Adobe's New Upgrade Policy (for CS6)

[Ben M]

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/adobe-creative-cloud-and-adobe-creative-suite-new-choic... - Posted by DAVID WADHWANI, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, DIGITAL MEDIA BUSINESS UNIT

Just saw this and I'm speechless.  Everyone knows about Muse by now and how they want to charge to continue to use the product and now today Adobe boldly makes this statement:

In order to qualify for upgrade pricing when CS6 releases, customers will need to be on the latest version of our software (either CS5 or CS5.5 editions).

That means no more 3 versions back.  Upgrade at every point or buy a new license when you need it again, or pay the subscription model for Adobe "Creative Cloud" for $49.99/month ( $599.88 / year ).

How does everyone else feel about this?

[paul campagna]

mhollis55 wrote:

OK, here is what you just did, Paul. You read the first part of my statement, got angry and replied.

I read your whole statement, but apparently you think that it is ok for a company to lie to you to get you to buy a product. You do not need to know details on why I am planning to buy CS6, that is none of your business. Please don't preach to me about anything else.   I was lied to about having to buy something I never actually needed to buy and now they are not doing their job to offer me customer service for a product they sold me that doesn't work and was not what I wanted in the first place.

AGAIN, unless you spent money on something you didn't need, then I really see no need to comment on something you don't understand.

[paul campagna]

I'm STILL waiting for Adobe to call me back after weeks of trying. HELLO ADOBE????

I've filled out several call back request with no "call back". On Twitter with "Bing" and she didn't have all the information she needed to give me the correct answer, what do I have to do to get a response from adobe?

[mhollis55]

Buy my product, Paul. It will prevent hair loss, remove loose teeth and cause you to have increased vitality. If you buy my product, you will live 135 years.

There, now I have lied to you.

Does it change any decisions you are going to make?

Seriously, I understand you feel tricked. So claim the purchase on your tax return and move on.

[paul campagna]

mhollis55 wrote:

Buy my product, Paul. It will prevent hair loss, remove loose teeth and cause you to have increased vitality. If you buy my product, you will live 135 years.

There, now I have lied to you.

Does it change any decisions you are going to make?

Seriously, I understand you feel tricked. So claim the purchase on your tax return and move on.

Because Tax writeoffs make everything ok, ..... I honestly don't know why you feel the need to waste my time with nonsense. - please troll elsewhere.

[ProDesignTools]

Only the company didn't lie - they just changed the policy.  I can assure you the original policy was in the works for while before ultimately changing in response to customer feedback, there was no "bait and switch."  Most people are happy they made the policy better, but the change didn't happen faster because it all took place in real-time and big companies move more slowly.

Paul, this is a user-to-user forum...  You won't receive a response from Adobe here.  People have offered suggestions to you here and on other threads, but we can't help or do anything further for you.

[John Waller]

Most people are happy they made the policy better,

Most of the online comments I've seen related to the "better policy" are focussed on the extraordinarily poor timing of the change and the fact that they feel duped into the CS5.5 upgrade.

Must say, it feels like a major misstep by Adobe and suggests that they're losing touch with user sentiment in some areas like this.

[paul campagna]

John Waller wrote:

Most people are happy they made the policy better,

Most of the online comments I've seen related to the "better policy" are focussed on the extraordinarily poor timing of the change and the fact that they feel duped into the CS5.5 upgrade.

Must say, it feels like a major misstep by Adobe and suggests that they're losing touch with user sentiment in some areas like this.

This is one of my major points. If they want people (me) to believe that they didn't have this in place already, then they should've let people know (who bought the product because they were specifically told by Adobe they had to buy it or they would pay full price) that the policy has changed and offer special pricing, or a coupon or SOMETHING/ ANYTHING.  I found out by reading the news aboutt he change and I was PIIIIISSSSSEEEED. Then after calling adobe more than once to complain with no solution, no case opened, nothing, it lead me to complain everywhere!  How many people that thought they had to buy CS5, or bought it and haven't found out yet they didn't need to buy it? How many companies that used year end $, or only had one shot to upgrade until next year now find out about it and can't do anything? Sure they will refund, but Let me tell you that procedure is not easy to go through when Adobe ignores you for over a month.  I believe it's on purpose thinkg you will eventually give up.

This has been a major headache for me and with no compenasation offered for the people who did unwillingly buy a product they didn't want. It's a kick in the (you know what)

The only thing Adobe had to do was send an email to people who bought CS5.5 and say "sorry here is a complimentary price on upgrading to cs6" SOMETHING! it could've been some made up number, but at the least it would've let peole know that Adobe carred about it's customers. Then for those who bought something they never wanted to buy, they woul've felt like the got compensation of some kind.

