software is very good, but this model may prevent people upgrading - especially in the freelance sector.

        As for whether there's competition? Well, yes and no..

        Photoshop is the only one that has credible competition, and you could make a good case that for 90% of what the people using pirated PS copies are doing, they could do just as well with Gimp, which is free.

        Same kind of applies to DreamWeaver. As a developer doing occasional web stuff, I never saw the huge advantage of DreamWeaver over, say, SublimeText (plug: you owe it to yourself to try this editor!) and FireBug, but it has its devotees.

        On the other hand, from personal experience, there is nothing as good as Illustrator for design and illustration work. Not saying it's perfect, mind you, but just that the competition, both free and paid, is a whole lot less perfect.

        (I don't use InDesign, but I know people who swear it's the best part of Creative Suite.)

        1. Mike Moyle

          Re: Re: valid assumption?

          "Photoshop is the only one that has credible competition, and you could make a good case that for 90% of what the people using pirated PS copies are doing, they could do just as well with Gimp, which is free."

          I'm actually going through this at work right now. I REALLY wanted to be able to recommend FOSS publishing software -- GIMP, Scribus, and Inkscape -- but,with the POSSIBLE exception of Scribus (which, admittedly, I've only dabbled with) they're just not ready for professional publishing.

          The thing that keeps GIMP from being suitable for me, for example, is its lack of support for LAB or -- most critically -- CMYK colorspaces. Add to that the fact that the "roadmap" page lists high-end CMYK support as a low-priority item and I just don't see how I can recommend it.

          OTOH. The way that I see it is that @ $50/month, it will take the department a bit over two years to pay Adobe the equivalent of the price of CS6 Design Standard edition. Thus, if we go cloudy with a subscription, that gives the FOSS teams two years to get their programs up to something that I feel may be worth reconsidering before we hit the break-even point and start losing money.

      2. Mystic Megabyte
        FAIL

        Re: valid assumption?

        >>functionality and automation that you get with photoshop.

        Out of interest, I wonder if this still happens.

        Do an automated resize or something from C:\destination\source_images\ to C:\destination\ and see if your original images still exist. The last time I did that my images were gone, really gone.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: valid assumption?

          "Do an automated resize or something from C:\destination\source_images\ to C:\destination\ and see if your original images still exist. The last time I did that my images were gone, really gone."

          Should have used imagemagick :)

          1. BlueGreen

            Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

            I spent 6 hours trying to put a solid triangle onto a tranparent background and save it as a .png or .gif. I failed.

            imagemagick looks tremendously capable but it's so inconsistent and the documentation is laughable.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

              "imagemagick looks tremendously capable but it's so inconsistent and the documentation is laughable."

              Imagemagicks documentation is excellent, I think. If you can't find an example of how to do what you I'd be very surprised.

              http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/draw/

              1. BlueGreen

                Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

                Well, it took me over an hour to find a way of creating an image from scratch. Starting from the docs <http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-tools.php>, can you see it specified?

                Turns out you use convert. Here's what the docs that page say: "convert - convert between image formats as well as resize an image, blur, crop, despeckle, dither, draw on, flip, join, re-sample, and much more." No wonder I got lost there.

                The docs suck - examples are excellent (although I couldn't find one that covered my trivial needs) but they aren't docs. I stand by that.

                Transparency is not simple if imagery isn't your area: <http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/masking/#alpha> and <http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/formats/#boolean_trans> and for heaven's sake, try to make sense of -alpha, ‑transparent and ‑transparent‑color in here <http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php>.

                But you can't blame IM for my newbiness, perhaps I should have just asked on a forum. If I get the chance I'll look at it again. If you have any recommendations for starting IM, do mention them, TIA.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

                  If you're still listening, here's how to make a triangle on a transparent background:

                  convert -size 100x60 xc:none -fill white -stroke black -draw "path 'M 20,55 L 25,10 L 70,5 L 20,55 Z' " triangle.png

                  Almost straight from the examples in the docs, except that I had to drop "none" in to replace the skyblue in the actual example. "xc:" (X-window Color) can be replaced by the somewhat more obvious and accurate name "canvas:" in more recent versions of IM, BTW.

