Photoshop CC - Rent to Own?

[Guest]

I have been following and commenting on the firestorm of protest about Adobe's switch to a Cloud only subscription.  Many angry users and they all want Adobe to reinstate the status quo.  In my opinion this is just not going to happen.  But like Obama says "never let a good crisis go to waste".  So let the users get behind a compromise that neither side will be happy with, but will work for both.

Besides price, the next biggest complaint is that if you stop your subscription you have nothing.  So my proposal of Rent to Own.  Here is one way to do it.

After 3 years of renting you are entitled to a download of the version of your products that was active 2 years prior.  This download would be a perpetual licence. 

Arguments for the above.

1.  Adobe is not going to give you the current version as is deceases incentive to continue subscription once you have a current version.  So don't beat a dead horse with this argument.   Two years back seems like a good compromise. 

2.  CS6 is also a perpetual licence, but will it work with the then current computers and OS in the future?  Evidence says not likely.  So a 2 year old product should still be OK.

3.  I chose 3 years of rental as that would be more than one would pay in rental to buy the product, if it was offered.  This may be a negotiable point with Adobe.  But if you rent for 10 years, and then retire as a professional photographer, or your interests shift, you need the programs so you can continue working with the images.

4.  The argument that there is no disk for versions, as it is all subscription, is hollow.  They have a product that you download to your computer.  All Adobe needs is a deactivation code so it does not ask for the monthly payment.  All Adobe would have to do is keep the version that was active on January 1 two years ago.

Let the users come up with a compromise, rather than digging in and saying no way, and getting nothing.

[Hudechrome]

They are not paying much attention to the likes of us (PC users) I've just spent the last 3 months looking at the future and we're not near the top of the list.

I suspect the same is true of Mac.

[Noel Carboni]

Assuming you are talking about Microsoft, and not Adobe, I agree.  But the real problem is that not only are they not paying a lot of attention, they are actively abandoning computer users.

Trouble is (and bear in mind I'm in software engineering) how do they figure producers are going to make things for people to run on all the toys that are all the rage and taking everyone's attention?

It's like children who can only concentrate on one thing at a time are running giant corporations.

-Noel

[Hudechrome]

Include the HW manufacturers as well Noel.

When I picked up the contract at Intel, I was bewildered, amazed and somewhat delighted at the changes going on. For openers, I feel like I am working for a small organization with strong, intense goals.

Whatever your perspective, the only one that matters is money. One writer described Intel as a corporation investing billions of dollars turning sand into money!

My contract expires this week, and that's ok. I am not good any more at coping with 20+miles a day, in traffic where spacing between cars at 60mph is less than a car length!

[Samoreen]

Noel,

Noel Carboni wrote:

TDD...  LOL.  Sorry, call me old school, but just because undisciplined, haphazard development has an acronym and a Wikipedia page doesn't make it good.  I'm not against good testing, and I certainly believe developers should have a say in what gets developed, but there is no substitute for good top-down design.

I have been teaching TDD for years, along with object-oriented development. I'm not aware of any developer among my students who had given these technologies a try and who wanted to go back to old procedural development and old testing methods unless the project manager wanted him to do so for non technical reasons.

My feeling is that those "bricks" are more like a small pile of "stones" of all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and while you can certainly envision creating a stone wall, without mixing up a BUNCH of mortar the pile of stones begins to lose its integrity.

If you have read the above mentioned thread, you have understood that these building bricks are actually a collection of PS plugins and a host application. Plugins have to comply with a common architecture but they don't have to be run in PS as a host. Topaz Labs photoFXLab, as an example, is a host for any PS plugin, those from Topaz and those from any other company. I guess that onOne can easily add this feature in their Perfect Suite. Google/Nik would be well advised to provide such a host anyway. So consistency would be there anyway : there is no reason for plugins to be less consistent with each other in a host than in PS.

And I remind you that Photoshop itself is created from a number of packages that were purchased and integrated, which led to the situation we're in now where not everything works quite consistently.

This should not be a problem if the design of the hosting software is thought out with integration and testing in mind.

I don't want to come off sounding like I'm arguing against progress.  But what I AM doing is trying to bring a bit of realism into the argument that something can replace Photoshop in short order.

Make no mistake : I'm sure that "something can replace Photoshop in short order"... for photographers. I'm pretty sure this will happen within one year or two if third-party companies understand the big opportunity that Adobe is offering them and if Adobe don't decide to release a PS Photographer Edition rather quickly.

[Crystal Visionary]

I wonder what would happen if Google bought Corel, Photomatix, Topaz and OnOne?  Google has enough money to do anything they want.  With all those companies, they could soon have a product better than Photoshop.

[Crystal Visionary]

Noel, Do you work for Adobe?  Certainly no Adobe employee could do a better job at defending them and trying to discourage users from having any hope for a better solution.

Will Adobe continue to put significant effort into development?  The new subscription system would undoubtedly give them enough money.  However, having a guaranteed income stream that comes whether Adobe inovates or not, could be a disincentive to any real effort at improvement.

[Was DYP]

Nevada Shooter wrote:

Noel, Do you work for Adobe?  Certainly no Adobe employee could do a better job at defending them and trying to discourage users from having any hope for a better solution.

