[Locked] No perpetual licenses are you serious?

[Mattrman]

I just head that Adobe was planning to abandon its perpetual license in favor of an on line only rental program. At first I thought that this must be a joke. I have been using adobe products for 18 years. Primarily Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. I am currently an owner of CS 6 Master collection and obviously do upgrade my products and have consistently done so over the years. I am not connected to the internet full time and in fact my work computer is never directly connected to the internet. So how does this work? Is adobe now forcing me to connect to the internet - it seems that this is the case.

In regards to upgrade cycles, I dont want to rent my software and be tied to a rental agreement. I want to upgrade when I choose, not rent my software like some kind of loaner program!

I want to purchase the software then not worry about it. For instance when I travel, I dont want to be bogged down with downloads and upgrades chewing up my bandwidth. I have traveled to many places where internet access is very limited. Downloading from a wireless card in China is painful, I dont want to be bogged down with no software or large megabyte downloads costing me a fortune on the other side of the planet.

Adobe I know that I am just one person and you will probably not listen to me but did someone ask? No one asked me about this. How simple could this be - I want to buy the software then use it when I want where I want, is this too much to ask?

Please let me continue to use this software in the way that I have used it for so long. If others wish to have the creative cloud then great! More power to them, don't alienate your other users. Please provide both alternatives.

Best regards - Matt

[John__SLS_Publicity_]

I suggest anyone like me who does NOT wish to take the CC route completes the survey link Adobe are sending out making it clear we don't want it..

[FrannieKN]

I wasn't invited to complete it, but I'm curious... what is the survey's focus?

[John__SLS_Publicity_]

Reply to FrannieKN's post

Although stuck at CS5 at present I am a registered suite owner which is perhaps why I got picked.

A very detailed, comprehensive, survey with lots of questions biased towards knowledge of CC with a scale of about 7 options from Agree fully to No Knowledge of whether you had heard of it, were you likely to switch to it and if not why not.  I answered truthfully with a yes where I had heard of the advantages of CC (there are many if you can afford it for life) but whenever there was an opportunity to comment on why I will never take it up I did so.

My reason for not taking it is primarily that I cannot guarantee to always have the money available for a monthly subscription due to variable cash-flow levels and knowledge that at some time in the future there is a risk I might need to take a month or two out of monthly rentals.   Therefore for me being able to save up and make one-off purchases so as to always have access to the products in the suite, even if they are not the latest version, has to be my route forward as it has been in the past; 100% long-term access means more to me than features I have never had access to.   I probably will jump up to CS6 soon as I now have a MAC (so need a MAC version of the products I already use with Windows) but that will be it unless at some time in the future they release a CS7 purchase option.  I would switch to CC if there was an escape and retain option to download and freeze at that version level after say 18, 24 or even 36 months of payments (Like an old style HP agreement) and if they add that option in I would envisage many doubters would convert, it is the no fee no product/no escape route with Adobe that small business/private hobby users can't commit to for the long term.

[FrannieKN]

Thanks for the scoop, John. I'm a long-time, registered owner too, but it sounds like you represent my position on CC so I'm OK not getting the survey. I hope this means Adobe is considering options, although my loyalty to Adobe will be hard to win back. I would like to buy CS6 and stay with that as long as I can, but then am I one of the folks helping Adobe look good to the stock holders? So, I'll hold with v5.5. I'm hearing positive things about competitors' software and am intrigued and totally willing to support them instead if Adobe doesn't come up with an option that fits my budget. Thanks for feeding my curiosity!

[cc_merchant]

I came across this diagram:

That says it all. It is a nice summary.

[eschelar]

That model has some issues.

The first item works well. If budget is not and never will be an issue, use CC. Good, I agree.

But needing XAVC does not change my budget status.

Similarly, having CS6 already and wanting an upgrade does not change my budget status.

The problem here is that regardless of how I can make the subscription payments work in the short term (ie 40% off for the first year), the subscription model quickly returns to an equilibrium beyond my budget.

The funny thing is, the more I make from using Adobe stuff at work, the less time I have to make money from my personal copy. When I started using CS5.5, I had a few freelance jobs and made a few hundred bucks pretty quickly. But now I just don't have the time.

