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BBC adopts FCP X for news editing
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[James Ewart] “But you have to continue to subscribe no? Or can you keep an old version of Premiere on your computer for a year or two and open an old project and it will open the project even though your subscription has lapsed? Apologies if I am mistaken I was fairly certain that this was not possible.”
Sorry, no, you have to have an active subscription to use the application.
But your subscription entitles you to use back to Premiere Pro CS6 if you choose. Updates are not forced, so if you want to stay on an older version, you may. You could even quit Creative Cloud for a couple of years, then rejoin, or even just pay for a month, and use CS6.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “I just really didn’t get the “un-American” line. It’s the exception rather than the rule that the U.S. government puts itself in the position of arbiter of customer impact of business decisions.”
I apologise if the line caused offence. I have always felt that America stood for free and fair competition. And choice. It’s a good job the subscription model has worked out for you. You pretty much had to get over it though no? if you were already an long time Adobe customer you had to bite the bullet.
Can you imagine if Microsoft did the same thing and made it subscription only? I know one has the option of renting Office, but could they insist and stop selling altogether? I guess it’s just around the corner…
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[James Ewart] “Can you imagine if Microsoft did the same thing and made it subscription only? I know one has the option of renting Office, but could they insist and stop selling altogether? I guess it’s just around the corner…”
Hold on to your hats: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2015/05/08/windows-10-to-be-last-version-of-windows/
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[James Ewart] “I apologise if the line caused offence. I have always felt that America stood for free and fair competition. And choice. It’s a good job the subscription model has worked out for you. You pretty much had to get over it though no? if you were already an long time Adobe customer you had to bite the bullet. “
Not at all, James! No offense taken. I just think a company choosing to only offer their products via subscription fits perfectly in line with the idea of free competition and choice. If they were compelled to only sell their product a specific way, that to me would be restricted competition and choice. But I certainly didn’t mean for this to get political.
The fairness issue is certainly open for debate. If you think that Adobe has an illegal monopoly, then their business practices should certainly fall under greater scrutiny.
But I don’t think that CC is the clear-cut case of abusing their customers that some here make it out to be. If CC only ever turns out to be a way to charge more for CS, then it’s a bum deal. I think that delivering this software as a service instead as a product allows for some real innovation off the desktop, particularly in the areas of mobility and social, which we are just beginning to see with things like Shape and Candy.
Adobe have also done a great job of delivering updates to their products since they’ve moved to CC, and as a CC user, it has been outstanding to know that I can easily interoperate with other users without having to worry what version they’re on, because everyone on CC has access to the current software and because new major versions install alongside older ones.
Did I have to stay on Adobe? Not necessarily — there are other products I could choose to switch to. In fact, there are a few folks on the Creative Cloud Or Not: The Debate forum who are doing just that. They stayed on their perpetual licenses of Creative Suite for a bit and are migrating to other applications.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Did I have to stay on Adobe? Not necessarily — there are other products I could choose to switch to. In fact, there are a few folks on the Creative Cloud Or Not: The Debate forum who are doing just that. They stayed on their perpetual licenses of Creative Suite for a bit and are migrating to other applications.”
Yes but how easy to make that switch? it’s a pain is it not? Especially if you are a bigger company (I’m not) If you have always used Adobe Premiere and know it inside out and are forced down this route then it could be annoying.
Playing my own devil’s advocate for a moment there are plenty of things I pay for monthly so why shouldn’t my editing software be one of them?
But I still think there’s something a bit dark cynical about the practice. They are effectively insuring themselves against their software not being very good for a while. Suddenly they are not living or dying by the quality of their product because they’ve got you by the short and curlies.
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[James Ewart] “They are effectively insuring themselves against their software not being very good for a while. Suddenly they are not living or dying by the quality of their product because they’ve got you by the short and curlies.”
How are they not living or dying by the quality of their product anymore? Especially in the NLE market where they are competing with Avid and Apple (and possibly with BM if Resolve becomes a better NLE). How many other forms of revenue does Adobe have? Apple makes like 80% of hits revenue from mobile device sales and BM is famous for giving way Resolve (because it only works with BM I/O cards).
Back in the early/mid 2000’s Avid managed to coast even though they didn’t offer a subscription at the time. Why? Because they had market dominance which is really having people by the short and curlies. Once FCP started becoming a viable option people that had put 10’s, if not 100’s, of thousands of dollars into Avid-centric workflows jumped ship. Many times these systems were either leased or sold off to help fund the transition so there was no easy way to go back to old projects. If they needed to open up an Avid project they’d have to rent an Avid to do it.
