Adobe Creative Cloud

Not sure if this is already being discussed, but what are WATMM's thoughts on Adobe's move from owning its software to a new cloud-based system that incurs a monthly (and imo overpriced) subscription fee?

 

 

i think it sucks!

 

it is awesome for them. you have to rent software forever! you never own a thing.

really? holy shit. Time to start using gimp more, I guess.

 

unbelievable.

Pfff ... like you guys ever purchased an Adobe product in the first place !

shooting themselves in the foot imo

 

 

 

f u mcbpete my software is legit

As legit as a Quistgard enabled Cool Edit

as someone involved professionally with enterprise IT purchasing/licensing at a uni, i think this will be easier to manage.

time will tell though.. currently all their CS packages and various components are confusing as fuck to track

they should use an Honest Business Model like Cockos Reaper, low prices for people who make less than X amount of money a year using the software. that way students and hobbyists would probably consider getting a license more often

 

in my college it's generally accepted you just pirate the shit, there's enough costs with hardware, printing, etc already - which wasn't the case in my previous college, if you didn't have licenses you couldn't even enter in your finals and shit, I even had to buy fucking MS Office which I never used-

funnily they used an Adobe CS MC key that basically never expires and they entered the serials theirselves on your laptop, i was clever enough to install a keylogger and now I'm still using that license :D

oyeah fuck subscriptions and expiring licenses

Aye, Adobe demonstrated it to us a few weeks back in terms of the roll out for enterprises and it seems to make a lot of sense in that environment. Plus for students would you rather shell out about £650 for Photoshop or £15 per month for the odd times you'll need it ?

it'd be great if i COULD shell out 20 bucks or so for the odd month where i'm using photoshop heavily, except that they force you to buy in for a year. so it's really spending $240 for the odd time i'll use photoshop in a year.

My bad, didn't spot the years tie-in part of the pricing scheme for the student price - It looks like the £17.50/month plan doesn't tie you in though

Basically you´re continuously paying for the development of the software, right? If I were a freelance creative professional I wouldn't like it at all. I'd just buy the software once and only upgrade it when I really need to. Even though I've got photoshop cs5 now I might as well have been using cs1 or something.

I think it's great (on the surface, kinda like communism is great on paper) - it is less overall (in some cases, and depending on your needs), and if Adobe keeps to their word that they'll be able to roll out new features more rapidly (they have already been consistently updating Photoshop CC with new features here and there), then it's good for the end user as well. I know for one I use Dreamweaver as my primary IDE, and wished it supported the latest web technologies when they become available.

 

I liken it to leasing a vehicle - you pay a set amount per month to use the vehicle, and at the end of the lease, you turn the vehicle in and either buy it or get a brand new one - yes, you're continuously shelling out money for usage, but you'd do that anyways for 4-7 years with a traditional purchase (and in the software case, pay a large sum for at best a year's worth of the latest version), and then have to pour more money into it to keep up to date (like with a car, typically the warranty period expires year 3 to year 5, and after year 5 is typically when you start to have issues requiring more investment into maintaining the vehicle).

 

If you take the monthly cost of CC and multiply it out, it would take 2+ years to equal the up-front cost of Creative Suite if purchased traditionally. I think it's a good deal, and will finally curb piracy, which arose mostly due to the rising cost of their suite of products.

  On 5/8/2013 at 6:22 PM, Joyrex said:

if Adobe keeps to their word that they'll be able to roll out new features more rapidly (they have already been consistently updating Photoshop CC with new features here and there)

That's actually one thing that got mentioned that I forgot about - apparently (and I'm not up on UK law let alone US law so I couldn't tell you if it's true or not!) there's some regulation in the US that forbids the addition of new features to licensed software that you’ve already purchased without further charging you for them. So in this 'cloud' service they'd constantly be able to update/add features as you're paying a subscription rather than a license

it's a good deal if you were someone trying to keep up with their updates every year. for someone who purchases their software maybe once every 3 or 4 years (like myself) it makes no sense.

