Adobe kills Creative Suite

Rarity · Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 10:46 am Post subject: Adobe kills Creative Suite

Just a year after launching its $50-per-month plan, Adobe has made its Creative Cloud the only way to get the new versions of its full software suite. Customers "overwhelmingly" prefer it.

Source and full article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57582735-92/adobe-kills-creative-suite-goes-subscription-only/

thehermit · Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 11:55 am Post subject:

This has provided much fodder for forums all over - sign one of the petitions and watch as the corporation ignore all voices!

glaston1 · Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:22 am Post subject:

They're alienating a specific user base. The big effects houses and photography services won't be impacted that much by this. The ones affected will be those who buy photoshop and then don't upgrade for several years.
Adobe is making sure that all their users are now paying annually. That's what this is about. Users don't overwhelmingly prefer creative cloud. A vast majority of PS users don't even know what creative cloud is yet. There will be alot of people that are gonna be outraged to learn that in order to use PS they'll have to pay $600 a year.
This is no different than if Adobe deactivated evryones license whenever a new version was released. Forcing everyone to buy the upgrade in order to continue using the product.
What would be great is if another company released a product that could compete with photoshop. This entire user base that Adobe is alienating would flock to that product. Then Adobe would either be forced to reevaluate their policy here or lose all these customers.
I seriously hope that Adobe is subject to some severe backlash or problems over this.
What I don't understand yet is how creative cloud actually works. Is the software distributed through that service? So rather than purchase physical media you download it through CC and the licensing is replaced through the subscription service? Or do the applications actually run in a virtualized cloud environment rather than on your local machine?
If the software is just downloaded and authorized within the cloud, pirates will figure out a way to bypass that and Adobe will have an even worse pirating problem because people that would buy the applications otherwise will start to turn to pirated versions because of Adobes policies.
But if the apps run inside the cloud and the only software installed locally is like a client to access the creative cloud, this poses its own set of problems.

glaston1 · Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:11 am Post subject:

After reading more about it, it's clear that you download and install software through the creative cloud.
This might take a little while for pirate software distributors to find a workaround for, but it will eventually happen. So the decision to go this route doesn't address copyright infringement. You'd think that would be a major factor in the decision.
This is all about forcing legitimate users to pay a constant fee. So if you're a moderate user that doesn't even take advantage of all the brand new features in each new release, the fee you pay will still be the same and you'll be paying for features that you'll never even use. So this is the same as being forced to buy upgrades that you might never use or need.
Rather than you being allowed to decide if the newest release of the software is worth paying for the upgrade, Adobe has taken that decision away entirely and charges you a fee that's the equivalent of buying every new version upgrade regardless of whether you need it or not.
I guess they got tired of users not paying for upgrades. And decided to find a way to force customers to have to pay for them. Deactivating licenses whenever a new version is released would be too overbearing. So they found a way to shine that up that makes it seem less totalitarian.
But this is still an intrusive policy that removes the customers ability to decide when it's worth paying for a product or not.
Personally, I'll never do this. I'll never go the creative cloud route. I find it offensive that they think they can do this to their customers.

Matt · VIP

I've got to admit - I think this is a harsh step by Adobe, especially for photographers who only use a narrow but deep section of Photoshop's power.

Moving over to Elements probably isn't the answer for most users as they'll lose out on some of the best tools - curves, channels, actions, 16/32 bit support, Lab, the full camera raw. I suspect a few will be interested in Photoshop Lightroom but only if they're solely interested in photography.

Certainly an interesting move...

glaston1 · Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:06 am Post subject:

Lightroom is part of the creative cloud. The only option outside elements is to keep using CS6 forever or use a competitive product.
My theory is that this will last a little while until Adobe notices a decline in its profits and/or a competitive product emerges. I'm sure there are companies that would like the opportunity to put out a similar product to Photoshop. And this could be the opportunity to allow that to happen. There are other options for other Adobe products. Such as After Effects, Avid and a couple other companies make compositing apps that are industry standards. So you can expect to see those companies see an increase in customers due to this decision. And Adobe Premiere isn't exactly the industry standard NLE for video. Avid and Apple both take the market on that one. Which I think is part of this whole decision. Photoshop and Illustrator are basically Adobes flagship products. With AE coming in close. But by doing this, they make it cheaper for companies to just use other Adobe apps instead of other options on the market. If it's more expensive to use only 1 or 2 adobe products in conjunction with apps from other companies, many companies will just use Adobe products across the board. Like Premiere instead of Final Cut, AE instead of Nuke or Flame. I think Adobe now has a rival for all apps that come with Final Cut Studio. So the only market it doesn't have offerings for is the 3D market. That's dominated by Autodesk. But I can't see businesses totally restructuring their operations and workflows around Adobe products because of this. They're gonna experiment right now simply because they can. If they have an annual creative cloud contract they can download other adobe products. But companies like Pixar and Dreamworks aren't gonna stop using their own proprietary tools just because Adobe makes it more expensive to keep using photoshop and more convenient to use other adobe products.
That's a bit of wishful thinking on Adobes part.
The problem is that Photoshop doesn't have a real rival. But products like Paint Shop Pro could up their game and take advantage of this opportunity. Could end up a blessing in disguise for standard users.
Another problem I see coming from this could be that other companies follow Adobes lead if this whole thing works out well. Apple is the one that comes to mind most, but Autodesk is just as likely since they have products that venture into pretty much every aspect of content creation.
Thing about Autodesk though is that they offer their products for free to the educational community. You can download any of their apps for free, and they'll send you an educational license and authorization code. You don't even have to prove you're a student, like Adobe requires for their reduced price student versions.

Auieos · Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:12 am Post subject: Re: Adobe kills Creative Suite

coproper · Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:33 pm Post subject:

Well, cant really compare Photoshop with Paint Shop Pro, doesnt matter how cheap it is, it not even close to the same thing... Big Grin

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