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OT: Adobe raising our costs by 600%
I wanted to raise an issue regarding educational pricing for my institution. We are a small department, with a CLP license agreement for multiple seats of Production Premium. This year, I converted my program from Macs to PCs, and from an FCP/AE workflow to a Premiere/AE workflow. One of the main reasons was Apple’s dramatic changes, including the very disappointing FCPX.
Another reason for the switch was Adobe’s aggressive pricing for education. After buying our original seats for our CLP license, we were able to purchase maintenance licenses every two years. At a cost of about $150 for a 2-year contract, we got all of the updates to all of the products in the Production Premium. That works out to about $6.25 per month, per seat.
We recently learned that Adobe has cancelled its maintenance licensing, and once our current contract ends this summer, we will not be allowed to renew it. Any new releases after that, we will have to pay full price for. After numerous frustrating calls to Adobe, and Adobe sales reps, the only alternative I am offered is the Creative Cloud, at a cost of $39.95 per month.
That is a price increase of over 600%, and is not even close to an option for us. We are a small college with a small budget, and cannot possibly afford to keep current with the software unless Adobe drastically reduces this rate for us. We understand that the CC gives you the full Master Collection, but that does not really help us any more than offering a filet mignon to a vegetarian. We are strictly a video production program, and Production Premium includes everything we need. Thus far, Adobe has made no mention of offering other smaller subscription options for education, or any replacement for their maintenance license program.
I can understand Adobe’s desire to go to a cloud based subscription solution, and I frankly have no problem with that. But how can they possibly justify jacking their prices up so severely on a loyal segment of their customer base.
Of course everyone’s licensing costs are slightly different, but this seems to be about the same situation I am finding with other educational customers in the same boat. Does anyone else have a CLP license agreement? Do you have a maintenance contract? What’s your plan when it runs out?
First Apple canceling their maintenance, now Adobe. Doesn’t anybody want educational business any more? At this rate, they will price us all out of the market.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
69 Replies
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Chris,
I’m not sure about your information (or whether this impacts meaningfully on your budget) but I easily find “Student and Teacher Edition” postings for Creative Cloud at 19.99 / month.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised at price shifts before you current contracts end, but that’s purely speculative on my part.
Franz.
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You could try Lightworks at $0 per month. If it’s could enough for feature editing it should be good enough for your students.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Lightworks is actually really stable now and even the paid version has a lot of bang for the buck 🙂 Best dynamic trimming I’ve ever seen. It’s seems to be designed mainly for narrative work but editing is editing, you gotta learn the craft not just the software.
Funny had you not dumped Apple and FCPX you’d have paid once and had 7 free upgrades already and your students would love it.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
[Herb Sevush] “You could try Lightworks at $0 per month. If it’s could enough for feature editing it should be good enough for your students.”
Film editing is a different beast than what most students will be doing, I would imagine. From what I can tell, it’s simply an editor, with not much in the “finishing” department. If all you need to do is stitch clips together and then export an EDL/XML for online finishing, that’s one thing, but when you need the NLE to basically run it from selects to final export, I don’t know if Lightworks is good for that.
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Actually, we still get the upgrades for FCPX, and my students quite vehemently hate it. Those who have the MAcs (last year’s computer laptop requirement) have learned FCP7, Avid, Premiere, and FCPX. Most prefer Avid or Premiere. Nobody prefers FCPX. I may have tainted their attitude.
Plus this year’s laptop purchase participants are getting 17″ i7 laptops with dual 750GB hard drives, dedicated nVidia card, and a Blu-Ray burner for the same price as entry level 13″ Macbook Pros from a year ago.
I haven’t tried Lightworks yet, but I am intrigued. Do you guys really think it’s ready for prime time?
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
—–I’m not sure about your information (or whether this impacts meaningfully on your budget) but I easily find “Student and Teacher Edition” postings for Creative Cloud at 19.99 / month.—-
This is only a promotional price, good for one year. I must budget for 3 years. But even at $20 a month, my costs have more than tripled. There’s no way I can get a 300% increase approved.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
[Chris Jacek] ” But even at $20 a month, my costs have more than tripled.”
Chris,
I also see that the “institutional” rate is different (39.99 as you stated) from the educational rate (students and teachers).
One thing to consider – do you need year round licenses? Have you investigated only licensing for the months you need?
I’m very intrigued by Lightworks, but I’ve no experience to offer on that.
Franz.
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I fully understand your feelings toward FCPX – I had gone back and forth with it through each revision and still wasn’t convinced. Then I watched John Davidson’s videos and everything changed for me – the workflow he espouses just makes sense and works fantastic. Sure it still lacks some features and there are things I’d change but running it on a new iMac has been great so far… a lot faster and more fun than any NLE I’ve used.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
[Gary Huff] “From what I can tell, it’s simply an editor, with not much in the “finishing” department.”
Go back and look again. There’s an FX plug-in architecture, color correction, node-based compositing and mixing capabilities. It can master to AVC-Intra with the $60/year Pro version. Add to that multi-cam and stereo3D and this certainly makes it far more than a basic editor for 90% of the work most editors do. Plus they will preview a Mac version at NAB.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Chris Jacek] “Actually, we still get the upgrades for FCPX, and my students quite vehemently hate it.”
sorry I’ve got to do this: Craig Seeman below in other thread:
“That’s why I think it will be young people. Future video post entrepreneurs. It’ll happen by attrition.”
well yes quite indeed.
that said, there is an issue with adobe drifting us all to the cloud with first year discounts – things could turn olive oil brando sales in no time.
Adobe guys like Kevin and Dennis are on here no end – I would be very surprised if they touch this particular thread with a radioactive barge pole.did anyone catch this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yigV0GYGQtake a moment to note how completely insincere the CEO is there – he is merrily deaf and on robo-pilot.
If adobe want to capture editing, along with photography, print design and mograph- you would think they would not put the screws to the educators engaged in training an endless stream of future PPro/suite customers.
Teaching editing is teaching editing? its not teaching the entire disparate adobe suite?
Again: adobe are really likely to tiptoe completely past this discussion. the guys who come in here likely have no say in what is pretty rabid short term dollar hungry policy from the top.
poor show, and highly dumb – strategically and PR wise, as C.C baxter would say.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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