Adobe sweetens the deal – price break on Cloud subscription

[Todd Kopriva]

That’s an NAB show special, and it runs for the next two weeks: 4-19April2013

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Jon Bagge]

Is this different from the standard first year deal for customers who already have a regular outright bought product?

I have the CS6 suite, but I was planning on switching to the Cloud for the next update since I need to be able to install on both PC and Mac. I’d really prefer not to, but it seems the only option.

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https://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Todd Kopriva]

The NAB show special doesn’t require you to have bought a previous version.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Tommy Campbell]

What if you already have a Creative Cloud subscription? Can you take advantage of the NAB special to get Creative Cloud for 29.99/month for your second year?

For me, if my second year of Creative Cloud goes to 49.99/month, I’ll go back to just buying the upgrades since I don’t use anything outside of whats in the Production Premium Suite.

Either way, I’m looking forward to getting the new stuff when it comes out.

[Tom Daigon]

Im not sure why so many folks are so easily suckered into thinking monthly subscription payment is a good thing when you consider the following

Besides technical issues that might make the necessary web connection
for the monthly check by Adobe impossible (dead modem – down ISP or cable), the biggest drawback I see is this.

When I purchased the disks for CS6 I can edit forever with that software.

If I stop paying rent on the Cloud, I can no longer edit at all.

Remember Murphys Law, if something can go wrong (with the Cloud) it will. 😀

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Joseph W. bourke]

Personally, I’m with you, Tom – I own both a disc-based license of CS4 Production Premium, and the CS6 Master Collection. I like the security of having the discs on hand, just in case. That said, I have never had to do a re-install, so I can understand why some people are comfortable with the Cloud. But I find that the argument that updates will be quicker to come with the Cloud makes me scratch my head – I have the disc version, and I’m getting online updates all the time on CS6, so I find that argument doesn’t hold water.

I have a Dropbox account – sometimes it works – sometimes it doesn’t, and usually it doesn’t when I’m in the midst of a huge upload to a client. I can understand the possibility of being down when Adobe does the license check – believe me I do – I’m in the woods of NH, where mid-level DSL is as good as it gets, and power outages can happen. But I don’t know what the mechanism is if Adobe does a check, and there’s no one on the other end; does the software shut down triggered by the last license check date, or is it a bit more forgiving than that? Maybe Todd K. can weigh in on this – it would be good to know…

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Tom Daigon]

Joe, you bring up some good additional points.

Im all for choice . As long as Adobe gives us the option to rent the Cloud OR purchase the download (with install disks) Im a happy camper.

BTW, I grew up in New England. In a small Connecticut town near UCONN.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Joseph W. bourke]

It’s interesting – when I “bought” the Master Collection – actual I took advantage of the free upgrade to CS6 when I bought the CS5.5 upgrade, I was under the impression that I’d have to take the downloaded versions – a big chunk of data!

After searching a bit, I found that for 50 dollars, Adobe would still send my the disc version of the CS6 MC – which I did. I don’t know whether they still offer the disc option – I’ve heard otherwise, but have no proof one way or the other…

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Tom Daigon]

This was posted on March 5 about Adobe not selling “boxes” anymore.At the bottom they mentioned that install disks are available for $20.

They have not discussed any release date or policy details on CS Next. Lots of us are hoping they honor the same options.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Todd Kopriva]

> But I find that the argument that updates will be quicker to come with the Cloud makes me scratch my head – I have the disc version, and I’m getting online updates all the time on CS6, so I find that argument doesn’t hold water.

There’s an accounting rule that came into US law in response to the Enron scandal that says that companies can’t deliver additional features for products that someone has already paid full price for. This is to prevent tricky/malicious companies from recognizing a lot of revenue now for value that they will provide (or say they will provide) in the future.

This doesn’t apply to a service model (like Creative Cloud subscriptions), because what you’re actually paying for is an ongoing subscription to whatever we have available at any given time.

Those of us who make (or, in my case, design and test) the software are always tremendously frustrated when we can’t _by law_ send out a new feature as soon as we’re done with it and make it available to you as folks who’ve already paid a full one-time price for the software. We are required to charge for any little new feature, and that additional element of friction has made it so that we just save up all of the features and release them in the next paid upgrade. That’s why we love the Creative Cloud model, since we’re allowed to make the new feature available to subscribers as soon as it’s ready.

(The limitation above doesn’t apply to bug fixes or changes to accommodate software and hardware not available at the time oft he original development, which is why we can make dot updates for such issues.)

Those of us on the teams that make Adobe professional video software haven’t yet taken advantage of this new way of rapidly releasing features, mainly because we’ve needed to reorganize the way that we do some things internally to make that efficient. But our colleagues on the print and web design products have already done so, releasing Creative Cloud-only updates for Dreamweaver and Illustrator.

The same principle means that we can talk more freely about upcoming features.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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