No more boxed Adobe apps/licenses

[Donald]

Could we all please resolve that those of you who like the idea, like it and those of you who don't, don't ............ and you're not going agree nor convince those on the 'other side'. Then the discussion can proceed on that basis.

[William W]

To the best of my knowledge, they've done a couple of things:
(1) Internet only delivery, and
(2) Subscription based licencing only (for their major products).
Pop onto www.adobe.com - I think you'll only find CC options for the likes of Photoshop.

Ta.

***

You'll still need to connect to the net to download updates (the update rollup for Photoshop and Premiere was close to 1GB when I did it last night).

Yea, I got that - my point was the box and the disc in the filing cabinet is a nice layer of redundancy not requiring any connections - I could limp by re-installing CS5 (or CS6) . . . without updates when the crisis hits.
Anyway I am just not fond of the morality - (wrong word) - of it. But I guess that was obvious.

Cheers,

Bill

[Colin Southern]

Yea, I got that - my point was the box and the disc in the filing cabinet is a nice layer of redundancy not requiring any connections - I could limp by re-installing CS5 (or CS6) . . . without updates when the crisis hits.
Anyway I am just not fond of the morality - (wrong word) - of it. But I guess that was obvious.

You might have to resort to creating entire disk images for backup instead.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the irony that the licencing model that Adobe are adopting is no different to the licencing model most top-end photographers already adopt for the images they create with Photoshop.

Must be osmosis!

[Colin Southern]

Seems the standard version is 13.0.4, hmm. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/135...-photoshop-cs6

This is the extended version if that makes any difference.

[gaijin]

Adobe is patently saying that they're only interested in the professional market.

Last year I spent a bit more than 300€ on updating Photoshop and Lightroom. With Creative Cloud one year on (I'm skipping the 1st year special deal for existing customers) I'd be paying more than 700€ a year. Admittedly that would give me more than I currently have, but the more would just be made up of things I don't want - I'm just a very amateurish amateur photographer trying to get LR and PS to help me out. I really have no wish to try out any other of the plethora of other Adobe software solutions to problems I don't have. So it looks like it's going to be status quo for me - LR4 and PS6 for ever more. Or perhaps Linux and open source? Back to Gimp? Darktable? Goodbye Adobe, goodbye!

[Adrian]

You are probably right William, internet delivery only in due course (same as Apple in essence), at least for most applications. Personally I don't care. I think it is a disadvantage to install stuff via DVD. If I want software I can usually het it almost instantly form the internet. It is a better delivery model in my view. Users are still using digital software, with encryption, whether they load it via the internet or from a DVD in a hard drive: just a different delivery mechanism. Advantage of internet version is the manufacturer makes sure it is always the latest version , with all bug fixes and adornments. Makes no difference to data storage. DVDs are almost dead and many computers now do not have DVD drives at all. I can't remember the last time I used a DVD or CD. They have come and almost gone within one generation.

Adrian

[pnodrog]

Adobe is patently saying that they're only interested in the professional market.

Last year I spent a bit more than 300€ on updating Photoshop and Lightroom. With Creative Cloud one year on (I'm skipping the 1st year special deal for existing customers) I'd be paying more than 700€ a year. Admittedly that would give me more than I currently have, but the more would just be made up of things I don't want - I'm just a very amateurish amateur photographer trying to get LR and PS to help me out. I really have no wish to try out any other of the plethora of other Adobe software solutions to problems I don't have. So it looks like it's going to be status quo for me - LR4 and PS6 for ever more. Or perhaps Linux and open source? Back to Gimp? Darktable? Goodbye Adobe, goodbye!

Allen I am basically will take the same approach as you having also upgraded to Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 when it was on special last year.

The biggest danger for Adobe is the potential loss of the non professional market which they maybe underestimating. There will several companies now selling lower level photo-editing software that will very eager to supply a more expensive upgraded version to try and fill the market gap. If they are successful there will be a vast number of amateur photographers who will never aspire to learning and using photoshop,

I had a similar problem back in the about 1992 when I no longer had access to Autocad. It did not take me long to find an alternative much cheaper CAD programme that could do everything I needed, not as elegantly for a few functions but certainly provided all the basic requirements at 1/20th of the price. Most of Autocad's competition comes from companies that managed to grow by exploiting the low level market when Autocad priced itself beyond the casual user.

