Boycott Creative Cloud?

[Mike Wickham]

If you haven't heard, CS6 is the last CS version. From now on, you have to rent your applications via the Creative Cloud. I don't like the new subscription model. I have bought every CS upgrade since version 1, but it looks like CS6 is the end for me, even if it means keeping an old computer around just to run CS6 applications.

Perhaps Adobe would change its mind in a few months if most everyone avoided signing up for the subscription. In any case, they've created a real opportunity for competitors.

[paul_tech]

Affinity Designer doesn’t even come close to Adobe Illustrator!

[kevind46997259]

Yes boycott adobe products. I'm certainly not signing up. May appear to be cheap now but in the long run they will start up their price gouging practices as they have done so expertly in the past. Adobe has been ripping off Australian users for years by charging almost double the US price for its products. Other companies are developing alternatives and should be supported e.g. Affinity photo is in beta at the moment. Adobe should bear in mind one word: Quark! Hopefully their arrogance will lead them to the same demise.

[gener7]

Happy Second Anniversary to the "Boycott Creative Cloud" thread!

[Steven L. Gotz]

As the number of people subscribing to the Creative Cloud grows every day and those of us who have subscribed are able to take advantage of the new features.

I'll never understand why people come to a company web site and leave messages about how terrible the company is in a User-To-User forum where is does absolutely no good.

Looking at the rate that the stock price has increased in the last two years sure shows Adobe is suffering. The price has only gone from around $44 to around $76. How sad for them.

[Jeff_Know1]

I'm sure the stock price increases have nothing to do with another round of buying back their own shares called 'stock buybacks'.

Nope... I'm sure the stock price totally reflects the real market value </sarc>

Adobe Announces Program to Repurchase $2.0 Billion of Stock by End of FY2017

When you buy all the cheap stocks yourself... of course the average stock price is going up.

And just in case you only focus on the "end of fiscal year 2017" part for this round of stock buybacks, "Adobe said authority of its previous buyback program of up to $2 billion through fiscal 2015 has been exhausted."

[Steven L. Gotz]

Just keep in mind that you have to have real, actual, money to buy back your own stocks. Some companies use that "extra" money for dividends, and others to buy back stocks, or a combination of both.

[Jeff_Know1]

"The company holds cash reserves worth $1.17 billion. It has a total debt of $1.514 billion."

How do Adobe’s financials look? - Market Realist (Jan 20, 2015)

"the company will repurchase shares in the open market and also enter into structured repurchase agreements with third parties."

Also known simply as "repos".

"A repo is economically similar to a secured loan, with the buyer (effectively the lender or investor) receiving securities for collateral to protect himself against default by the seller. The party who initially sells the securities is effectively the borrower."

Repurchase agreement - Wikipedia

I don't know how much of the stock buyback purchases will be done with their cash reserves, but since they don't have 2 billion they definitely need to borrow one way or the other in order to finance this.

But hey, at least the earnings per share will look better.

[Steven L. Gotz]

Two interesting statements made in that article.

1. Adobe is spending 20% on R&D - more than the average by quite a bit. That is to our advantage as users.

2. This statement:

"Adobe’s marketing cloud initiatives also yielded good results during the quarter, as revenues grew by 4.5% on a YoY basis to $330 million."

Are there negative things in the article? Sure. But do the positive things outweigh the negative? That is up to each of us to decide. My opinion is that the increased capabilities of the software and the rising stock price, are at least somewhat related.

[Multifun5]

I'll never understand why people come to a company web site and leave messages about how terrible the company is in a User-To-User forum where is does absolutely no good.

Ok, I'm not saying that it's an effective strategy, but here's maybe what you're not understanding:

Sending a note to a company is top - down thinking. In top down thinking, the top has all the control and sets the dialogue and propaganda (advertising, stock announcements etc) The company can ignore feedback from the bottom and easily project the impression that any naysayers are a tiny minority of isolated nut jobs. Basically, they can tell us what we think.

Starting a conversation with other users is bottom-up thinking. You get to see if there is a consensus, and rally support if there is one. I'm not sure that in this case there is a consensus, but that is the idea.

The title of the post is a boycott. You don't rally a support for a boycott by talking to the top, you do it by talking to the bottom.