                  1. BlueGreen

                    Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

                    bloody hell, canvas:none does it? I'd never have worked that out. I can't even find "canvas:" in <http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php> bar one irrelevant appearace. No mention of alpha or transparency? Damn.

                    Well, thanks, I will check this out tomorrow.

                  2. BlueGreen
                    Pint

                    Re: valid assumption? @Robert Long 1 re imagemagick

                    It worked!

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    FAIL

    And when revenues drop?

    Because of all those casual, upgrade every other version users stop paying Adobe a cent,penny etc?

    What of the shareholder return then?

    could this turn out to be Adobe's footgun moment?

    for this user it is. I won't be spending another bent penny on Photoshop with them. I know that I'm not alone here.

    1. Richard Taylor 2
      FAIL

      Re: And when revenues drop?

      Snap. I now have a real reason for investing some time with Gimp. It will probably do for 99% of what I need and I will beg the very occasional 1%. It just needed this nudge.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And when revenues drop?

      I'd be *very* surprised if the casual user upgrades and purchases is anything other then a rounding-error to Adobe compared to the corporate equivalents.

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    "not be able to open my old files"

    I seem to recall a quote from years back, probably referring to Redmond at the time, but apposite now: if you can't open your data, you don't own it.

    Sorry to sound like Eadon, but this is a definite call for open data standards.

    Are intermediate files obfuscated/encrypted or merely undocumented?

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: "not be able to open my old files"

      Illustrator's .ai files are PDFs, and Adobe's PDF viewer can produce a workable approximation of them.

      Some editing packages can understand the private meta information Illustrator inserts into the stream. But no other package has the the same filters (and bugs).

    2. Ian 55

      Re: "not be able to open my old files"

      Various things open Photoshop PSD files. It's a horrible format to do an import filter for.

      I'm not aware of anything that will do InDesign and, yes, that's the best bit of CS. A few years ago, Quark XPress was dominant. They managed to shoot themselves in the foot and now InDesign is. The major publishers will stick with it, but this is about the only thing that could get Quark back in front for the small business market.

    3. phuzz Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: "not be able to open my old files"

      I was under the impression that each new edition of Photoshop/Illustrator introduced changes to the file format so you needed to upgrade to open a file from a newer version.

      Or that's what my users used to tell me to justify a new version anyway...

      And yes, GIMP et al do most of what the average person uses Photoshop for, but I've not yet seen a free clone of Illustrator that is anywhere close.

    4. apjanes
      Angel

      Re: "Sorry to sound like Eadon, but this is a definite call for open data standards"

      Calling for open data standards is not sounding like Eadon. Calling for open data standards while leaving behind logic, reason, civility and the ability to objectively listen and consider other's arguments, THAT would sound like Eadon.

      From where I sit, you don't sound like that so, as far as I'm concerned, call away!

      (In fact, I'll call with you! OPEN DATA STANDARDS. When I create something it should mine whether I pay some company or not!)

  6. CADmonkey
    Meh

    Autodesk have been doing something similar for years

    You buy the product, then pay a yearly sub to always be on the current release. You get a few more sweeteners like logged support cases and a plugin or two. It's a cost of business.

    Fuss=?

    1. Gerard Krupa

      Re: Autodesk have been doing something similar for years

      The difference is that if you don't pay the sub to Autodesk you still have access to the product you initially purchased. For people who want to be always on the current release it works out the same but if you don't need that you're going to get it and have to pay for it anyway.

      1. Peter 48

        Re: Autodesk have been doing something similar for years

        Autodesk's system is slightly, but significantly different. There the subscription you pays if for upgrades. You still have to buy the package in full up front, but by paying a regular sum you get "free" upgrades. Once you stop paying you remain at the package you last upgraded to.However if you decide to restart the subscription you only have a small window to do so other wise you have to pay the full price again. At over £3000 for AutoCAD alone this is very costly. The subscription is essentially just a prepayment plan. What adobe needs to do is implement some of this. It should be the following: You continue to pay the monthly fee but if you sign up to an annual fee you should be able to keep and use the last downloaded update after 18 months of subscription.Essentially similar to a mobile phone contract.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Autodesk have been doing something similar for years

      Autodesk probably ship a lot fewer units than Adobe is used to doing. Mind you, they may have to get used to shipping a lot fewer units.