I find it mentally staggering that Adobe feels the need to put out surveys as if threads like this, almost constant complains on their facebook and actual numbers of adopters of CC still much lower than CS owners. Given that we have already passed the point where CC has become not cost effective for Production Suite users (just over 1 year in, with 40% reduction on the first year, the $350, which most users would spread over 2 years has gone away and has been replaced with $600/yr, breaking the average Suite user's budget), and we are well past the point where PS + AI users are in a budget over-run, it is inevitable that users are starting to face the reality of the unrelenting subcription "gotcha by the bawlz" model.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this is going to be bad for them in the long run. Over the next 6 months, existing subscribers might even start decreasing (or it should if they are familiar with basic math).

So why does Adobe even need to ask?

Again, if I walked into MacDonalds and they wanted $25 for a burger meal, why would MacDonalds need to run a survey to determine if I am going to be a happy, returning customer or not?

This can only mean one thing.

They still have their heads buried in the sand and are doing their best to keep them there.

I think it would be appropriate if we started using the term "ransomware" for Adobe CC.

Recently, there was a new type of Malware called "cryptolocker". It encrypted your files so you couldn't use them unless you paid money. Refusal to pay money will render your files inaccessible.

Adobe now locks your programs and won't let you use them unless you pay them money. Refusal to pay money will render your files inaccessible.

Most businesses found that it was more cost-effective to just swallow the cost and pay the money to return to business as usual.

Many private users found the amount too much and chose to lose their files.

Functionally the same model.

[Andy_Bay]

So there was another new release of CC products.. Can any happy CC users outline the main features we should get excited about? Would you have bought this upgrade if you weren't forced to do so?

By the way, did you notice that the q3 financial numbers were not that great, and now even the stock market reacted.

Also in the news, how Adobe is spying on it's users:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/10/06/adobe-spying-users-collecting-data-ebook-libraries/#.VDaXu_...

[FrannieKN]

Wow. WOW. Makes me wonder how many times that I've unchecked the box that allows apps to "share" my usage info have actually been honored. Thanks for enlightening me, Andy!

[dsfsdsdfsdffdsf]

Andy Bay wrote:

So there was another new release of CC products.. Can any happy CC users outline the main features we should get excited about? Would you have bought this upgrade if you weren't forced to do so?

I'm pretty happy about the inclusion of a bezier mask pen tool feature, and the directly featherable edges. I've been waiting for that for about the last decade. One less reason to roundtrip through AE. The new interface took a few minutes of getting used to but I'm liking the larger tabs and improved responsiveness. A few other features are minor but handy, like Send to Audition keeping the files next to the originals.

Would I have bought this upgrade? Mute point - it's a .1 update so it would have been free anyway. Would I have bought Premiere 2014? Hmm, maybe. This update would have made it a more attractive proposition.

[John Waller]

By the way, did you notice that the q3 financial numbers were not that great, and now even the stock market reacted.

Yes, a mixed bag overall but Cloud growth was strong.

Adobe ends Q3 on mixed note but Creative Cloud subscriptions continue to climb | ZDNet

"As for Creative Cloud, the San Jose-headquartered firm ended the quarter with more than 2.81 million paid subscriptions for the cloud-based design software bundle, up 502,000 from last quarter.

Narayen noted that Adobe plans to fuel Creative Cloud growth further through three primary methods: aggressively convert more desktop Adobe software customers to Creative Cloud, target new customers with tailored offerings (i.e., Creative Cloud for photographers, etc.), and add more mission critical services (i.e., mobile apps built on Adobe's SDK)."

[Andy_Bay]

They have reached 25% of their CS6 userbase of 12 million in 1.5 years. I guess losing only 75% of your customers can be called a great success these days.

[John Waller]

Andy Bay wrote:

They have reached 25% of their CS6 userbase of 12 million in 1.5 years. I guess losing only 75% of your customers can be called a great success these days.

25% is probably lower since many Cloud subscribers are new to Adobe. They never previously owned any CS software.

I suspect Adobe would view the 75%+ as a growth opportunity rather than "losing" them. One of Adobe's stated aims includes aggressively converting more Creative Suite customers.

