No more boxed Adobe apps/licenses

[plugsnpixels]

Colin, I stand corrected. It's $14.99 (I fixed the page). It used to be more ;-)

Of course nothing is equal to Photoshop but who uses ALL of its features?

[Colin Southern]

Colin, I stand corrected. It's $14.99 (I fixed the page). It used to be more ;-)

No doubt the price was dropped when Adobe announced their new CC structure

Of course nothing is equal to Photoshop but who uses ALL of its features?

Nobody uses ALL of it's features - never have, never will -- and that's the way it should be. It's a toolbox - and just as I don't use every tool in my toolbox on every job that I do, the toolbox has every tool (and darn high-quality ones at that) that I need to do ANY job.

[shoshanna]

The problem with the cloud, any cloud is that you do not own it. If the company decides to pull the plug on your account for any reason, you are stuck. If you lose your job and can no longer pay the monthly fee you now have no way to edit pictures if you were using the cloud. Anyone remember a few years ago Amazon removing books from Kindles that customers had already paid for...without notifying them first? I know that eventually customers money was refunded and Amazon said it was a copyright issue but the fact that they removed paid content first without notifying people is a problem. And if there had not been an outcry, would they have refunded the money? Who knows? Now Adobe has that same power with images.

It has also been shown time and again that leasing something always ends up being more expensive than buying it outright at the very beginning. And with this you have to lease it for infinity if you want to use it.

Now LR5 will be available as a physical product shipped to you but Adobe does own them so how long will that last?

[Colin Southern]

The problem with the cloud, any cloud is that you do not own it. If the company decides to pull the plug on your account for any reason, you are stuck.

And if someone starts a nuclear world war we're all dead - but - why would they want to when in both cases it's counter-intuitive to their own (financial) good health? They're in the business of acquiring new customers, not cancelling their accounts for no good reason.

If you lose your job and can no longer pay the monthly fee you now have no way to edit pictures if you were using the cloud.

In which case one could easily switch to another package.

Anyone remember a few years ago Amazon removing books from Kindles that customers had already paid for...without notifying them first? I know that eventually customers money was refunded and Amazon said it was a copyright issue but the fact that they removed paid content first without notifying people is a problem. And if there had not been an outcry, would they have refunded the money? Who knows?

I don't remember it, but I am an avid Kindle fan (on my iPad). Books cost me a lot less - I get them instantly - I can't damage them - I can legally have them installed on several devices all at once. It's been nothing but good. They were also very helpful when I needed to contact them about an issue.

Now Adobe has that same power with images.

No - not at all. They only have power over their image editing software. You're images are and never were part of the equation (unless you want them to be).

It has also been shown time and again that leasing something always ends up being more expensive than buying it outright at the very beginning. And with this you have to lease it for infinity if you want to use it.

I disagree. That may be true for something like a car or a computer, but under those arrangements, you don't get a new car or computer as part of the deal every year.

As of this morning, I'm now paying around NZD 720 per year to have access to all of their programs - if I were to purchase and keep upgrading just the programs I use, it would cost me MORE than that - PLUS - I'd have the initial outlay on top of that.

What's going to happen now is that they're going to have a lot more people using a LOT more of their software. Personally, I think it's a master stroke of business commerce. And if people don't like it they're under no obligation what-so-ever to sign up.

[Adrian]

As Colin says, Lightroom is included. I think this delivery method is aimed fairly and squarely at the heavyweight user. It is much cheaper this way that buying the apps and following an upgrade path and much less hassle from an IT maintenance perspective. Users who just want individual programs can still buy them.

Adobe pretty much dominates this market anyway, and the fact that this path improves their position is hardly a reason to criticise them: they will adopt the best business model they can.

I don't think they are targeting the single user with limited resources. Really you need to be running high spec computers and screens anyway to get the best out of CS.

For me, per seat, it is costing about £500 per annum, tax allowable. We use about half of the CS suite of programmes ("we" being the graphic design team, not me) and I could not buy the software licences (for one user) for less than £2,200. Then I need to follow the upgrade path and have my IT guys run that. The payback period is substantial: who knows what we will be doing in 5 or 6 years time. The cloud route is flexible and very easy to implement. Sure, there are disadvantages to everything but this is a cost effective solution right now.

[DDK]

My guess is that Adobe aren't stupid...