If people that dropped that kind of cash for Avid managed to jump ship then people dropping a fraction of that for Creative Cloud shouldn’t have any problem jumping ship either if they so choose.
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[Andrew Kimery] “How are they not living or dying by the quality of their product anymore? Especially in the NLE market where they are competing with Avid and Apple (and possibly with BM if Resolve becomes a better NLE). “
Because even if their software becomes crap overnight you will still have to pay your subscription to open all your previous projects. That’s at least two years insurance for them I reckon. So they’ve got you. Why else would they do it? You think it’s for your benefit or theirs?
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[James Ewart] “That’s at least two years insurance for them I reckon. “
Maybe for you, but It really depends on each individual’s/company’s situation doesn’t it? I think I’ve stopped and started CC twice in the last 2 years as projects I’m using it one wrap up, and new ones have started up. I recently cut an project on Avid and the producer went the subscription route because paying for a few months of subscription (all that was needed for the project) was cheaper than going w/the perpetual license. PPro also exports XMLs so it is possible to get edits into other NLEs. I’m currently cutting a project in PPro but if I wanted to I could kick out an XML and be up and running in another NLE pretty quickly.
Everyone is different, but it’s hard for me to see $600/yr (assuming full price) as so expensive that it prohibits people who make their living in this industry from leaving Adobe. Lack of competition (possibly coupled with propriety workflows) is what locks people in, IMO.
[James Ewart] “Why else would they do it? You think it’s for your benefit or theirs?”
All companies do things for their own benefit though. Even if it’s phrased as for the customer’s benefit the company hopes that by doing things ‘for the customer’ that that will in turn get them more customers. X isn’t $300 (w/no paid upgrades to date) because it’s good for the customer (or the industry as a whole), it’s $300 because it’s good reason for people to keep buying Macs.
Just speaking for myself, but after nearly 15 years of being Mac-centric I’m feeling much more hemmed in by Apple than I am by Adobe. I can turn Adobe CC on/off like a facet and it’s not a big deal to me, but dropping in a Windows box would certainly be a disruption to some parts of my workflow even if it would be a boon to others.
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[Andrew Kimery] “All companies do things for their own benefit though.”
I kind of disagree with this. At the heart of a lot of big companies’ philosophy is putting their customers first. That’s how they get the edge on the competition. But the NLE game is not really a free and open market in the way that car manufacturers have to slug it out, which is why I believe Governments should take a look at what they are doing. It’s not a monopoly but it’s not far off is it?
I absolutely get that the future is probably subscription based. That’s what happens with our mobile phones, our on demand TV etc etc and I guess they like the look of that business model and realised it makes their customers “stickier”.
I have yet to read one argument that explains how the subscription based model is better for customers. Until now. You are the first. If people start dipping in and out of their subscriptions as the need arises according to what jobs they’ve got on I can see some advantage. But if enough people do it then Adobe will surely start insisting on a one year minimum contract. Then maybe two years. How far can they go with this before somebody calls foul?
If Adobe believed that monthly subscriptions were better for their customers, they would still offer the product for sale outright and let the consumers choose.
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[James Ewart] “But the NLE game is not really a free and open market in the way that car manufacturers have to slug it out, which is why I believe Governments should take a look at what they are doing. It’s not a monopoly but it’s not far off is it?”
We do have Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Blackmagic Design, and Sony all publishing major professionally-oriented NLEs for a pretty niche market. I think that’s actually some pretty healthy competition!
[James Ewart] “I have yet to read one argument that explains how the subscription based model is better for customers. Until now.”
For me, this is simple. Subscription is about so much more than changing how I pay for the old Creative Suite. It’s about recognizing how the challenges we face in the creative process are changing, and responding to that.
Subscription lets you add a service layer. My business runs on Google for Work, Dropbox, Frame.io, Slack, and Teamwork Projects. These are all cloud services, offering connective functionality I can’t get from desktop applications. Why should my primary creative apps remain so strictly desktop-oriented?
When Creative Suite first launched, it was a new way to buy the set of standalone Adobe products, but more importantly, it was the beginning of a big development effort to integrate what had been completely separate and walled-off applications.
Now we’re there with CC. By going all-in on subscription, Adobe is able to develop software-plus-service solutions and address mobility and collaborative issues that can’t be solved on the desktop alone. We’re seeing the first fruits of that shifted development capability now, with things like Creative Cloud’s Libraries, and with mobile apps like Shape and Project Candy.
So how is the subscription model better for customers? By solving problems no one else can. Creative Cloud and its thesis of software-plus-service is a huge innovation in our space, and with it, Adobe is uniquely positioned to tackle a set of process-oriented problems.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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