[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

[Cankre7]

Actually we don't.

What if…Adobe's Cloud gets hacked causing it to screw up everyone's monthly activation check, resulting in everyone failing its activation check. If a print provider is down at all, this can result in a potential fatal deadline being missed. If a $250,000 job needs to get on press, mail merged and out the door and our software does not work for whatever reason…we can potentially lose our company. And under Adobe's EULA, it's Oh well, that's your problem.

And Mike…you still did not anwer my question…who does Adobe think benefits from the Cloud based direction? What industry? Group? etc?

[MikeChambers]

Cankre7 wrote:

What if…Adobe's Cloud gets hacked causing it to screw up everyone's monthly activation check, resulting in everyone failing its activation check.

who does Adobe think benefits from the Cloud based direction?

If the software can't validate its licenses for some reason, then it will continue working and try again at a later day (for up to 99 days).

As far as who are we building this for, we are building it for the creative industry and individuals, with a particular eye to where that industry is moving, as opposed to where it has been.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

[Guest]

The shift is this Adobe at the mercy of my or our choice to upgrade or Us at the mercy of adobe shuting us out.

I belive that a few post back they hit the nail on the head. Adobe is desperate and doing this move out of desperation.

In the old model they have to convince us to upgrad. If we do not profits are down and [deleted]] lays people off here is an article on CS4  and the lay offs

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Adobe-laying-off-600-employees-3259316.php

for Adobe corprate it comes down to them being at the mercy of us upgrading

The new model is make us join once and then they can kick back and reel  in the profits.

I belive that they called me a deadbeat because I am still on cs4. How dare i skip a version they have bills to pay.

more links below but truth be told [deleted] has told the staff some lies also

1 the stock will go up and you have the stock option plan brought forth in January

2 With stable profits you will not be layed off

Well the stock is about to tank ! The lay offs are coming bigger than ever.

2009 600 layoffs

http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/10/layoffs-reported-at-adobe/

Just before xmas layoffs begin

'http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Adobe-RVW1812043.htm

Final point the new Equity program goes to staff and to outside vendors instructors. So anyone you talk to who teaches Adobe or sells training in any way is all gung ho for this thing to go well they now have Adobe stock.

[Portions of this post were deleted. Personal attacks are not tolerated. Please follow our community guidelines. Feel free to criticize Adobe, but not employees of Adobe, or other forum users].

[Cankre7]

Mike,

And the industry is moving towards not having 100% control of our files 24/7 GUARANTEED? The way your EULA is written basically washes the hands of ANY responsibility on Adobe's part? Just trying to figure out what creative industry or individual wanted this? What company industry would EVER say..."Yes, this is for me?"

[MikeChambers]

001andrew wrote:

The new model is make us join once and then they can kick back and reel  in the profits.

Under the new model, there is more pressure on us, not less. If a customer is not happy, they can just leave at any time. We have to

continuously provide value. Under the old model, if you bought the software and didn't like it, or it was buggy or just didn't provide value, there was nothing you could do, since you already gave Adobe all of your money.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

[Cankre7]

Uhhh....except if we have already done projects in the software, Mike. We are FORCED to stay, else lose our software. We now gave you our money and are forced to keep doing so, no matter what.

What you said Mike just doesn't make any sense. What pressure will Adobe be under to keep innovating? We have to pay whether you innovate or not or lose access to being able to work.

[MikeChambers]

Cankre7 wrote:

Uhhh....except if we have already done projects in the software, Mike. We are FORCED to stay, else lose our software. We now gave you our money and are forced to keep doing so, no matter what.

What you said Mike just doesn't make any sense. What pressure will Adobe be under to keep innovating? We have to pay whether you innovate or not or lose access to being able to work.

You can export to CS6, and if that won't work for your particular circumstances, we have we are exploring more expansive solutions to that concern.

http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/our-move-to-creative-cloud-an-update/

--

With regards to file access, Adobe completely agrees that customers should have access to their files if they choose to stop their Creative Cloud membership. Our job is to delight our customers with innovation, but there are a number of options open to us here and we expect to have news around this issue shortly.

--

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

[W_J_T]

MikeChambers wrote:

we have we are exploring more expansive solutions to that concern

So its less resource intensive to accomplish this than to enable a perpetual license of the same software downloaded using the integrated licensing thats already in place?

MikeChambers wrote:

Again:

Mike, when was this decision first made internally to switch from perpetual licenses and go solely with subscriptions? What was the timeline chronologically?

[MikeChambers]

W_J_T wrote:

Again:

Mike, when was this decision first made internally to switch from perpetual licenses and go solely with subscriptions? What was the timeline chronologically?