Are you sure about that? They've done some pretty daft things in the past. Moreover, suits make decisions based on profit projections based on assumptions that are based on 'data', which rarely reflect real-world uses or requirements. It might seem like a superb idea on paper in the boardroom, but that doesn't mean it will translate to reality. People find a way to either subvert or creatively destroy and make redundant seemingly great ideas and with the fast and adapting pace of modern-day internet connected society, things like this could kill a company if they don't go well. Not even a company as big, embedded and successful as Adobe is immune to this.

It's certainly an interesting experiment but them putting all their eggs into this basket isn't the smartest thing to do in my opinion.

[Colin Southern]

Are you sure about that?

My guess is that it's not something that they've decided to do on the spur of the moment - plus it's pretty much the way things are going in general (and probably more in 2 or 3 years when existing CS6 installation become obsolete).

Cloud based computing has taken such a hold that Microsoft are even phasing out the ability for servers to host data locally - THAT'S how big it's getting.

[davidedric]

I may be missing the point, but aren't Adobe offering this as an additional way of buying their products, not a replacement? I will still be able to buy LR5, should I wish to. Of course Adobe could extend the concept to individual products, but personally I would not want a forced upgrade and learning curve at Adobe's behest.

Of course, if Adobe could force everyone down this route it wouldn't half cut their support costs And even out their cash flow

As for the Cloud, don't get me started. For me, it's just the latest spin of the client/server wheel, and I don't suppose it will be the last, but this isn't the thread or community for that war.

[DDK]

Cloud based computing has taken such a hold that Microsoft are even phasing out the ability for servers to host data locally - THAT'S how big it's getting.

Just because it's getting popular with companies, doesn't mean it won't bite them in the butt. There are numerous examples of cloud-based software and hardware 'solutions' that have failed dismally because of a number of reasons.

Again, this is one of those things that seems great on paper when viewed by suits in a boardroom but that doesn't necessarily translate to the real world. Personally, I don't think the 'cloud' is the future and I think it will be another anecdote in IT's history like the Palm and later the Blackberry. The majority of the advantages are to the distributors, not to the consumers and I think this will backfire on them in the long run.

Then again, I was wrong about the iPad.

[Colin Southern]

I may be missing the point, but aren't Adobe offering this as an additional way of buying their products, not a replacement?

As I understand it, it's going to be the ONLY way as from "whenever".

I think it's practically a no-brainer;

- From a content delivery perspective, it's the way the world has already gone (think iTunes, think Kindle etc)

- The app still resides locally -- and only requires monthly internet access to "re-activate", although they say it'll actually keep going for 6 months if it can't "phone home"

- Dollar-wise is where it gets interesting; if I were to by a copy of CS6 at full retail, I think it's something like NZD $1200; single application Adobe products are around NZD $25 a month -- do the math.

It's great for Adobe - they get evened out cashflow - practically 100% upgrade rate to new software versions (with all the flow-on effects that brings) and (for those who go for the whole package) they get to lock in other users (eg someone who is a Photoshop user needs to edit a movie; they could muck around for ages trying to find an inexpensive package that'll "do the job" but now they can just go straight to the top and download Premiere).

For users it's still a pretty good deal for most in that new users can get in for a fraction of the previous entry level cost and worst case is it costs about the same as an upgrade path.

PS: Costs are even lower for the first year for existing users (CS3 or above).

[Colin Southern]

Personally, I don't think the 'cloud' is the future

I think you'll be wrong about that too

Seriously, I'm involved in a major upgrade for one of my clients - nothing comes close to the cost-effectiveness of cloud storage when things like licencing, backup, and disaster recovery are taken into account.

In a few more years it becomes a moot point as Microsoft servers such as exchange server and file services are disestablishing support for local storage.

[Colin Southern]

Oops - turns out I followed a wrong link. Just got off chat with Adobe - it's now A$29 for me for the first year - gets better and better

[Adrian]

Cloud computing is here gentlemen and has already taken over. A great many global businesses have already moved to cloud solutions whether hosted externally or internally. This includes integrated document management, all internal communications, document management systems, client relationship management systems, messaging, conferencing etc, etc. Businesses are not stupid and there are plenty of full recovery back up paths.

I work in a highly regulated industry and cloud computing delivers huge benefits. For example whereas in the past if we had a "serious issue" that took our dealing facilities out, then it could take us two days to achieve full data recovery using conventional methods. We can now do this in less than four hours and we can monitor it continually and test it as often as we like. It is not tied to a building or any particular computers.

Cloud computing brings with it different challenges, but those who seriously believe that stand alone computers with stand alone software have a long life span, are in for a shock.