Creative Suites began in 2003 so it took 11 years to get the current CS-CS6 userbase. 25% converted to Cloud in 18 months is not a bad result especially considering the enormous resistance to the Cloud model in some parts in the early days.

The Cloud is not for everyone. Adobe acknowledges that since they still sell CS6.

Besides, factors other than "don't like the Cloud" also preclude people from joining the Cloud: new hardware/operating system required, Cloud not available in their country (the geographic "reach" will inevitably improve), don't have a credit card (that will also improve over time), etc.

The results also state that 63% of revenue was recurring (Cloud subscriptions) - based on 2.81 million subscriptions. That can only increase. Creative Suite income will inevitably shrink to soon become insignificant.

By any measure, the Cloud is clearly where Adobe's future lies.

[Andy_Bay]

25% is probably lower since many Cloud subscribers are new to Adobe. They never previously owned any CS software.

Much possible.

I suspect Adobe would view the 75%+ as a growth opportunity rather than "losing" them. One of Adobe's stated aims includes aggressively converting more Creative Suite customers.

By the same logic Paint Shop Pro should view the lost 99% of users as a huge opportunity! Do you think Netscape also views all the Firefox/IE/Chrome users as a opportunity?

It's hard to see how Adobe could be any more aggressive than it has been. Maybe the next step is to put some ransomware on every Acrobat user that can only get cleaned out with CC?

Creative Suites began in 2003 so it took 11 years to get the current CS-CS6 userbase. 25% converted to Cloud in 18 months is not a bad result especially considering the enormous resistance to the Cloud model in some parts in the early days.

11 years worth of users lost in 1.5 years of bad decisions. But feel free to view the glass as half full!

The results also state that 63% of revenue was recurring (Cloud subscriptions) - based on 2.81 million subscriptions.

63% is a really crappy number, since CS6 is old software now and they literally hide it on their website. That percentage tells us that the majority of cloud subscriptions are heavily discounted. Which brings me to your next point -of course the revenues can drop even more, especially when the discounts end and many poor users stop being able to afford the higher prices. Or when competitors march out their new products.

Creative Suite income will inevitably shrink to soon become insignificant.

I agree. But will the bitter ex-customers switch to CC? I doubt it. I won't.

By any measure, the Cloud is clearly where Adobe's future lies.

Probably true. I guess the real question is what that future looks like for Adobe!

[John Waller]

Andy Bay wrote:

Creative Suites began in 2003 so it took 11 years to get the current CS-CS6 userbase. 25% converted to Cloud in 18 months is not a bad result especially considering the enormous resistance to the Cloud model in some parts in the early days.

11 years worth of users lost in 1.5 years of bad decisions. But feel free to view the glass as half full!

Thank you. I will continue to do so. There's nothing "lost" about it.

Andy Bay wrote:

The results also state that 63% of revenue was recurring (Cloud subscriptions) - based on 2.81 million subscriptions.

63% is a really crappy number, since CS6 is old software now and they literally hide it on their website. That percentage tells us that the majority of cloud subscriptions are heavily discounted. Which brings me to your next point -of course the revenues can drop even more, especially when the discounts end and many poor users stop being able to afford the higher prices. Or when competitors march out their new products.

That's focussing on the individual retail sales channel. There are also plenty of much bigger corporate sales. 63% of revenue is company-wide, not just Cloud/Creative Suite. Adobe has plenty of other products.

Call me a fanboy but I see only upside. There's a huge  untapped new user market. Plus I suspect that more people continue their subscription than cancel. Revenue can only increase.

Thanks for your input. Food for thought.

[FrannieKN]

What I'm struggling with is if Adobe appears successful, and others follow the subscription model, I'll have to pay a monthly fee to a dozen companies to be able to turn my computer on. As a one-person business, I have a really hard time seeing the upside to that.

[Andy_Bay]

Indeed, did you hear that Microsoft is now planning a subscription model for Windows!

Windows 10 may be the last piece of Microsoft's cloud puzzle | ZDNetfor

Yay! Let's rent everything in the future!

[FrannieKN]

Yes, and I work from a PC which means when they release a fiasco like Windows 8, I'll be stuck with their vision of what I need. If people are tied to paying the subscription fee and MS loses no revenue over their mistake, what will their incentive be to write Windows 9? Kinda wondering the same about Adobe. Bugs come out with every new change, and you don't get the choice of whether you're going to be their beta tester or not.

