Adobe CC. The non hysterical response

[Bernard Newnham]

Must be time to take another look at Edius –
https://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_pro_6.5

I’d abandoned it in favour of PPro, but next time I update I won’t be buying anyone’s subscription.

Bernie

[Gustavo Bermudas]

Also what about hardware? Being constantly tied up to a subscription model will make you have newer versions, which demands newer hardware, and it doesn’t seem they offer version history for download.

[Alex Hawkins]

I work for a major govt dept so as you can imagine, leasing software is attractive to us. We don’t need to make any huge capital outlays and wait for software to arrive in boxes. The monthly fee for every piece of software that Adobe make is so low as to be barely recognisable on the monthly balance sheet.

We’ve been on the Cloud for a year now and we love it. Never had any hassles. Halfway through the year one of our guys switched from an ageing Mac Pro to a Z820 and was back working the same morning on the same AE project. Couldn’t have done that if he’d had the boxed Mac version of CS6.

For us it’s a no brainer. Can’t wait for June 17th.

Alex Hawkins
Canberra, Australia

[Bret Williams]

I’m hoping my CS5 Master Collection goes up in value on eBay now!

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Sandeep Sajeev] “And Tech Support according to a poster in the Premiere Pro is an 800 number in India. I live and work here now, and have actual experience with this…Good luck with that. Not everyone can call Adobe/Blackmagic/Autodesk and speak to someone they have a personal relationship with.”

I have to say, picking up the phone and calling Adobe support is a serious crap shoot.

I often have to call multiple times as I get disconnected during the routing, and when I do finally get through, I get connected to a completely different department. I don’t need the Adobe Acrobat support when my After Effects projects just got killed due to a consolidation error (true story).

[Sandeep Sajeev] “It’ll also be interesting to see just how innovative a company with a massive subscriber base locked into it’s ecosystem continues to be. There are plenty of examples of this going bad. What makes Adobe different? The fact that a couple of guys who work there pop on forums and social media telling us that they’re listening to Pro-users? Is that all it takes?

For the longest time I was stuck with my cell phone service provider, as changing providers meant a change in numbers. Once the law dropped that you could change providers and keep your existing number, there was a dramatic improvement on the part of the provider. So there are benefits to not being locked into something.”

I can’t imagine that Adobe will quit innovating now. Typical smart phone cell contracts lock you n for a couple of years (at least here in the states), Adobe will “lock you in” for 30 days at the minimum. You also get a 30 day grace period of trial, so really you can check the software out for 60 days for the price of 30.

If Adobe quits putting out quality product, people will quit giving up their money and head somewhere else. There are options these days, not a ton of them, but there are options.

Also, let’s face it, as good as Adobe products can be, some of them still need a lot of work. If the Cloud means they can do this faster, than that might be a good thing for users.

The down side is all of the things you mention, but I just can’t see how Adobe can quit producing, at least for now.

[Sandeep Sajeev] “Apple doesn’t need a monthly check from us – they’ve been giving away updates for free, and guess what, the software has improved significantly. Why? Because people were pissed and had a choice.”

Apple can also afford it. Not many companies can afford to do what Apple is doing, but Apple is also a rather diverse company in terms of potential revenue streams.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Gustavo Bermudas] “Also what about hardware? Being constantly tied up to a subscription model will make you have newer versions, which demands newer hardware, and it doesn’t seem they offer version history for download.”

Adobe alerts you to when updates are available but it’s up to you to download and install them. There’s no auto updating.

[Todd Kopriva]

It seems that there’s an important detail that has been missed:

Creative Cloud subscribers can choose which version(s) of the applications to download and install, and older versions will continue to be available even after the newer ones are released. There is no automatic or forced updating.

Our current plan is to make up to five major versions available at once, but we may expand that when the time comes if there is much demand.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Clint Wardlow]

I think an issue that is missed here is how this affects the smaller independent artist. Someone that doesn’t see a big return on what they create. In some ways it helps, in other ways it is a scary proposition. I know most on COW make their bread and butter off of video editing and or permutations of such. If you want to stick with Adobe, the subscription is just going to be the cost of doing business.

Whereas independent artists such as myself, this subscription mode is a bit daunting. Tying yourself to a $50.00 month subscription is scary. The buy in is cheaper. However, I have found that, while purchasing a license can be pricey, it is often very doable after a big paycheck for some project that went over well. And once you have that license, you are good to go until you want to upgrade.

If one falls on hard times and can no longer pony up the monthly fee, they lose access to all projects created using the cloud. It is true you can purchase, at a higher price, cloud services month by month as needed. But, who really wants to work this way? Having the software around to use at one’s leisure is a great way to really learn it.

I am sure the pros and businesses will continue with Adobe because the cost is a small part of doing their job. It is the smaller artists, the ones to whom a $50.00 month payment is a big bite, who may have to look for alternatives. I am pretty sure Adobe is willing to let such folks go, because the perception of these smaller guys is they are the ones going with bootlegs to save a few bucks and their loss won’t affect Adobe’s bottom line.

I am curious to see how this plays out.

[Bernard Newnham]

I’m currently working on three projects –

1) A website re-write in html 5, using Edge Animation and Photoshop (a freebie job for a flying club)
2) A scheduling system/front end for CasparCg initially for the university where I work, using Flash Professional and Photoshop.
3) A promo piece for the uni, using PPro, AE and Photoshop.

When these are done, I may not use an Adobe product for months. Doesn’t matter – the CS6 Creative Suite can sit on the computer doing nothing till I need it again.

Since Todd is writing in this thread, perhaps he can give me a cost effective way of upgrading when the time comes. I know that a huge number of occasional users would like to know the answer.

Bernie

[Paul Neumann]

Starting with CS6 apps? Well, there you go.