A

Anonymous

Question

How to buy ColdFusion if you are not in the same country as your server?

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
September 19, 2011
5 replies
1378 views

Hello everyone,

After almost 2 hours on the phone with Adobe, their conclusion is that it is pretty much impossible for me to buy ColdFusion. Somehow I doubt that is correct.

Here's the thing:

- My company as well as my credit cards are registered in The Netherlands

- I am physically based in India

- I run my servers in the US

That is a problem, because that nicely spans the three jurisdictions that Adobe has created and between which it tries to erect inpeniterable walls.

According to Adobe, I am not able to buy software in Europe or Asia, because my server runs in the US. But I'm also not able to buy it in the US, because my credit card is registered in Europe.

The only way for me to buy ColdFusion, according to Adobe, is to find someone available in the US who can purchase the software and then transfer the serial number to me. Ironically, that was what I would prefer to do. But in order to officially transfer an Adobe license there are two forms: one for North America, and one for the rest of the world. So on second thought, even this would not be a valid option for me, says Adobe customer support.

So only thing left to do in order to be able to buy ColdFusion, is to shift my servers from the US to Europe or India, whever I am physically at the time, and then buy the serial number locally. That seems to be a bit of radical demand just to be allowed to buy a 15-digital number! In any case, it is certainly not something I am contemplating. I rather shift from ColdFusion to Railo. It is 2011, for God's sake, and I want to run this software in the cloud! Why in the world would Adobe require me to be physically and legally in the same location as my server at the time of purchase?

Anyone has a similar experience and found a solution to be able to buy ColdFusion? Oh, and obviously, all else being equal, I much prefer to buy ColdFusion in the US, as it is 25% less expensive than in Europe, and easily 150% less than in India.

Any advice welcome!

P.S. My US copy of CS4 Master Suite I bought from Australia and registered in The Netherlands runs perfectly fine on my computer here in India...

This topic has been closed for replies.

josh_adams1

Participating Frequently

I can help here. First, my apologies that we as an organization have made this difficult. I will alert Customer Service to this thread and perhaps they can find a way to make things better in the future. But I believe I can certainly find a way to make things better in this specific case now. And accordingly, anyone who has such an issue now or finds this post in the future should contact me. A direct message here should do it but you can also contact me via my blog: http://blog.joshuaadams.com/contact.cfm.

Thanks and sorry again for the difficulties here.

A

Anonymous

Thanks for the tips guys.

However, my main problem remains. According to Adobe, buying ColdFusion outside of the US will not allow me to install it on my US server. But buying it in the US will not allow me register the product in my name. So it remains a catch 22.

Now, I'm fairly sure Adobe customer support is wrong, and any ColdFusion serial will work on any server anywhere in the world. But what if Adobe customer support is right and I spent 7000 USD on a product that I'm basically not allowed to use?

GuustNieuwenhuis

Participant

@Adam: I don't think it's about being honest, it about the price...

Like Mike mentions, you can buy ColdFusion via a reseller. This might solve your issue and it might be even cheaper.

A

Anonymous

Price is always an issue, of course. Adobe can hardly complain about people in India using their software illegally if they make it twice as expensive to buy their software as compared to the US. Not to mention incredibly difficult, costly and time consuming to even be able to buy their product. If anything, I'd say they should make it cheaper in developing countries. Why can we not just buy a serial number online with a credit card as Americans can, but are we forced to go through a shady network of regional dealers with phone numbers that may or may not work, that we have to physically meet, sometimes hundreds of miles away, in order to negociate a price and get the deal done? Honestly, I think it's completely ridiculous.

But all that isn't even the main issue here. I have three wishes, which according to Adobe are incompatible:

a) Run my servers in the US without legally migrating to North America;

b) Run a legal copy of ColdFusion;

c) Register the copy of ColdFusion it in my name;

I don't think I'm asking for anything extraordinary here. We are one of the very few Adobe development houses in India, promoting ColdFusion with developers and universities through internships, we young people in ColdFusion, most of who did not even know there was anything other than .net and java. Adobe should be thanking us instead of making our lives miserable.

Anyway, as I don't really see a fool proof solution, we are now taking a serious look at Railo. We initially decided against that, but other than taking a big gamble buying an expensive license that may not be valid or upgradeable, I don't see many other options. At least not if we want to continue running our servers in the US.

Am mad.

M

Mike Chabot

Inspiring

If the reason you are paying the highest price and going through the

greatest frustration by trying to purchase directly from Adobe is because

you think you will get a serial number online, you might want to verify your

assumption. When Americans buy ColdFusion online, they are not given a

serial number online. Rather, they are sent a boxed product or a printed

document in the mail with the serial number on it, unless Adobe changed how

they do things since I last purchased from them. They might have. ColdFusion

is usually sold in a box, unless a company has a volume license arrangement

with Adobe. When I last bought an Adobe CS suite on Adobe.com I was sent a

box in the mail. Maybe the reason Adobe doesn't want to sell to you directly

is because they don't want to mail a box internationally when you can buy

the same product from a local reseller.

Regarding your ability to install the software in a different country, you

should be relying on the written license agreement, not whoever answers the

phone when calling Adobe's sales number.

A

Adam Cameron.

Inspiring

Stop being so honest. Just buy it from their European channel with your Dutch credit card. They don't need to know where you are nor where your servers are.

That said, it beggars belief how difficult they are making it for you to give them money.

--

Adam

12Robots

Participating Frequently

Why not just tell Adobe your server is right there next to you and you can hardly wait to get ColdFusion installed on it? Are they going to come to India to check? Do will software purchased for Indian servers not run on US servers?

I don't recall ever being asked where my servers are located. But I am in the US, so maybe that is not as issue for me.

A

Anonymous

Ah yeah, if you are in the US you can be blissfully ignorant of how hard these guy make it on the rest of the world!

But no, it's not that simple.

- You cannot by from Adobe in the US without a US credit card. They check that, because they don't want to sell their cheaper US software to Asians and Europeans whom they charge (much) more for the same product.

- In order to protect that pricing stragegy, some products (and according to customer support, this includes ColdFusion, even though I don't believe any of that) will not activate if you are outside of the region where you bought it.

So basically they won't allow me to buy in the US, and they won't allow me to install when I buy outside of the US. Effectively, they don't allow me to buy.

Plus: I especially wouldn't want to buy in India where prices are easily twice as much as in the US. With a 8000 USD product that quickly comes to losing a lot of money.

M

Mike Chabot

Inspiring

In the US, ColdFusion is sold at a variety of online stores more cheaply

than what Adobe.com sells it for. Can you buy ColdFusion from some place

other than Adobe.com?

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