Over the years I have seen many companies become all powerful in their industry only to fade or topple over - so let it be with Adobe. (back in the 60's I worked a couple of years for Kodak - in a few years I will have to tell people what they did.)

Of course the cloud concept may become so economically viable that Adobe can reduce the subscription to the point that it attractive to any serious amateur photographer but I am not counting on it.

[davidedric]

So many threads, so little time - and I promised myself to stay out of this one. Still, having thought a bit:

It seems to me that Adobe is differentiating its market: high end users who want the tool box and for whom the CC subscription model makes sense, and lower end users for whom discrete purchases and occasional updates makes sense (probably mostly LR/PSE users). We have representatives of both types here, hence some of the debate. (I am firmly in the second camp, though I probably upgrade more often than most.)

We might also speculate that if Adobe has saturated the high end market, then it can better secure one of its revenue streams by adopting a subscription model.

A problem at the moment, it certainly confused me, is that is not at all easy to deduce this (if it's right!) from the way the products are presented on its site.

Just by the way, until I read this thread I didn't know anyone still bought boxed products. Shouldn't assume everyone works as I do.

Adobe know a lot more about the software than I do, and if they think I should have an update then that's good enough for me.

Ah Colin, I hope you are right, but it depends on Adobe's interests being coincident with yours. I haven't been close enough to Adobe to have a view, but I've dealt with several of the largest global software providers over many years, and that certainly hasn't been true either in their licencing or upgrade policies! Better not name names, though

[Colin Southern]

So many threads, so little time

Or in my case - now that I've signed up for $1 a day - it's a case of "so many apps, so little time".

Think I'll bow out of this one now and put some quality time in to learning Premiere (OK, ok, and some heli upgrades too )

[Clactonian]

Just by the way, until I read this thread I didn't know anyone still bought boxed products. Shouldn't assume everyone works as I do.

I suspect Dave that rather as in my own case one uses the term 'boxed' to differentiate (maybe confusingly) retail from subscription based products. I certainly download most of my software now that we enjoy broadband speeds.
I think your overall assessment is correct.
It does disappoint me that Adobe have seen fit to offer just two alternatives, the complete package or individual programs. A competitively price photographers package with CS6, LR, Bridge, Elements etc. could have tempted me but not £590 a year for the minimal number of programs I would use.
Colin is of course right in saying that Adobe are not trend setting with this move given that we have Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps, et all. I guess we'll just have to stay alert until the right package comes along for us 'low end' chaps.

[Mike Buckley]

The biggest danger for Adobe is the potential loss of the non professional market which they maybe underestimating...
Most of Autocad's competition comes from companies that managed to grow by exploiting the low level market when Autocad priced itself beyond the casual user. Over the years I have seen many companies become all powerful in their industry only to fade or topple over

Autocad's stock price from Jan 1, 1992 to now increased about 13% on average per year. At that rate, an investment in Autocad would have doubled about every 5 to 6 years and that doesn't even include the dividends, much less reinvesting them in the stock. Perhaps that indicates that Autocad has been making some very, very good decisions in the interest of their stockholders and customers.

[shoshanna]

Here is an interview with one of Adobes head honchos:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/05...e-photoshop-cc

Interesting remarks.

[Wayland]

The thing that annoys me about all this is that I have a substantial back catalogue of master files that are layered and set up for re-editing as my skills and the software capabilities improve.

That creates a certain level of commitment to PS but it never meant I had to upgrade every time. My current path involves upgrading about every third version and I'm fine with that so far. I'm not professional, just a keen amateur but LR is not sufficient for my needs.

This new system would end up costing me a lot more, so it is highly likely that CS6 will be my final upgrade.

I guess it will have to last me until the computer technology no longer supports it.

Well done Adobe, you've just lost a customer...