Sorry, I am not at liberty to discuss our internal decision making process and / or timeline.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

[Mike_Ornellas]

The bottom line is exactly just that. Adobe is in trouble. Stock holders want guarantee returns the make the company relative. Users are satisfied with the existing robust nature of the software. Adobes existence and future is in question. They can't keep piling on features and design models because we have enough to produce work and make money.  Their only solution is to control their product with stricter rules and requirements.

This CC thing is going to blow up and Adobe shall break apart. I understand the rational and CC is the last ditch effort to stay relevant. Unfortunately the only thing they are doing is pissing people off as well as creating new opportunities for start ups.

Damn if they do and damn if they don't.

[Cankre7]

The problem with that is how would we as a print provider know if the export to CS6 is 100% accurate? If it's a catalog? How would we as a print provider know? You are asking us to risk our company by doing that. To even suggest it here is dangerous. Someone could accept what you say here export a CC doc to CS 6, and something does not translate over correctly and lose their shirt or their company. You are throwing out band-aids to us with no guarantee of compatibility.

Remember, every new feature or update Adobe makes, we, as print providers have to get on press as a finished product. It's all great making new gizmo's that designers can create "cool" things. But they still have to be able to get it printed.

Don't even get me started on offering the entire suite to everyone. We already have enough "designers" in this world who cannot use Adobe products correctly to print. We don't need them have more access to new toys! LOL

[Mike_Ornellas]

CC = Ciao Ciao

[W_J_T]

MikeChambers wrote:

Sorry, I am not at liberty to discuss our internal decision making process and / or timeline.

Ok well lets work on some known facts then:

April 12, 2011

- CS5.5 released

- Adobe also announced a subscription-based pay service as an alternative to full purchase.

June 21, 2011

- CEO Shantanu Narayen said that the April 2011 launch of CS5.5 was "the first release in our transition to an annual release cycle" (no cloud needed here)

April 23, 2012

- CS6 released (Of course now known as the final perpetual version)

- Adobe also launched a subscription-based offering named Adobe Creative Cloud

May 5-6, 2013

- Subscription only announced publically.

June 17, 2013

- Creative Cloud officially launches

It sure feels like we were abruptly blind sided by the change of vision, plans, options and perceived value to consumers by Adobe. At a minimum even between April 23, 2012 thru May 6, 2013 there was no indication that these new "integrated services' were so crucial to customer workflows and Adobe's future or providing the ability to add great value to either of us. So I guess I was just wondering when the switch to service based offerings become so apparent and necessary for everyone involved and fundamentally with in Adobe's vision?

MikeChambers wrote:

we are exploring more expansive solutions to that concern

So its less resource intensive to accomplish this than to enable a perpetual license of the same software downloaded using the integrated licensing thats already in place?

[ThomasBB]

I'm still waiting for a reasonable explanation that would explain to me, why the annual cost per user has tripled for everyone who's using the Design Standard? Do you seriously expect us just to bend over and say "do as you please"?

A little over a year ago, our Adobe-partner tried to sell us an "Update-agreement" - basically it said, that if we bought CS6 now and paid a "small" fee (in the vicinity of 10.000 USD for all our users) we would get upgraded to CS7, when that arrived.

I'm glad we didn't sign it.

[W_J_T]

ThomasBB wrote:

A little over a year ago, our Adobe-partner tried to sell us an "Update-agreement" - basically it said, that if we bought CS6 now and paid a "small" fee (in the vicinity of 10.000 USD for all our users) we would get upgraded to CS7, when that arrived.

ThomasBB do you know if this type of "Update-agreement" is publicly available somewhere?

[ThomasBB]

Not sure. The "number" referred to in the offer is: "ADOBE Dsgn Std.  New Upg Plan 2500+, English, 2 year"

It's something like this:

http://www.cdw.ca/shop/products/Adobe-Creative-Suite-Design-Standard-upgrade-plan-renewal/2707258.as...

I'll translate directly, what the salesman from our Adobe-partner wrote to me on january 31st, 2012:

- 24 months of "free updates" (Adobe has promised a new version will arrive every 12 months)

- It's cheaper than buying an upgrade

- When CS6 is introduced, updates are only available one version back, which means that if you're running CS5.5, when CS7 is launched, you will need to buy entirely new licenses

Now, it's hypothetical, but I'm curious what would've happened, if we had bought that upgrade-plan.         

[Greg_Bohn]

MikeChambers wrote:

001andrew wrote:

The new model is make us join once and then they can kick back and reel  in the profits.

Under the new model, there is more pressure on us, not less. If a customer is not happy, they can just leave at any time. We have to

continuously provide value. Under the old model, if you bought the software and didn't like it, or it was buggy or just didn't provide value, there was nothing you could do, since you already gave Adobe all of your money.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

  Well let's see, first off leaving (early) has an 'early termination fee' on top of the price increases baked in for many.

  Then, since there is no perpetual license, if the customer is dependent on the software, the customer has a disincentive to leave because he looses all access. Multiple people have attested that they felt they feel 'forced" to go along because they are dependent on Adobe (at the moment) because of the dearth of credible competition.