[John Waller]

The only thing Adobe had to do was send an email to people who bought CS5.5 and say "sorry here is a complimentary price on upgrading to cs6" SOMETHING! it could've been some made up number, but at the least it would've let peole know that Adobe carred about it's customers. Then for those who bought something they never wanted to buy, they woul've felt like the got compensation of some kind.

That already exists for suites.

Under their current upgrade pricing policy, Adobe offers tiered upgrade pricing.

CS2, CS3 and CS4 users pay more for upgrading to CS5.5 than CS5 users.

So those who feel duped into upgrading to CS5.5 should at least get a price break for upgrading to CS6.

Cold comfort though.

Upgrade pricing will probably be tiered until the "3-versions-back" policy becomes the "upgrade-from-current-version-only" policy on 31 Dec 2012.

[paul campagna]

I'm bitching on here so people who search can hear how many problems are going on with Adobe and their horrible customer service. People need to know how they treat their customers and hopefully adobe hears it and changes. Results show up in google, so if one person find this thread an avoids the problems i having then that is why i'm here. It is adobes forum yes?

After Months they are finally issuing a credit! After a month and 18 days they say they are crediting my account! Holly crap what a horrible experience! 

[mytaxsite]

paul campagna wrote:

Adobe has yet to understand my concerns with CS5 photoshop not working correctly.

It is unlikely Adobe can understand what the heck has this got to do with Dreamweaver forum?  You first tried to post your rant on Forum Comments and iyour post was closed down by the mederator.  Now you have started here.

What exactly is your problem?  Why don't you understand that these forums are not meant for such things.  If you have any problems with Dreeamweaver then please start a new post stating precisely what the problem is.

Photoshop forums is at this link:

<http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop/general>

Good luck.

[paul campagna]

I understand completly why these forum are here. They are all linked to adobe. If it helps someone else with this problem when they search, then that is what my goal is by complaining on here. I want other people to see it.  wheni do a search for problems such as this, guess what shows up first in the listings? I know how search engines work.

I'm done now after three hours on the phone today, i finally got the refund confirmation email. Hopefully it goes through without a problem, but it took WAY TO LONG for adobe to recognize my issue and take care of it. four cases opened, two closed without any kind of resolution, one that they told me they opend that never was, and now i finally got through.

How can a company that acts like this stay in business?

Enough about that now. but people reading thins from search, you are not alone in hating adobe.

peace out.

[pierat1959]

I agree with you, Paul. I also upgraded to CS5.5 because of Adobe 'virtual gun' that I would not be able to upgrade to CS6 from CS4. So I feel very cheated.

I contacted Adobe by Twitter (@Adobe_care) and a guy named Rohit Kumar DM'ed me that I was offered a free copy of Lightroom 3 (which I already own and is almost replaced by LR4) or to return my CS5.5 if bought directly form Adobe (which I did not.. I bought it through a Dutch reseller). I offered them to give me a free upgrade from LR3 to LR4 but haven't heard from then since then (which was almost one week ago).

[martcol]

Well I was devasted by the change in u/grade policy.  I hadn't taken my head out of my bucket long enough to hear the other better news 😉

Martin

[mhollis55]

Oy vey!

What a firestorm!

I posted earlier about just not worrying about it because I have saved money by continuing to use older versions of Adobe's software. I even did the math.

I just cannot get all cranked up about Adobe. Sorry. Got other fish to fry. While I do agree that some kind of a discount would be really nice for CS6, this is a decision that needs to be made at a pay grade much higher than mine. I'm just fine using Photoshop CS3. I did upgrade Dreamweaver to CS 5.5 because there were a few improvements (over that of CS3) that were worthwhile (the main one is that it understands HTML5 better and does have some of the CSS3 stuff built in). Newer versions of Photoshop are 64-bit but they don't handle my scanner, so they're not adding anything to my workflow.

I have asked for a refund of software one time. It was a request to Intuit for Quicken "essentials" for the Mac, which had none of the essentials I needed in their software. The first version would not print checks!

I upgrade when I see a burning need to. And I feel that I am honestly saving money in not doing the upgrade treadmill.

[macuser88]

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.

[ProDesignTools]

macuser88 wrote:

Adobe’s world­wide upgrade policy was set to change after Decem­ber 31, 2011.

That's not correct -- their upgrade policy was not set to change on December 31, 2011 - the policy would change only when CS6 comes out, for upgrades at that time.

Adobe would have no way of definitively knowing when a customer purchased or upgraded to Creative Suite 5.5, so there could be no earlier cutoff.

The only thing that was set to expire on 12/31/2011 was the additional 20% discount on upgrades to CS5.5 - but towards the end of December that offer was extended.

The difference now is that owning CS5 or CS5.5 is no longer a requirement to get future upgrade pricing to CS6, at least though the end of 2012.

So that December 31, 2011 date was a misunderstanding on significance, but to be fair, Adobe's communication on the issue was sparse and complex enough to be misread.