  On 5/8/2013 at 6:36 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 5/8/2013 at 6:22 PM, Joyrex said:

if Adobe keeps to their word that they'll be able to roll out new features more rapidly (they have already been consistently updating Photoshop CC with new features here and there)

That's actually one thing that got mentioned that I forgot about - apparently (and I'm not up on UK law let alone US law so I couldn't tell you if it's true or not!) there's some regulation in the US that forbids the addition of new features to licensed software that you’ve already purchased without further charging you for them. So in this 'cloud' service they'd constantly be able to update/add features as you're paying a subscription rather than a license

 

I've never heard of this - I see free updates from Adobe all the time (Dreamweaver's HTML5 and CSS3 updates for CS5, for instance).

universities create great digital manipulation iP mostly funded by grants student fees and the government. Adobe jumps on it and adds to PS etc. and forces the rest of us to deal with their exxee paywall..

 

good grief yaalL..

each iteration of suite should be under 50 bucks. There would be mass consumer acceptance of the product on their PC's and they would have more money than their current paywall lueznor system gives them multiplied by thousands. Given broad market appeal.

 

Instead they locked everyone out and forced them into pirating or inferior (without the IP) freeware substitutes.

 

why the term fail whale was invented.

Well, if you rely on adobe's software for your income, I think it's more than reasonable to pay a couple of hundred bucks for it. That's still what they're aiming at, if it weren't for the "elements" nonsense.

  On 5/8/2013 at 10:14 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 5/8/2013 at 6:36 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 5/8/2013 at 6:22 PM, Joyrex said:

if Adobe keeps to their word that they'll be able to roll out new features more rapidly (they have already been consistently updating Photoshop CC with new features here and there)

That's actually one thing that got mentioned that I forgot about - apparently (and I'm not up on UK law let alone US law so I couldn't tell you if it's true or not!) there's some regulation in the US that forbids the addition of new features to licensed software that you’ve already purchased without further charging you for them. So in this 'cloud' service they'd constantly be able to update/add features as you're paying a subscription rather than a license

 

I've never heard of this - I see free updates from Adobe all the time (Dreamweaver's HTML5 and CSS3 updates for CS5, for instance).

 

Aye it was the first I'd heard of it too - Hold up let's see if I can find any reference on the nets:

 

Here's a discussion about it - http://forums.adobe.com/message/5297062

and another - http://indesignsecrets.com/adobe-creative-cloud-upgrade-offer-ends-new-features-begin.php

Here's a statement from someone working on after effects - http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1035121

 

Though I can't actually find anything more concrete a source so it may be a bit of shenanigans that Adobe are pulling to coax people into this model (As I say - I know nothing of US software law so couldn't tell you either way !)

I read the first link, and apparently Apple got in hot water over promising features that were not in the shipped product, but delivered at a later date (or were planned to be). That I can see as a violation of US law. What Adobe is doing is saying the improvements they can roll out now in more incremental steps without being specific regarding how many updates, what they are, etc. versus promising a feature and never delivering on it.

hopefully this means they stop moving features around from version to version as much. I started to get the impression they were doing that to justify a new version. there is no reason if there is a common feature in, say, illustrator and indesign, they should be in the same place and work similarly!

 

what is gimp? I've heard more than one person bring that up.

GIMP is an open source image editor, people refer to it as an 'open source Photoshop' but it's not.

  On 5/8/2013 at 3:13 PM, mcbpete said:

Pfff ... like you guys ever purchased an Adobe product in the first place !

 

Plus now that this BS happened I'm sure GIMP and other programs will be worked on even more, and better versions or new programs entirely will come about now that Adobe CS has turned to shite

Edited May 9, 2013 by Zeffolia

GIMP has had years to get better, and it suffers from the same thing that many open source stuff suffers from - poor interface design, designed by programmers.