-
10 Things Steve Martin wants in FCP X
-
[Bill Davis] “But I do wonder how it’s going to play out over time. What happens when the market for the approach gets closer to saturation. My concern is that nobody I’ve ever been around at the top of the corporate heaps has EVER been happy with sustained profits at level X. They lust for period over period GROWTH. It’s what makes corporate types salivate. And that typically means turning their attention away from existing and mature products to NEW products. And so it’s fair to question whether in 2 years or 5 years, the delightful new capabilities you value so much continue to flow or stagnate if they don’t contribute to revenue growth.”
Nearly everyone on this forum focuses on the power Adobe has over its customers with subscription; almost no one mentions the power that we customers have over Adobe.
If Adobe does not continue to make me happy, I will drop my subscription and it will hurt them a tiny bit. If Adobe does not continue to make the users of an entire product line happy, they will drop their subscriptions and it will hurt them a lot. Simple as that.
Subscription commits Adobe to keeping their customers happy over longer spans of time than perpetual licenses never did. I have to remain a CC subscriber for 3 years and 9 months before Adobe gets the same money out of me that they would have for a one-off Master Collection sale.
I believe that in some alternate universe, subscription software was the norm. Then a company called Altobe introduced a perpetual license, and their former customers were livid! The cost was shockingly high! And once you bought it, you couldn’t expect any updates — why? Did Altobe think they could no longer maintain their end of the relationship in the future? Did they intend on withholding features to try to get you to buy an upgrade, too? Was this all some kind of crazy cash grab to extract large amounts of capital from their customers?
You point to market saturation like this is a problem for selling subscription but isn’t a problem for selling perpetual licenses. I think this is a flawed argument.
On the contrary, I think that subscription is the more sustainable model for users like me who are interested in seeing the products they rely on continue to grow.
I also think it opens the door for a services component that complements the desktop product offerings, offering Adobe streams of new revenue and customers new value. In the long run, I think this is the most interesting opportunity for Creative Cloud, and I wonder if someday we will wonder how we ever worked with desktop-bound applications.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
As of this moment, still no exit strategy.
-
[Mitch Ives] “Wow… I wish I could be that kind. For me (disclaimer), the number one solid proof that they don’t listen to their customers is that they shove the subscription model down your throat. Anything else they do, doesn’t offset that.”
Mitch, I don’t think it’s an issue of kindness. My After Effects example shows an objective difference between the development goals under CS and then under CC — both under the same product manager.
Of course, though, electing to subscribe is a personal decision, and its viability for any individual will be based on what he or she values.
For me, the value of a perpetual license is hugely overstated. I was on de facto subscription anyway, automatically upgrading to stay current to be able to interchange files with clients and collaborators. Skipping an upgrade was not a viable option for my business, and the stacks of CD-ROMs of the Ghosts of Creative Suite Past on my shelf do not help me do good work for my clients in 2014 in the least.
Some people cannot tolerate the risk of not having a perpetual license. I understand and respect your reasoning. Maybe CC is not for you.
My point in all this is that Creative Cloud is not just a new way to sell Creative Suite. It’s a big ball of yarn that includes sales and marketing, yes, but also — critically — product design, development, and support.
A non-CC subscriber asking for perpetual licenses back is like a non-FCPX user asking for tracks back. If you do it, you damage what made CC/FCPX unique and valuable to its paying customers in the first place.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[David Mathis] “As of this moment, still no exit strategy.”
Technically not true.
They’ve built that exit ramp for the photographers, allowing Lightroom to continue being sold as a perpetual license. I don’t know why.
I hope it’s not merely because they know that if they didn’t do that, the solid competing options like C1 and score of photo manipulation tools might steel significant market share.
If BlackMagic does develop into a strong fourth NLE alternate that’s even MORE FCP Legacy like in the developing Resolve space, I do wonder how that will affect Adobe’s model.
Honestly, I think it’s going to depend on the economy. If it strengthens over time, then monthly draws at this level will be increasingly ignorable. But if the economy remains weak, (and I see very little evidence that Washington is doing stuff to get off their asses and actually help strengthen it) then the hordes leaving video trade schools and moving into their early careers might simply be forced to opt out of the monthly hit – whether or not that’s their preference.
Did you see yesterday’s news that Germany is ELIMINATING their college tuition system and opening their to all qualified students at no cost.
Imagine that.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
[Walter Soyka] “A non-CC subscriber asking for perpetual licenses back is like a non-FCPX user asking for tracks back. If you do it, you damage what made CC/FCPX unique and valuable to its paying customers in the first place.”