People will need to learn to work smarter, ensuring that they not only have good data backup hierarchies organised, but that the data will run on continually updated software (which does not always deliver full backwards compatible functionality). Hence archive maintenance will need to become part of workflow (hopefully automated).

Adobe is doing nothing special or out of the ordinary here: they are just running with the pack.

[davidedric]

- From a content delivery perspective, it's the way the world has already gone (think iTunes, think Kindle etc)

Absolutely, it's the only way that I want to "buy" content. The difference is that I have a lot of say over what content lands on my Kindle. I'm nothing like so relaxed about software upgrades being pushed, if that what is intended (even though it happened on my Kindle recently). On a per product basis, if I have some control over whether to take the upgrade, it's really just the same as a maintenance charge, as is normal with commercial packages. As an individual amateur, I certainly don't want to be paying for advanced packages that I'm never planning to use. I can see it could look very different if I were a graphics design shop or professional photographer.

I think you'll be wrong about that too

I'm with Djoran on this one . I too had over 30 years experience of app development and management in a large corporate, and it would give me the willies Only time will tell

[Colin Southern]

Absolutely, it's the only way that I want to "buy" content. The difference is that I have a lot of say over what content lands on my Kindle.

No different here; they're just apps that you download. If a new version comes out that you don't want for some reason you're under no obligation to buy it. We're not talking "browser-based" apps like Google Mail here.

As an individual amateur, I certainly don't want to be paying for advanced packages that I'm never planning to use. I can see it could look very different if I were a graphics design shop or professional photographer.

This is the bit people often struggle to get their head around; with the likes of Photoshop, you're not paying for "tools you'll never use" as such, you're paying for a fully-equipped toolbox that's offered to you as a lower cost than it would cost for a smaller toolbox (because they'd need to create and maintain a large number of individual toolboxes customised for individual needs)

I'm with Djoran on this one . I too had over 30 years experience of app development and management in a large corporate, and it would give me the willies Only time will tell

And I've had over 35 years in the IT industry ... but the bottom line is not "will cloud computing take over the world"; as Adrian points out ... it already has. Now it's only a case of "do significant players jump on the bandwagon, or do they go the way of the dinosaur".

[chrisletts]

No different here; they're just apps that you download. If a new version comes out that you don't want for some reason you're under no obligation to buy it. We're not talking "browser-based" apps like Google Mail here.

Are you sure you're not missing the point - the way I read it, it's not just that they don't issue boxes anymore, it's that they don't issue the software at all for load on a PC so everything is done via a cloud-based subscription service instead.

[Colin Southern]

Are you sure you're not missing the point - the way I read it, it's not just that they don't issue boxes anymore, it's that they don't issue the software at all for load on a PC so everything is done via a cloud-based subscription service instead.

No - not at all Chris. You download the software just the same (I'm downloading the best part of 2GB being Photoshop and Premiere as we speak).

From Adobe's website:



Reading some of the comments on the site that was referenced at the top of the thread it's clear that there is a LOT of misinformation being spread about it.

[James G]

Like Dave, Adrian, Colin, I reckon Adobe are doing what has been inevitable for some time now. Microsoft have already positioned themselves similarly with Windows .

I too, have been a systems designer/planner in IT since the 70's up until I retired 2 years ago, and to be honest Cloud computing has been inevitable given the way the internet has developed.
I am (at 62) an 'immigrant' in the digital world, despite 30+years in IT. Our grandchildren are true natives of this new world, having grown up in it .They see nothing odd or wrong with the way things are going.
So, at $10 pcm (Offer for existing CS4, 5 & 6 users until end of July) I accept the inevitable.

I do draw the line at storing my files in the Cloud, but that is a personal preference, since I quite happily let may bank and a number of other organisations store personal and sensitive information about me, and have very little control over it's security etc.

Looking forward, everything is changing, and faster than ever, but looking back, it's hard to see how it could be any different. C'est la Vie!

James

[Colin Southern]

They say that a picture paints a thousand words, so ask yourselves -- in a world where economy of scale rules, which data storage solution is going to have the lowest cost per megabyte?

This?



or this?



Not even close. And that's before we start talking security - backup - disaster recovery?

Where do you think Microsoft & Google store their data? Your bank? All major websites? This site?

[davidedric]

I've just gone to the Adobe site to have a look, and Lightroom isn't even listed under the products tab. It's still available, of course, but you have to go searching.