  7. Zippy's Sausage Factory
    FAIL

    I suspect a lot of companies might just nope their way out of the Adobe camp and over to open source. (Must admit, I've found GIMP much less buggy and crashy than Adobe over the last few years, much to the annoyance of the designers I work with)

    1. apjanes
      Pint

      "Must admit, I've found GIMP much less buggy and crashy than Adobe"

      This is the great thing about evolution, things improve over time and those that improve in the best ways rise to the top. GIMP might NOT be fit for the top end professional (as is often pointed out by, presumably, top end professionals who know these things) NOW, but this could be just the impetus needed to really give GIMP a good enhancement/improvement push. If just a few of the top end users funnel a fraction of the fees they have been/will be paying to Adobe into GIMP donations they might be able to cut Adobe loose sooner than expected!

      In fact, even though I'm not a power user, I'm going to donate to GIMP right now. Here's to an Adobe-less future and the end to all such corporations who think they can get away with inordinate turning of the financial thumb screw!

      (PS. While looking into how to donate to the GIMP project, I just discovered Flattr: seems like a great idea: http://flattr.com/)

  8. superpurpleturtle
    Happy

    goodbye Adobe

    i wont be paying a subscription, no f'in chance

    bring on the GIMP!

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: goodbye Adobe

      Presumably they are more interested in professional users who use it all the time and "subscribe" already by upgrading to new versions as a matter of course.

      1. Tom 35

        Re: goodbye Adobe

        Presumably they are more interested in professional users who use it all the time and "don't subscribe" already by upgrading to new versions every two or three versions.

        Fixed.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Trollface

          Re: goodbye Adobe

          They are looking to corner the market of those who forget to remove their subscription when it's no longer needed. Who needs to work when you can take the interest and income from the "forgotten" accounts. ;)

  9. orangepeel

    Document Lock Out

    I thought it was illegal for software to lock you out of the files you created... I mean, it's basically ransomware no?

    http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2013/05/you-should-never-lose-access-to-your-work-period.html

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Document Lock Out

      Bring on the EU interoperability clause.

    2. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: Document Lock Out

      They aren't locking you out of the files, per sé, insomuch as not letting you open them using a prgram that you used to rent. For example, Lightroom can be told to create "side-car" files next to your RAW files, and you are at liberty to use another program to read those. Also PS nowadays stores everything in a heavyweight .TIF file, and again you can use software from someone else to open those files.

      However for me, the question is mute, because I will be keeping boxed and paid for LR/PS and so will always be able to open the files in LR/PS.

      1. Flywheel
        Thumb Down

        Re: Document Lock Out

        "I will be keeping boxed and paid for LR/PS and so will always be able to open the files in LR/PS"

        That's what I thought with a well-known, paid-for backup program. I stopped using it for a while as I'd copied all my images onto a fistful of DVDs, only to find when I *really* needed it that they'd subtly changed part of the file format and I was left with shiny coasters. Won't do that again!

  10. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Nope

    See title.

  11. richard?

    Agree that locking you out of existing files would be an unacceptable form of ransom, but a simple and fair option would be to provide a read-only mode that allows saving to other formats once your subscription expires.

  12. Ben 50

    ceteris paribus

    I didn't realise "ceteris paribus" was being abused in this way. Marshall never intended it to be used as anything other than a tool for investigating complex interdependencies (i.e. similarly to the physical sciences trying to focus on one variable while holding others constant). It isn't really a get-out clause at all when you're talking about formulae for actively influencing the market.

    1. Tim Worstal

      Re: ceteris paribus

      Economics jokes usually aren't funny but that doesn't stop us trying.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Competition commission ?

    Having worked in the LPG industry (Calor) under the ever-present threat of a dawn raid by the competition commission (yes, they can) it's interesting that Adobe don't receive the same treatment.

  14. Silverburn

    Price

    Personally, whether it's up front "buy" or ongoing "lease", I don't care. Suits me fine either way.