  Seems to me that once you have your customers locked-in, all you need to do is not be so bad that customers would leave despite the disincentives woven into the new model...

  Viewed through the lens of a company that dominates its market, the new system would seem to relieve  the burden of needing to make improvements good enough to get people to voluntarily upgrade. The 'continuous upgrade' pricing is now built in.

[JoeyP41]

MikeChambers wrote:

Under the new model, there is more pressure on us, not less. If a customer is not happy, they can just leave at any time.

Which you do realize is one of the primary reasons why everyone is up in arms, right?

If someone spends 3 years worth of CC rental and decides finally they absolutely can't stand the arrangement anymore their entire investment is worthless when the leave. For them it won't just be no upgrades anymore, it will be 36 months of rent and then they are left with no software to use.

This idea that some people who have hundreds of client files and campaigns and material, even though they still have access to the files, will just be able to leave if they want is seriously straining the limit of credibility. After that period of time they are invested and committed. They won't be able to leave because they will lose access to the software. Having the files will be pointless if they don't have the software to open and edit them with.

Your customers are not stupid. They know whats coming and they don't like it one bit being put in this position. Most will never let themselves be cornered this way and I don't think you or Adobe understand just how insulting this situation is to loyal Adobe customers.

You're not just asking them to trust you, that you think you have the future figured out.

You're asking them to give up a very cherished, specific, and broad level of freedom regarding the way they purchase, manage and use their software.

If this is the future that is being sold to us, which is to say to the user:

    "Keep paying us or we'll take your toys away"

We don't want your vision of the future.

Joey

[bababongatwo]

I nearly have not one day in my business, where I dont´t have to open/edit and save a file that is between 1 and 3 years old. Sometimes very much older. And I used nearly all Adobe Apps.

Unsubscribing after a few years that means: I have to pay for a min of three years. After that period (when I have to open them not as often), I have to pay the monthly fee ($20 a App) & I have to download, install, verify, uninstall, book holding (< that alone is more than $50 if I would bill that) beside all the hazel.
That´s a absolute minimum of $3000 from me to Adobe. Under the conditions as they are today (that will change). & all the hazel with downloading, installing,...
Only for the use of my Archive.

So please dont´t tell me ever again, it´s easy for me or someone else to get out of the cloud.
You know exactly, that it´s half truth and most of your users have a similar situation if the go into dependency.
Otherwise you have no idea what your customers are doing with your tools.

----------

CC = Cash Cow = Terminating the word "Archive" in digital future = Lifelong dependency = NoGo = Never

[bababongatwo]

Refering to your product pages, that is half-truth.
There is written the following:

The following applications support the ability to export to the CS6 version of the application:

• Photoshop
• InDesign®
• Illustrator
• Flash® Professional
• Dreamweaver®
• After Effects®

Applications not listed here may not support exporting to Creative Suite 6, and may not do so in future releases.

New features added to the above list after Creative Suite 6 may not be supported in the exported file, or by the Creative Suite 6 application.

[rpearson1]

Hey Adobe, remember Netscape? Me neither.

They were destroyed by their self aggrandized belief that they were indispensable.

They took their customers for granted, they made major changes

in their business model, arrogantly ignored the online community that made

Them a major player and guess what, they were done in a year. Read the writing on the wall quickly, before you alienate you vast community forever. I was a early Adobe user from day one and have upgraded every version

of PS, AI, ID, plus a few more but I will NEVER subscribe to your Creative Cloud.

I want to own my software? I have recently downloaded trials of Bibble, Apeture, (can any one suggest an alternative to ID?

I have been annoyed with Adobe's recent business practices and arrogance and this is the final Straw.

I hope you get the message pretty damn quickly as I think you have made a grave tactical error and I hope you wake up before its to late.

What a greedy move.

[Mike_Ornellas]

In short, I find this moronic, ironic and just plain idiotic.

Adobe is now a two faced company with a strong downward trend. Apple will be the first to compete with Photoshop and has the money and power to finish Adobe off.

[Mike_Ornellas]

A day after CC is released, Adobe shall release its 1/4 profits. This will make the CEO look good from the get go, but I predict it will soon be over for him. They come in, make changes, destroy things, and leave with full pockets.

What's wrong with that picture?  Well apparently everything.

[rpearson1]

Damn right, the next version of Apeture will be all we dreamed it would be when we first brought it.

[TheCoroner9]

Mike Ornellas wrote:

In short, I find this moronic, ironic and just plain idiotic.

Adobe is now a two faced company with a strong downward trend. Apple will be the first to compete with Photoshop and has the money and power to finish Adobe off.

"We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company - no matter how big or how creative - should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web." -- Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock 2010

How quickly they forgot. What a mess this company has created for itself.