Did Adobe buy GM?

[Shawn Miller]

[David Mathis] “Technology is not always a good thing, in fact it feels the exact opposite.”

He said to the Internet. 🙂

Shawn

[David Mathis]

I was waiting for that type of comment. 🙂

Walked right into that one. Guess technology is like a bar. You say to yourself, “Just one more”. You promise to resolve but all it takes is one sip too many. Then you are hooked you become an addict. You are glued to your tablet, your phone, all around you disappears. Then after hours of surfing, loosing your mind you look at the clock and wonder how long your friendly computer has taken control over you.

[Shawn Miller]

[David Mathis] ” was waiting for that type of comment. 🙂

Walked right into that one. Guess technology is like a bar. You say to yourself, “Just one more”. You promise to resolve but all it takes is one sip too many. Then you are hooked you become an addict. You are glued to your tablet, your phone, all around you disappears. Then after hours of surfing, loosing your mind you look at the clock and wonder how long your friendly computer has taken control over you.”

Doesn’t that all boil down to how you’re choosing to spend you’re time though? 🙂 Mind you, I’m as guilty as anyone of being more interested in the NLE food fights on The Cow, than being “productive” during long renders… I just don’t think it’s a technology issue. 🙂

Shawn

[Michael Gissing]

There has been a strong push to re define a lot of how business views its product – changing from selling and object to selling a service. Often it means that the focus can change from creating something with built in obsolescence to making something much more reliable and recyclable.

The principal is well defined by the Rocky Mountains Institute and the book Natural Capitalism. The book quotes many examples of how air conditioning companies like Carrier changed from selling air con units to managing the climate of buildings for a service fee. It meant that Carrier became responsible for the buildings climate and guess what – they found it more profitable to use passive control like triple glazing and air flow systems. In many cases they removed their old inefficient air con unit once they were responsible for the running and maintenance. Then they realised they should have made their units better if they were efficient, lasted longer with less maintenance and could be recycled.

There may be a huge advantage both to cost and the environment if car companies only sold a transport service not cars designed to fail. I know this is slightly different but as this was a dig at Adobe, then I want to offer the idea that providing software as a rentable service may mean the software is better in the long run.

[Paul Neumann]

Yeah, John Deere has been pinching my farmer friends like this for quite a while. Monsanto owns the seed and John Deere owns the tractor.

[Michael Gissing]

Monsanto is the antithesis of the idea of Natural Capitalism. They claim ownership of something they simply can’t own just because they have fiddled with DNA which they didn’t invent and make you buy their product and associated chemicals.

The idea of providing a service be it climate control or editing software and taking responsibility for providing that service for a rental fee is nothing like the Monsanto model. Monsanto is much more like pirating Adobe software and selling it after making some changes to a small part of the software.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Michael Gissing] “The book quotes many examples of how air conditioning companies like Carrier changed from selling air con units to managing the climate of buildings for a service fee. “

Interesting, I wonder how that would scale to a single family residential situation where you would be dealing with a large number of small installations vs a small number of large installations.

[Michael Gissing]

[Andrew K] “I wonder how that would scale to a single family residential situation where you would be dealing with a large number of small installations vs a small number of large installations.”

It is easier to do the large scale installations as there is often a single building manager for a large job plus better control over elements. There are other examples of smaller scale like carpets or washing machines but the large number of smaller installations are harder to manage.

Solar reverse grid systems are an example of large numbers of small installations that are providing a reverse service to big utility companies which is why equitable feed in tariffs matter.

I have thought long and hard about what Adobe is doing and I am about to subscribe to CC from CS6. I think a lot of opposition comes down to it being a new paradigm which is ironic when the criticisms are sometimes coming from early X adopters who have been chiding the dinosaurs.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Michael Gissing] “There are other examples of smaller scale like carpets or washing machines but the large number of smaller installations are harder to manage. “

Interesting. I’ve added the book to my reading list.

[Michael Gissing] ” I think a lot of opposition comes down to it being a new paradigm which is ironic when the criticisms are sometimes coming from early X adopters who have been chiding the dinosaurs.”

In America, at least, I think there is a deeply ingrained attitude that ownership is a sign of success and freedom (own a house, own a car, own your own business and you’ll control your own destiny, etc.,. ) that factors into it as well. Ownership is assumed to be the best choice by default even if it’s not.

I wish Adobe did a few things different with the CC plan, but for me it’s really a pragmatic decision. Is it better for me and my business/career to have the Adobe hammer in my toolbox or not to have the Adobe hammer in my toolbox? Right now it’s much better for me to have the Adobe hammer so I pay for CC.

[Michael Phillips]

And the Spotify model… you csn download songs for offline usage as long as you keep a premium subscription. Stop paying, those stop playing. You didn’t really own them, just a license to them for the duration of the paid subscription.