    It's the massive, wallet-gouging prices Adobe charges in the first place I refuse to pay. One off or on a subscriber basis...a shit load of money is still a shit load of money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: Price

      Meh, seems to be an actual difference. One you can re use 10 years down the line if you have an emergency. One you are better put getting a pint and just calling it a loss.

    2. Peter 48

      Re: Price

      then don't even think of using an Autodesk product. AutoCAD Architecture 2014 has an RRP of £5175 incl VAT and the subscription is an additional £753. Suddenly Adobe seems real cheap.

  15. Stern Fenster

    Backlash

    Users uninterested in being shamelessly gouged by Adobe might like to add themselves to the petition, which is doing quite well:

    http://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model

  16. gribbler

    Looks like I'll just stick with CS5 then...

    It'll be a long time before I need to upgrade, I only just moved from CS3 to CS5. In a few years time I'll take a look at what's out there, but I don't expect there to be any new "must have" functionality for a long time.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The biggest reason is unspoken

    Sure, you can reason this as evening out revenue from upgrade purchases, but that is missing the biggest incentive. Currently Adobe have to _work_ to make new versions which offer more than the current one and they have to acutally _sell_ those upgrades.

    Once you have everyone on subscriiption, why even bother ? Your product dev team simply becomes a money sink rather than an investment - massive cost cutting becomes possible, and desirable anytime you want to boost margin to keep the market happy.

    If there were other products that were really competitive that you could move to, then that doesn't work, but right now Adobe's biggest competitor for most of the CS products is its own previous versions. Those who can use simpler tools (Gimp etc.) mostly already do, the users Adobe will have are those who need what only CS can do.

  18. AnoNymousGerbil
    Facepalm

    Dumb move from Adobe...

    They have been pretty much de-facto software to use for anything sofar because of piratism (and student licences) that fuel industry with people who are used to their software. Lots of cases when they end up in work, they have been familiar with Adobe products so they said they "need" em for any little job and companies forked out the money...

    After this move, it's very likely that if soft is only cloud it's piracy rates possibly drop, but also it will mean people won't fork out price Adobe asks (for hobby etc. learning purposes). People will look more for alternatives and later on when in work life, they won't have reason to suggest getting Adobe software unless there's real need because they're already familiar with some other cheaper alternatives that will do most of the job anyway.

    I see this only a losing move for Adobe unless they introduce heavily lowered prices for students and hobbyists.

    They're on bit of a similar road Borland was years and years ago with their coding tools. They managed to alienate lot of schools teaching their tools, they failed with student/hobbyist crowd and pretty much drove their most vocal fans away with dumb behaviour...

    Besides that, I'd think after this there's more and more interest to make Gimp etc. have more functions users need and become real and usable alternatives for Adobe software in many cases.

    I know I'll be hanging onto my copy of CS for few more years now and start to look actively alternatives.

  19. TRT Silver badge
    Windows

    Universities...

    Researchers here tend to buy a floating license or two for their group to cover the occasional use it gets put to. They buy it just to have it on hand. I can see this practise stopping and them switching to something else. This is a bad move by Adobe.

    On the other hand, the college where I used to work would be laughing as they can stop paying for umpteen hundred licenses during the summer closure and just carry on one or two for the teaching staff to skill up on. But does their model allow you to automatically begin and end the subscription, or is it going to be a logistical nightmare in that scenario?

  20. batfastad

    Upload

    I'm interested to know how they propose I get my files into this creative cloud in the first place. I routinely end up working with monster PSDs and InDesign files which would take a days to upload with my ADSL connection. Even needing to import local media, say 50x 10MB JPGs, would probably take most of the day. According to Openreach they're not planning on changing that at my exchange any time soon. Not a problem as file transfers on my LAN are faster than any FTTC connection could manage anyway.

    1. Ben Tasker

      Re: Upload

      AFAIK you won't need to.

      The call it 'cloud' put AIUI it's still going to be software running on your PC (with the exception of some plugins) - but it'll be phoning back to make sure you've paid this months bill.

