Adobe's New Upgrade Policy (for CS6)

http://eduardoangel.com/2012/01/13/adobe-reconsiders-upgrade-policy-expiration/

Adobe’s world­wide upgrade pol­icy was set to change after Decem­ber 31, 2011. Well, now they are announc­ing a new “spe­cial upgrade offer” for CS3 and CS4 customers.

Some significant news just out that should make older customers happy on this topic

  Adobe Listens, Postpones Changes to CS6 Upgrade Policy — CS3 & CS4 on Track

So good news as it should be returning now to the previous plan for the rest of this year.

Well, I think I'm about to put Adobe in the same classification as I did Autodesk in 2002. I stopped sucking up to Autodesk after Autocad 2000 was released and have not upgraded since and have no intentions to upgrade with them. I can design homes, buildings or whatever I get a call for in 2000. A line is a line and a dimension is a dimension and it doesn't take several thousand bucks a year in upgrades to make them work together. Everyone in my office that runs cad uses Windows 2000 Pro or XP, some on new computers with a fresh install of XP so pocka to Autodesk.
None of us certainly care not to have to learn all the new peeps in programs already with intense learning curves.

Everyone in my office that uses PS can still do whatever they need to do in earlier versions even though we have cs5.5. I feel like that was a waste of money because most still use cs3 and two still use PS 7.0 and refuse to change and I'm certainly not going to make them change as long as it works for them. Everyone also has PSP and loves it so I'll upgrade that for anyone of them that think she wants or needs the upgrade.
I doubt very seriously we'll upgrade PS anymore unless some super changes are made in it that works for us.

I understand many people having to use, or think they have to use, PS so I certainly hope it's paying off for them.

I'm sure the hackers are lining up if and when PS makes their new move on all of their dedicated users and customers.

We're now using Expression Web much more than DW and have no intentions of upgrading anymore DW. At the last developers meeting we were in we were told EW is fast catching up to DW and will probably overtake it. EW is a lot cheaper than DW and so far all the upgrades have been free but we buy the disk so we can more or less control our destiny if an upgrade is buggy. Our 13 year old daughter walked in the door last week with herself a new EW4 Academic version for $24.00....not seen anything like that with DW. We still have many client sites in DW so we'll continue to use the versions we have and will continue to use DW for certain applications that DW is good at.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Hi,

I did not followed all this stupid "evolutions" using still the full CS4 package.

Is it means Adobe is intend to put the CS6 on the market already ?

My goodness, when i'm thinking on ALL the very usefull applications they "finisht" ...

Remember: Streamline >> Dimensions >>Type Manager >> Live Motion ....and so on !

In the past, the customer was KING !

Today...the customer is a SLAVE !

Well, I'm not sure what it looks like in all your worlds, and perhaps you're all or mostly in a position to upgrade regularly.  But, out here in amateur-land there's already notice of this change.  In December the tutorial at at least one of the local photo clubs will be on "Alternatives to Adobe Products for Photographers".  They'll be stressing tools like gimp and cost effective alternatives to Lightroom (there's a strong stench that if Adobe's going to screw Photoshop users, they'll screw the Lightroom users next).

How many people will switch, I don't know.  But I DO know that a LARGE number of amateur photographers I know, switched from Photoshop to Elements in the CS4, CS5 timeframe.  And they AREN'T coming back.  So, if Adobe's intention is to "reduce their customer base so they can listen easier", they're being very successful.

For the last 6 years, every time I've had to upgrade PS, and now LR, I"ve said the same thing "What Adobe needs MOST is a strong, devastating competitor with a world-class, cost effective, Adobe-killing photo editor."  If they COULDN'T get away with this kind of repugnant behavior 'cause their competition would eat their lunch, they wouldn't try.

Personally, I'm disgusted by the seemingly blatant insult to people that have contributed to the Adobe annuity for years.

I think what I have been doing mostly is what Al Sparber alluded to: upgrading only to the extent that it makes sense.

Of course, he has to have the latest versions of all software he does plugins for just to make sure that the P VII plugins continue to work with the latest versions—but he makes that investment back from those who purchase his products.

Here are the reasons for upgrading (for me):

1. Prior code does not work with the current operating system, which means any new computer will need current code.
2. Enhancements to the code that make it a "must buy." This means the software needs to increase productivity substantially.

That is pretty much it. I will not upgrade just to get on the "treadmill." Microsoft recently released Office 2011. While it runs great on Intel Macs, I see no need to have a 64-bit spreadsheet (if, indeed it is) and I really do not want to relearn how to use the applications, when pretty much all Microsoft did was tweak the user interface to changes things back to the way it worked in the 2004 version after users complained about the 2008 version.