I'm not saying that it will work, though it does seem like some professionals, like myself, who have used Adobe for decades and spent many thousands of dollars on products, are trying to avoid renting software for as long as possible because they think it's an unfair deal. If adobe can survive without us, so be it.

Anyway, regardless if it works or not, I don't think bottom-up thinking is so inherently incomprehensible. Also, most companies spend a lot of money on market research. It would seem a pretty odd waste of money not not use their own forums to gather data. I have a friend who worked at Adobe, and I think they're pretty aware that there is some unhappiness, they're just gambling that that it won't matter.

[Steven L. Gotz]

... they're just gambling that that it won't matter.

Truer words were never written.

That is exactly what they are doing.

[lhwohl]

I haven't been following the CC issue since it came up years ago, but I'm happy to see I'm not the lone CS6-user out there still resisting. Not that I think it'll change Adobe's direction one lick. Still hoping for a good, professional solution, though.

[Trevor.Dennis]

lhwohl wrote:

I haven't been following the CC issue since it came up years ago, but I'm happy to see I'm not the lone CS6-user out there still resisting. Not that I think it'll change Adobe's direction one lick. Still hoping for a good, professional solution, though.

Was CS6 your first and only copy of Photoshop?  I'm guessing that it is, because if you felt the need to upgrade from a previous version, you'd have had the sense to get on board with Creative Cloud.  We are only three years in to CC, and you are already disadvantaged by a long list of new features that make you less competitive, slower, and in the long run, likely to fail.  But that's your prerogative. 

[god_is_love]

If you and I both hit the bottom of the barrel with our businesses and didn't have enough funds to go around for a few months, one of us would still be able to continue doing business because our license didn't expire. You can explain your way around that a hundred ways, but that's really what it comes down to for us. Each new thing I only have full access to on a rental basis becomes yet another liability/weakest link... weigh your options carefully. For us CC is not worth the risk.

[Trevor.Dennis]

rapidfyre wrote:

If you and I both hit the bottom of the barrel with our businesses and didn't have enough funds to go around for a few months, one of us would still be able to continue doing business because our license didn't expire. You can explain your way around that a hundred ways, but that's really what it comes down to for us. Each new thing I only have full access to on a rental basis becomes yet another liability/weakest link... weigh your options carefully. For us CC is not worth the risk.

What on earth are you talking about?  If I could no longer use Creative Cloud, I could simply use CS6, CS5, CS4 or any of the other perpetual licenses I will always own for multiple Adobe products.  But then I have never set myself up to fail.

[god_is_love]

Oh good thinking! Sorry, I assumed you were all in with CC. I will do that the same thing down the road if I have to hire more people again. I will always have at least one perpetual license around no matter what. But then to make sure the files work with CS6 you must save them as CS6 compatible don't you? That will probably only exist for the next five years and then they will probably drop support for it entirely... bait and switch.

I have a question for you then since maybe you know. Adobe has tried to get us to "convert" our perpetual license to a CC license with discounts involved.  When you convert, does it make the perpetual unusable?  I'm assuming so but haven't heard it said for sure.

[Trevor.Dennis]

rapidfyre wrote:

I have a question for you then since maybe you know. Adobe has tried to get us to "convert" our perpetual license to a CC license with discounts involved.  When you convert, does it make the perpetual unusable?  I'm assuming so but haven't heard it said for sure.

No, you can leave your perpetual license version installed along with CS6.  Some of the forum regulars have CS5, CS6, CC 2013 and CC2014 installed on the same system, so they can test answers to forum questions.

You can also install CS6 from within the Creative Cloud Application Manager by using the Filter drop down and choosing Previous Version. What happens then is clicking on the Install button for any of the apps below the 'FIND NEW APPS' bar will show you options like below.

I can't actually think why you'd have CS6 and CC installed at the same time, but there will be a lot of people with CC, and CC (2014) installed because of the issue around Extensions with Flash and HTML5.  I suspect most those people would take that option just to access the Oil Paint filter, which is no longer present in CC (2014).