    2. Old Handle

      Re: Upload

      Presumably it's "cloudy" in the same way as the new SimCity game. i.e. not. It's just heavy-handed DRM in a thin disguise. I can imagine little bits of online integration. Like say downloading filters or textures on the fly, but the bulk of the work must still be done locally.

      1. batfastad

        Re: Upload

        So how is that cloud? If the application and data is still running on your machine, like it always has. Oh right, I forgot about the special marketing department usage of "cloud".

  21. BenDwire Silver badge
    Boffin

    Depreciation

    I hate to sound like an accountant, but even capitalised software should be depreciated over 4 years. Companies can set their own rules in this regard, but the last 3 places I've worked at use this figure. The argument runs along the lines of if you buy a new machine with (say) CAD software, you should capitalise everything: Hardware, software, delivery & installation & training. After 4 years it's probably worthless, so should have been written down to zero by then.

    "Upgrading" an existing machine by just putting new software on it doesn't really change the argument - it's still worthless in a few years.

    Also, just to be picky, there is a lower threshold before anything is capitalised - usually a few hundred quid. Start8 for a single licence wouldn't be capitalised, but a site licence probably would.

  22. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    What?

    "One colleague has indeed checked with Adobe and been told that if you allow your subscription to drop then you'll not actually be able to open your old files."

    No, what they said is the application you've lapse with the subs on will not run up, the PSD files from Photoshop for example, will still be yours and still usable on any other app that can read them. You suggest that no subs paid and they will lock your files up!

    Why let the real facts get in the way of a bit of journalistic FUD, eh?

    1. Ian 55

      Re: What?

      What opens InDesign files?

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: What?

        Someone else's copy of InDesign.

        1. I J Ellis
          Happy

          Re: What?

          LMFAO

  23. Peter Johnston 1
    Go

    What about the benefits

    I've been on Creative Cloud for almost a year.

    But I never see one of the greatest benefits discussed.

    I used to buy InDesign, Dreamweaver and Photoshop.

    But now I have access to Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Muse, Edge Animate, After Effects etc. - programmes I'd wanted to own but couldn't justify the cost for occasional use.

    That makes it well worthwhile for me.

    But I will say Adobe has a lot to learn about Cloud products. Their Installer/updater has got to be one of the worst products ever. The initial download takes days. Upgrades aren't automatic, often crash the computer and cause things like the icons to disappear.

    Also the licensing is for a desktop and a laptop, but you can't find out which machines are registered or change it in any sort of managed way. You just open it and suddenly find - "this programme is registered on more than two computers" and have to work out what's going on. You can't run Muse on your Tablet and Photoshop on your desktop, either.

    Great idea - poor execution so far. Adobe.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What about the benefits

      "But now I have access to Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Muse, Edge Animate, After Effects etc. - programmes I'd wanted to own but couldn't justify the cost for occasional use."

      The creative cloud is £46.88 a month or £562.56 a year.

      There was about 18 months between CS versions previously, so you are effectively buying each new release for £843.84.

      How much would it have cost you to get the bits you couldn't previously justify paying for? I might be wrong but I seem to recall that CS5 Master Collection was about £800.....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Parental Responsibility AC

        Shhhh, see, it's already working as Adobe planned! Savings* for everyone!

        *Not actual savings.

      2. Shell

        Re: What about the benefits

        Master Collection *upgrade* is £1300. Full price is £2500.

      3. Peter 48

        Re: What about the benefits

        think more along the lines of £1300 for the previous version and £2600 for the latest release of the master suite. £850 is still cheaper than either of those options.

  24. Avatar of They
    Thumb Down

    Silly money grabbing Adobe.

    My companies walked away because of it, company won't justify the spend. (We have multiple users)

    And security teams cringe at the firewall being opened for cloud based stuff that breaks our internal rules of allowing personal data to be stored and uploaded to clouds. "Just for marketing..." will spread to. "Well it is letting me do it, so why can't I store this other file."

    And of course the added bandwidth that could impact on our internet connection for the business. Given the size of some of our marketing Dept's uploads (2 - 4 GB is normal)

    We are looking at GIMP for photoshop stuff, and Dreamweaver alternatives are easily findable.

    Perfect moment for the competition to up their game.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Silly money grabbing Adobe.