I have not upgraded to OS X 10.7. I suppose, were I to purchase another Macintosh I might be inclined to, but Apple significantly changed the operating system to redefine how I would work on my computer, and I simply do not have time to waste trying to figure out how to work with the new paradigms. I recognize and acknowledge that Apple has made the upgrade cost cheaper but it will "break" several applications that require Rosetta that I use several times weekly. That violates reason # 2 above, as my productivity would be inversely affected. As I stated, # 1 may override that if I purchase new hardware.

As to Adobe's products. I hung on to Photoshop version 7 until it simply was outpaced (on Intel) by CS3. I still use Photoshop CS3 and it works fine for what I am doing. I have looked at updating to Photoshop CS5.5 because it may offer some enhancements that could save me time but, for now, CS3 is just fine for me, even though I realize it's not a 64-bit application. As a 32-bit app, it's hardly slowing me down on my Mac Pro.

I upgraded to Dreamweaver CS 5.5 because of the HTML5 work being requested of me and because the Live View feature can save me time. As it is, it has helped me design sites with a better eye on details in HTML5.

I think it's useless to panic when one gets these kinds of indications that a software company is going to institute one policy or another. Photoshop costs $700. If the upgrades are $200 per release and I would have upgraded each time Adobe released their new software, I would have spent $600 by now in the upgrades. If it turns out that I cannot upgrade Photoshop CS3 to Photoshop CS6 (whenever that comes out), I will have saved $100 by not upgrading. And, frankly, I could save more than that by continuing to use the very useful CS3 software through Adobe's 6.5 release.

I do not understand the "cloud" subscription model. I do realize that Microsoft decided to float that idea some years ago for their Office Suite, which was, at the time, unreasonably-priced. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I might, indeed, really need to open a Microsoft Word document some time after my subscription lapsed and the inability to do that was intolerable. I suppose there are accounting reasons why a subscription might be valuable and here are my thoughts about that model (which does not work for me:

1. It may allow companies who are trying to save on taxes in the US and the UK to show a subscription related to your work.*
2. It allows companies to purchase a seat on a month-to-month basis and stop the subscriptions in the case of layoffs, increase them in the case of an expansion in their business. Site licensing may be more expensive.

* Please note, I am not an accountant and not qualified to give out tax advice.

So Adobe is reviewing how they sell products now and I'm sure they're trying to maximize income. It remains my hope that Adobe will continue to invest profits in making their applications better. To the extent they don't really, I don't purchase their software upgrades. And I do save money in not doing that.

Whichever way you look at it, Adobe has got you by the sort and curlies

The upgrades are expensive - so the only option is to skip a version

Now that loophole is closed we can all look forward to being at Adobe beck and call.

Before you know it you wont be able to purchase the app and you'll have to rent it to do your job!

IMO, the most unfair thing about this policy change is the short notice. Adobe is offering a 20% discount on CS5.5 upgrades thru Dec 31, so I have about 6 weeks to upgrade from CS4 to CS5.5 in order to have the "privilege" to upgrade to CS6 when it is released -- and I have no idea if I'll want or need what's in CS6! So I'm supposed to spend $160 now for CS5.5 and then another $200 (guesstimate) for CS6 in a few months?

I saw a suggestion to Adobe in another blog that they should start this policy effective with CS6's release. In other words, you can upgrade to CS6 from earlier versions when it's released, but from then on you have to take each upgrade if you want the upgrade pricing. Still not what I want to do, but fairer than springing this on us at the last minute.

I also agree with some of Al Sparber's comments above, and if I have to make a decision by the end of the year, may just spring for CS5.5 and consider it my "final" version of DW.

I pay for the subsciption on Adobe Production Premium Suite and I have to say I love it. I stay current, upgrades are easy and just breeze out to me.

I have no compaints. I am concerned about this Creative Cloud thing, as I am not sure what it will include.

Quote "We are excited to announce that membership to the Adobe Creative Cloud will be available in the first half of 2012 at a price of $49.99 per month for individuals and $69.99 per month per seat for workgroups, both for an annual plan"

So you should be. Just think of the great big bonuses that the upper echelon are drooling about.

This will be £50 per month in the UK for an individual, if current UK pricing policy of $1 = £1 (when the true exchange rate is £1 = $1.5)  is continued!

Or £600 a year, which is more than double the current upgrade price that I pay as a single user for web standard if I upgrade every two years. No doubt the upgrade prices will increase to match, and because the product will be continually evolved, upgrades will be produced every three months, so it will be impossible to keep up to date.

Unless you are working for big corporations with money to burn (like Adobe) there is no way that this sort of rip off can be sustainable.

If Adobe insist on going down this route then they should do it at a price that is viable.  I would not mind paying  £10 or $15 a month, which is all that the product is worth.

The proposed prices are a certain way to drop half their  non-corporate customer base - but perhaps that is what they want

I write for charitable groups, and they will not be able to pay these sort of costs.

If I had known this a few weeks ago, I would never had bothered to "upgrade" to 5.5 which is not much of an improvement on version 4.