Will Adobe continue to put significant effort into development?  The new subscription system would undoubtedly give them enough money.  However, having a guaranteed income stream that comes whether Adobe inovates or not, could be a disincentive to any real effort at improvement.

As of late Adobe has a dismal record of fixing the bugs they have in their current products. They will have to have a much better track record going forward than they have had in the past few years to suck me into the cloud. The track record of late would seem indicate they no longer have the engineering resources for any real improvement and as it now appears they no longer have enough engineering resources to even fix current bugs.

[Mike_Ornellas]

Adobe does not make money fixing bugs. They make it releasing applications. Only if they have the resources available, will they fix bugs.  The cloud is your friend.

[Was DYP]

And with the cloud subscription model they won't have fix bugs or release updated applications to make money.

[Noel Carboni]

Nevada Shooter wrote:

Noel, Do you work for Adobe?  Certainly no Adobe employee could do a better job at defending them and trying to discourage users from having any hope for a better solution.

No, I don't work for Adobe, except as a volunteer to help them test stuff occasionally.  I'm just another user.

I happen to be a career software engineer who now runs my own software company, so I understand some of the business challenges faced in developing software for sale, as well as the level of complexity in developing software like this.

Personally I'd prefer it perpetual licenses were still available for those who want them, though I do see value in the cloud subscription model.  It's important to know that Adobe has been limited by factors most folks don't understand, having to do with their accounting practices, and I believe I understand at least some of the motivation behind their current moves.  I wouldn't be surprised to see further strategic changes down the line, for example after a fiscal year passes...

-Noel

[Mike_Ornellas]

To clear some fo the cloud confusion.

You will still be downloading software and install as you do now. The pending issue is the ping to the server to activate the software. If you are on an island in the middle of nowhere with no internet access, your software will not work.

That is a large failure upon Adobe's bean counters. The Cloud shall fail and damage the company.

[Hudechrome]

How often is the ping?

[Noel Carboni]

Lawrence, see post 121.

-Noel

[Hudechrome]

I knew the renewal numbers but perhaps the ping is more often.

Just making sure.

[Noel Carboni]

Oh, I see.  I have no idea how often it actually checks - perhaps as often as each time you run the applications, I don't know.  That would be nice, actually, because it would ensure that you have the longest possible time you can use the software offline.

-Noel

[Mike_Ornellas]

So here is some food for thought.

What happens when there is a CC 8 and you need to use CC 7, to perform backwards compatible files for clients and service providers?  Adobe assumes with the CC environment that everyone will be on the same application release, which is a wet dream in the real world.

So will you be charged 19.99 for CC 7 and 19.99 for CC 8 every month for one application so you can perform backwards compatibility files?

HMM?

I smell outrage from the user base. This is so going to hurt Adobe badly in the end.

[Mike_Ornellas]

Adobe Creative Cloud -

The best tools to make square circles. Try it and believe.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Mike Ornellas wrote:

So here is some food for thought.

What happens when there is a CC 8 and you need to use CC 7, to perform backwards compatible files for clients and service providers?  Adobe assumes with the CC environment that everyone will be on the same application release, which is a wet dream in the real world.

So will you be charged 19.99 for CC 7 and 19.99 for CC 8 every month for one application so you can perform backwards compatibility files?

HMM?

I smell outrage from the user base. This is so going to hurt Adobe badly in the end.

There will be a 'maintain backwards compatibility' setting in preferences, the sane as there is now, but for the most part, you would be using a non psd format to show a client, like JPG or PNG.  Personally, I always take a print to shpw clients, because of the horror story monitors so many people seem to have.

[Mike_Ornellas]

Illustrator and In Design shall break that logic very hard at every release.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Mike Ornellas wrote:

Illustrator and In Design shall break that logic very hard at every release.

Then stay with CS6.  There you go. You are sorted and can get on with the rest of your life.

[Mike_Ornellas]

Well that gave me a smile, but I highly doubt our associates will find that funny when they can't get their work produced.

[MW Design]

Mike,

My understanding is that with CC, one will be able to install previous versions back to CS6 in order to collaborate with users of previous versions. So at least a CC user can check files in previous versions to ensure they will be able to be opened and worked on with little muss and fuss.

That is the only thing I like about CC. Still, none of my customers are moving forward with CC at this time. Until such time as I have customers using CCx, I won't.

Take care, Mike

[Mike_Ornellas]

The whole CC thing makes a lot of sense, but the roll out and information is not published well.

If you have to have a contiguous account paying every month for software you don't use, this ideology will backfire for users who need it on a as needed basis. 

If you turn on the software and pay your fee when needed, that makes much more sense. Their model of business is changing into cell phone service contracts  - AKA Sprint, ATT, T-mobile.

[Frank Heller]

Worth reading:

http://adobe2014.tumblr.com/

[Mike_Ornellas]

Frank -

OMG~!

Um, yeah, thanks for the insight?

It's a painful read, but the clarity is there. It's like signing a contract with the devil . Shareholders expect a return upon investment, and therefore a company attracts revenue to grow. The company is forecast to have sup-par numbers for investors because of much of the unknown  - of the new business model. This is a vampire watching over the blood bank.

I was going to chime in as to a solution to the ping to activate, but my subject is trivial to your posting.

Adobe is in trouble, and they need to meet expectations in monetary value based upon bullwhip.

buy oil stocks?