      Is paint shop pro still an option? Use to be, but that was around 2 decades ago. :P

      1. Peter 48

        Re: Silly money grabbing Adobe.

        unfortunately not. ever since corel got their hands on it psp has become a basic consumer product with a load of silly filters and automations. maybe someone there will finally wake up and see the potential to develop a more professional version to appeal to all the dissatisfied soon to be ex photoshop users.

    2. Peter 48
      Stop

      Re: Silly money grabbing Adobe.

      And clearly nobody at your company was competent enough to bother spending 5 mins reading Adobe's FAQ: their answer to restricting internet access issues is: "Yes, your IT administrators can block users from accessing the online services. The online services and their URLs are listed here.

      As an administrator, you will also be able to deploy Creative Cloud desktop applications independent of the cloud-based services using the Creative Cloud Packager. The Creative Cloud Packager is available through Creative Cloud for teams."

      As for justifying the spend - if they are happy to take a loss of earnings due to reducing efficiency switching to gimp and other alternatives because they have to spend slightly less than the old upfront purchase and upgrade path then they aren't long for this world anyway.

      Adobe has a lot to answer for for leaving us in the lurch by removing the ability to use the product outside of subscription, but this sort of knee-jerk reaction is ill-informed and highly counter-productive.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    cash rolls in predictably every month

    or, unpredictably, doesn't.

  26. Bob 18

    Opening Old Files

    They should provide Creative Cloud access for free to everyone, to open files. Saving or otherwise making changes to files would be restricted to subscribers. That would solve the "can't open my files" problem, and I think would bolster their potential revenues (because otherwise, people will shy away from them if nothing else for this reason).

  27. groMMitt

    The Mote?

    As an aside from the main subject, am I the only one to note the 'gripping hand' reference? Someone's been reading Niven/Pournel?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I always seem to make this comment.

    Basically, when working with a defence contracting company and using a secure network with an air gap (several completely spearated networks, of which all but the 'internet' network have no physical connection to the internet).

    How does that work? We have to to 'phone home' manually?

  29. stu 4
    Unhappy

    Great way of killing 2nd hand market too

    You can get something like CS3 or CS4 boxed for a good price online 2nd hand.

    It's a great way of getting powerful software as a power using amateur.

    That, of course only benefits us users... not Adobe.

    IF they had a subscription model that did not allow commerical use, then they might be able to argue that we amatuer power users are still covered by the cloud model - but they don't and we ain't.

  30. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Headmaster

    It seems a lot of people are switching away from Adobe

    Just a data point. I read a lot of web comics (during off-work hours of course!) and a lot (5 out of about a dozen) of the artists are switching away from Adobe because of this.

    There's a lot of contention on what they're switching to (Manga Studio being a front runner, but definitely not GIMP) but they are all switching away specifically to avoid the subscription bit. One guy remarked that he's used Photoshop ever since he learned to draw a long time ago, and never used anything else, so Adobe is scaring off some core customers here.

  31. Don Casey
    Mushroom

    Solved that problem

    Was thinking Capture NX2 wasn't up to a (very) few things I needed to do with my images, and maybe I should move on to Photoshop.

    Nope; think I'll be staying with NX2. Maybe with enough Adobe defections Nikon will start enhancing it.

  32. jobst

    The future will tell.

    Foresight cannot see hindsight, simple as that.

  33. Mark 15
    Unhappy

    That's a no from me!

    This is the last straw for me. We are a small company with 4 x CS 6 licences. We're not exactly power users, but do have daily use of our CS software. We've taken a look at this and can't justify paying for ever more on each machine. We will either go down to one licence of move away from Adobe completely. Yes, I've heard all the arguments about the alternatives, but I'm pretty sure I can talk to my neighbours sub out if necessary if we dump Adobe completely. For the time being, our CS6 will last us for a good couple of years and we’ll see what alternatives there are then.

    I guess there are a lot of companies in our position and this move is not going to make us pay more to Adobe; I really hate companies that treat everyone outside the US differently and expects them to pay more for the same product. This uncompetitive pricing should be made illegal.

    So Adobe, you thought you could take me for more of my hard earned. Sorry, no more.

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