I'm still not clear on how they plan on advancing their software without forcing us to upgrade our hardware when their hardware demands more power. Maybe I'll be running Ubuntu and donating to open-source projects by then.

[pik80]

I can't figure out how Windows can hold on to such high market share. I suppose they are starting to lose some of that share with tablets now.

[pik80]

It's funny how at this point it doesn't really matter all that much to me whether Adobe is subscription or not because that doesn't seem to be the biggest problem with the company. The biggest problem with Adobe is that they just don't put out compelling upgrades anymore. Even if Adobe decided to dump subscriptions I still wouldn't give them money for their licensed software either since I keep drifting away to other companies that provide better value like Affinity. From my view Adobe's failure is their current crappy updates not the subscription.

[Andy_Bay]

Pik80, many of us predicted the updates would suck in the subscription model, because users no longer had the choice to skip the updates and thus vote with their wallet. So I do think the lack of new features is pretty much related to the subscription model.

Checked out Affinity. I love it how they specifically advertise: "No subscriptions, just 49$."

[pik80]

I don't agree. Adobe went the subscription route right after the updates got lame and people were doing more upgrade skipping. I upgraded from CS4 to CS6 last year and thought the upgrade was nearly worthless. The upgrade was purely for OS compatibility reasons. Now that I have it on a modern computer I can just keep running Adobe subscription free as long as I want and keep buying new alternatives. When CS6 no longer works with the latest OS I will just get a new computer to run the new non Adobe software replacements and just keep CS6 on the old machine. I have done this before, for an example I keep an ancient Power Mac with Freehand on it simply since it doesn't work on my latest machine. Someday my current computer with be the machine that is used for legacy software.

[pik80]

I also wanted to respond to your comment on Affinity. Yesterday the price was $40 and on top of not paying a subscription you get two years of free updates.

[MikeChambers]

MatthewRPearse wrote:

I just head that Adobe was planning to abandon its perpetual license in favor of an on line only rental program. At first I thought that this must be a joke. I have been using adobe products for 18 years. Primarily Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. I am currently an owner of CS 6 Master collection and obviously do upgrade my products and have consistently done so over the years. I am not connected to the internet full time and in fact my work computer is never directly connected to the internet. So how does this work? Is adobe now forcing me to connect to the internet - it seems that this is the case.

Best regards - Matt

Matt,

There is a lot of confusion over this and hopefully, I can help clear some of it up.

You do not have to be online in order to use the software. This is covered in our FAQ:

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html#

--

Do I need ongoing Internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications?

No.  Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days.  However, you'll be able to use products for 99 days even if you're offline.

--

(note, we are planning to expand this to 180 days.)

So, you have to be online when you install, but after that, you only need to be online once every 3 months (99 days).

Hope that helps...

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

[GrumpyLp-leQSb4]

MIke,

I am also a long time user of many Adobe products (but not all) and I have purchased (and kept current) the Production Premium Creative Suite. I am currently a CC subscriber and I plan to continue. Until I retire on July 31, 2014. And then I'll need to re-evaluate my membership. I am not a porfessional photographer and make no money from what I do. But I do enjoy all aspects of  my photography and use Lightroom and Photoshop extensively (and Premiere to a lessor extent). Once I am on a "fixed income" I'm not sure how realistic it may be to spend the monthly subscription dollars.

I would hope that Adobe takes these situations into account. Perhaps one solution would to allow a person such as myself a way to keep the software functional instead of shutting it off. After all,  when I receive a magizine for a given month, I can still read it after my subscription expires. No comes along and takes all my back copies!

Perhaps I can submit my IRS 1040 to show my income sources.

For consideration:

1. A Creative Cloud "Production Premium" option at a reduced price from the full suite.
2. A "buy-out" where my current software would stay alive (and I would not recieve updates).
3. Include retirees in the Student/teacher bucket.
4. Create another "Senior / Retiree" catagory (subject to some type of proof documentation)

LpGrumpy

[rainschub]

That buy-out is a top idea.

If this would become true, the CC solution might be aceptable.

I hope these marketing fuz..s from Adobe are sometimes have a look at this forum.