With all due respect Walter (and I mean that sincerely), I think that’s a bit of a stretch…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
-
I don’t think it matters how the current iMovie came to be or whether they ever intended for it to become FCP X. But when they wrote FCP X, whether they intended for it to be iMove Pro or the new FCP they started with iMovie as a base concept. They claim that they wrote FCP X from scratch, but the idea wasn’t from scratch. They may have had to rewrite the code for 64bit or some other computing reason, but since FCP 1 was able to import iMovie projects with full support, it would seem obvious to me that was their starting point. Start with iMovie features, and then add on to that. And since iMovie didn’t start with advanced trimming and audio only crossfades and such, then FCP X didn’t start with those features and Apple deemed that to make it a more advanced or Pro App, things like Motion integration, key framing, logging, auditions and scopes were the next step to make it a Pro app. The little editing niceties could wait. I don’t really see any other way to look at it. It’s not exactly controversial. They had iMovie. They wanted to start an new editing app and they used iMovie as the base starting point. That much is pretty clear. My point is that had they not started there, and instead just said lets start a new Pro editing app, ignoring iMovie or FCP 7, then I think most of Steve’s points would have made it into the first or early versions.
-
[Mitch Ives] “With all due respect Walter (and I mean that sincerely), I think that’s a bit of a stretch…”
May I ask why?
Here’s my logic:
Adding tracks to FCPX would require adding patching and would blunt the advantages of the magnetic timeline. It would also divide the attention of the development team as they develop new timeline-oriented features.
Adding perpetual licenses to CC would require taking development and testing effort away from bug fixes plus new features for subscription holders to put into back-porting bug fixes only for perpetual license holders, or would require leaving perpetual license holders utterly unsupported via bug fixes.
Adding perpetual licenses to CC would also muddy development priorities, creating tension between the marketing-oriented features and the actual user-oriented features I noted above.
In both cases, adding back something traditional to the new model for prospects has a cost that’s contrary to the interests of current customers who are benefiting from the new model.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “May I ask why?”
First, I would never argue that FCP X get tracks back. I am, in the interest of full disclosure, not a track hater. I have projects where tracks make things easier than the magnetic timeline. One of the reasons I’m looking at R11. Still, I’ve never advocated that Apple add them to FCP X. That die was cast.
Second, I don’t buy into your logic that it’s the subscription model that results in those things you treasure. Not arguing with you, just not agreeing.
Third, I notice you didn’t respond to my question about the missing off-ramp? In fairness, neither does Adobe. I understand why… it’s a no-win situation.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
-
[Walter Soyka] “Adding perpetual licenses to CC would require taking development and testing effort away from bug fixes plus new features for subscription holders to put into back-porting bug fixes only for perpetual license holders, or would require leaving perpetual license holders utterly unsupported via bug fixes.”
I think adding back a perpetual license in the form of a buyout option would give people an off ramp and not suck any resources from Adobe. For example, after 4 years of uninterrupted subscription to Adobe CC users will get a perpetual license to the most current version of all the Adobe CC apps at that time.
-
[Mitch Ives] “First, I would never argue that FCP X get tracks back.”
That’s kind of the point of my argument, to persuade you by illustrating how the argument you are making is very much like one you wouldn’t!
[Mitch Ives] “Second, I don’t buy into your logic that it’s the subscription model that results in those things you treasure. Not arguing with you, just not agreeing.”
I don’t take argument personally. I’m curious as to where you think my reasoning goes off the rails.
If one new license sale gets you the same cash as five upgrade sales, and if some high portion of existing customers regularly skip say every other upgrade, where do you think product managers are best rewarded for focusing their teams’ energies?
Now, if keeping an existing customer next month gets you the exact same cash as adding a new one, would that alter your priorities if you were a PM?
[Mitch Ives] “Third, I notice you didn’t respond to my question about the missing off-ramp?”
I thought I addressed it directly. I called not having a perpetual license a risk, because it is.
I also explained that since I must plan on buying updates to keep current with others, and since technologies changes so fast, the value of a perpetual license is low for my business.
I also questioned the impact of supporting that off-ramp on new development, or alternately the wisdom of leaving off-ramped customers unsupported.
Frankly, I would love to see Adobe solve the off-ramp problem for users like you, because I think you would love the software. But, and I don’t mean this personally, I’d hate for their solution for you to cost me something.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up