BTW rapidfyre, I was yanking your chain a wee bit about the CC subscription thing, and feel I was probably a bit rude so I apologize.  We all have a right to our own opinion, but I just can't get my head around people thinking the $10/month Photography deal was a worse thing than paying a thousand bucks for CS6.  In fact a stand alone perpetual license for the Extended versions would have cost me NZ$1800 due to price gouging, and even an upgrade cost NZ$800.

[gener7]

Just running the figures... $1000 is CS6 forever or 8 years/4months for the Photography program. Add a new upgrade every 1-2 years at $400 and lets say every two years to be conservative...that's an $800 added value.

In the meantime CS6 has eight or more years of dust, but it's all yours'.   (Still a good fallback in case you are out in the outback.)

No announcement that ACR upgrades will be discontinued after 9.0 for CS6, and you can take Jeff Schewe's word on that.

Gene.

[Ed.Macke]

Here's my math (and the math which my wife would be watching)....

I purchased CS6 Production Premium Academic Edition in Aug 2012 for $430. So after almost 3 years of use, total out of pocket is, well... $430!

Because there's no such thing as "Production Premium CC" and I don't know what Adobe's CC Academic policy was back in 2012, you can't exactly compare apples-to-apples, but I think the closest comparison would be their current "Complete CC" plan with Academic pricing.

Academic pricing is $19.99/mo for the first year; full price ($50/mo) after that. That comes out to $1,440 for 3 years' rental.

Granted, with CC you get more frequent updates (yea!) and the "Complete CC" plan includes more than the Production Premium does. On the other hand? You get more opportunities for rushed-to-market bugs (boo!) and also the math just gets worse... after 4 years it's $430 vs. $2040.

Something tells me Adobe's bean counters have been doing the same math

[lhwohl]

Exactly! And you'd be RENTING for that amount! Of course, I'm sure we, and countless others, would have shelled out by now for another CS version as long as it had great features. Wish I knew how many of us there were out there, but I suspect Adobe isn't going to tell us.

[lhwohl]

I'm curious about how you currently protect your work. I use InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. I'm assuming most designers do the same. When you open a CC file in CS6, in any of those 3 apps, what happens to anything created with features not present/supported in CS6? Do they disappear? Convert to something else, say a rasterized layer? I don't think it's completely unlikely that at some point, you'll lose that inherent awkward compatibility. Would you need to create a backward compatible file for everything?

I'm not being snarky. I really want to know how this all works and how I would gain some sense of security with CC.

[Chuck Uebele]

Lauren, It's just like any other release prior to CC. If you choose the save option for most compatible, the files will still open in the older products but some layers will be rasterized, like smart object, live shapes, strokes to paths, etc. Nothing that would make you complete lose your work, As far as limited Wifi, all you have to do is log on once in a while to keep the license up to date. You don't have to be on it all the time, and they do have plans for businesses that can't connect to the internet.

Charles, I have CS2 on one old XP box, CS5, CS6, and CC on various computers, There is no problem with my perpetual products, no bait and switch. Most likely your OS will mess you up before Adobe does, like when Microsoft went to Win 7 and many of my programs and printers no longer worked.

[god_is_love]

You are sadly correct about the OS thing as well. Time marches on.  That still doesn't mean I appreciate or would recommend the CC. I'm excited to see there's more competition springing up, so there's at least a glimmer of hope down the road.

[Chuck Uebele]

Competition is good! When CC came out, I was not too pleased either with the plan, but after seeing it in effect, I can see why Adobe did it, and I do think it does work for both the user and Adobe. Of course looking at some of the responses on this thread, there are many people who have their mind made up and nothing anyone can say supported with facts will change that.

[lhwohl]

Yeah. Gotta say, nothing has sold me on CC yet. Every so often I check out the new features and I'm not tempted in the least. I guess until I am, or until something really breaks with CS6, I'll let the converts work out any problems and keep my eye on whatever competition comes along.

[Chuck Uebele]

It's funny, a lot of those little improvements that you don't think you need are actually really great. I use CS6 at work and CC at home. I'm constantly running into situations where I wish I had CC at work. Just little things like radial filter in ACR, smoother zooming in ACR, perspective warp, etc. I guess it all depends upon your work flow. If you're a designer, there are tons of great new features.