[shoshanna]

Here is where I am fortunate as I don't have Adobe products but was considering LR. I did download the 5 beta version and will use it until it expires. After that, I am not sure what I will do but at least I am not invested in a system yet. In this case it helped to come late to the party.

[Clactonian]

Another interview with Adobe HERE
Doesn't look as if I'm going to get my cloud based photographic suite of programs!

[Donald]

Another interview with Adobe HERE

I have nothing to contribute to this discussion other than to say that we GIMP users will be happy to help you all convert when you are ready to cut the cord.

But in the meantime, from the interview referenced by Mike, could someone translate; "The way we do that isn't necessarily to take what we're selling now and make it cheaper and cheaper because I think there is an inherent value that what we're creating gives creatives some of the new value we want. However, I think that there are decided opportunities that we can take some of the technology that we have now and surface them in different ways that are more affordable and more approachable to a broader set of customers. And so if you're asking: am I interested in leveraging this new platform and the flexibility it gives us? Then the answer is absolutely yes.", into English.

Do they make them eat jargon dictionaries before they allow them to go out and talk to the media. The thinking presumably is that if you talk this nonsense, then it must be pretty clever stuff. Oh God, people like this need a very large boot applied, with force, to a tender spot and be told to speak properly.

[Clactonian]

..... and be told to speak properly.

... and this from a Scotsman!!

[John Morton]

Less choice is moot when the vast majority are more than happy to have internet delivery. Unless you're one of the minority I guess.



I think you need to tell those folks to stay away from sex sites.



I think we live in different worlds John, so I'm just going to leave it there.



What on earth has internet product delivery and subscription based licencing got to do with image safety?

Glib responses to a serious issue, Colin.

We are currently seeing an decided increase in the amount of state sponsored cyber attacks occurring over the Internet, and in all probability this is just going to keep increasing. Witness the Stuxnet worm, designed to infect the computer control systems of Iranian centrifuges used in an illegal uranium enhancement project.

That particular piece of software was designed to speed centrifuges up to the point where they flew apart. Any chance of a hacker modifying it to affect computer hard drives?

Similarly, Iraqi defense capabilities were seriously hindered by viruses loaded into printers, which then spread throughout their computer systems; and like Pandora's Box, all we are left with when such malicious tactical software codes are released is the hope that they won't come home to roost in the systems of everyday users.

To return to your space travel metaphor, the earth is currently encircled by an ever increasing density of space junk which creates a steadily increasing threat to any future launches into space from earth. How long before this precious Creative Cloud and the Internet in general is irrevocably home to randomly circulating fragments of destructive software code?

I still remember computing before the Internet came into play, and I still like using a computer which isn't connected to the Internet for my photo editing. I enjoy using Photoshop for photo editing, but I guess I won't be using any newer versions now.

I'm sure an alternative product will present itself before too long; and when it does, I won't be going back to Adobe as a customer.

[davidedric]

From the DPReview interview:

Lightroom is for photographers. And the Lightroom team is very aware of the reaction by photographers to Photoshop CC. We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom.

Non-offensive comment is impossible!

[GrahamH]

Comment has been made about the 'minority'. It is my experience that a few people will make many comments (perhaps perceived as the vocal minority if they are in disagreement with someone). However there are many, many others who stay quiet about a problem, not wishing to make a disturbance. In other fields of interest, I have had occasion to canvas opinion and was rather surprised about the large percentage of people who weren't prepared to publicly speak out (for a wide range of people).
As to those being in disagreement, they may well not be a tiny, tiny, tiny (etc. I forget how many vasts there were) minority, but quite a substantial one (or even a majority). Of course, that is in terms of numbers of individuals and not spending power, which is quite another matter.

So many people assume that the official figures are accurate (or even close to accurate) when there are so many factors affecting who votes and the direction in which they vote - and even if the allowable responses are suitable in representing their opinions.

The link to dpreview, in the very first sentence, references 'considerable backlash here on dpreview and across the web'.
So the vocal minority are either very vocal indeed, not as great a minority as has been suggested, or some other reason. I'm not in a position to assess, and neither are most (if not all) people partaking in this discussion here.

Graham