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It. Will. Never. Ever. Die.
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[Gary Huff] “If you couldn’t pay the “software” rent, does that mean you also couldn’t pay the electricity? Can’t run your post house if your power is turned off.”
Weak argument. Accounting departments don’t consider software a utility.
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “Weak argument. Accounting departments don’t consider software a utility.”
No, the argument is sound because it’s about not having enough money to not pay the monthly fee for Creative Cloud.
Are we really trying to argue that someone would have the money for their electricity and not have the $50 per month for the software? What if we’re still on the perpetual license model and you are offered a decent job putting the finishing touches on a Premiere CC project. Let’s say you’re on Production Premium CS5. Would you rather pass on the job instead of paying $2700 to upgrade to a mythical version of Production Premium CC, or $70 for a CC subscription for one single month?
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[Gary Huff] “No, the argument is sound because it’s about not having enough money to not pay the monthly fee for Creative Cloud.
Are we really trying to argue that someone would have the money for their electricity and not have the $50 per month for the software?”
Wrong, Gary. Re-read @Craig Allen’s post:
[Craig Alan] “Really bad in Ed circles cause there is never a sure thing about funding or when or if it will be approved.”
He’s not talking about cost. He’s talking about how funds are approved and allocated in the department’s yearly budget. Typical accounting does not treat software like a utility; no matter what Adobe wants you to believe. It’s especially problematic in edu where budget for new software is never guaranteed year to year.
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “they’re still way behind in revenue. They can’t keep bleeding money forever. “
Heard this a few times now. It doesn’t seem to square with the stock price (which opened the year 2014 at $58.06)? How, in your view, is this working out — the stock price continuing to rise and they’re losing revenue?
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[David Lawrence] “problematic in edu where budget for new software is never guaranteed year to year.”
Also bad to update software in the middle of a semester, when hundreds of students are working on a project. Edu software updates happen between semesters. What this means, I think, for labs is it reduces the CC incentive. Frequent (and awesome updates) are not really useful.
I have definitely noticed media students buying their own CC to finish projects “at home” (or really anywhere) rather than the post lab. Doing a bit of math, Adobe can take the hit from universities buying CC for 20 stations, if the student body is buying a license (and many many many are).
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[Richard Herd] “I have definitely noticed media students buying their own CC to finish projects “at home” (or really anywhere) rather than the post lab. Doing a bit of math, Adobe can take the hit from universities buying CC for 20 stations, if the student body is buying a license (and many many many are).”
Most of what I did in school I took home because the edit lab only had the cheapest Media100 license, which meant color correction tools weren’t included (save for Brightness/Contrast).
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[David Lawrence] “He’s talking about how funds are approved and allocated in the department’s yearly budget. Typical accounting does not treat software like a utility; no matter what Adobe wants you to believe. It’s especially problematic in edu where budget for new software is never guaranteed year to year.”
He mentioned both “Ed circles” and then editing labs with departments. There are two different ideas there, unless only editors worth talking about work in a post-facility.
Of course, the post-facility I deal with routinely at the moment is on CC.
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[Richard Herd] “Heard this a few times now. It doesn’t seem to square with the stock price (which opened the year 2014 at $58.06)? How, in your view, is this working out — the stock price continuing to rise and they’re losing revenue?”
Wall Street is a casino. Stock price often has nothing to do with revenue or profit. Look at Amazon for example – Wall Street’s been cutting them slack for years as they lose money:
I think the exact same thing is happening with Adobe right now. But I predict the difference is that Wall Street will be much less patient with Adobe. As soon as Wall Street decides Adobe’s subscription-only model is a bust, they’ll bail. We’ll have to wait a couple more years to see what happens but this is my prediction.
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David Lawrence
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[Gary Huff] “If you couldn’t pay the “software” rent, does that mean you also couldn’t pay the electricity? Can’t run your post house if your power is turned off.”
Your question is theoretical, but I’ll give you a real world example… even before CC. One Friday on a deadline, all of a sudden all the Adobe apps refuse to open. The message was that my trial period had ended. I didn’t have a trial period, I had the purchased CD, complete with serial number. It didn’t care, and any attempt at reinstalling said that I had already used the install. I couldn’t uninstall it. I couldn’t do anything and neither could Adobe. Their eventual solution (some days later) was to use the “challenge answer” workaround. Bottom line, it never was fixed… just patched with gaffer tape and bailing wire.
In the meantime, I had to go to another post house and borrow a suite to finish the project. You’ll excuse me if I tell you that your faith in Adobe is seriously misplaced. Being screwed once was enough… I will never give them a chance to do it every month.
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
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Any student who seriously wants to engage in any learning takes the projects home with them in one form or another. And yes I believe that its to the benefit of computer companies to get students used to a certain platform and software because it will increase the odds of it becoming their platform.
I’m not saying a well managed educational system wouldn’t include money to properly budget a program including keeping their computers and technology up to date. But at many sites at all levels the funding is just not there. And even when it is in theory, it is not in practice. It is put together piece meal.
You need to apply. It needs to get approved. Sometimes it goes through; sometimes it does not. Once it goes through, it needs to be spent in x amount of time. Some of it goes back into a pot for next year. Some of it is gone forever. If you take a tour of high schools and colleges you will find computer labs which are used for editing that do not have enough stations, have obsolete computers, have older software, have computers that are not optimized for the task at hand, etc. Just the same, students get introduced to the discipline. It was very common a few years back for schools to have a site license to an adobe suite. Mostly underused because most teachers have no idea how to use the software or do not have access to computers with them set up to take advantage of them. Or it was not built into the curriculum. But they were bought.
The cloud model is less popular. Personally I am still on the fence. On the one hand I think FCP X is more than adequate for students producing student projects and getting exposed to the editing process. But it is the least like other software they might like to start learning if they want to “take it home with them”. All the innovation on the primary storyline was fine. But the way connected clips work is really different. Its just strange to have different basic functions work for different components of the timeline. I’m not saying its better or worse but its different and there are a lot of programs editors need to learn. Audio, color correction, other NLE programs all use tracks. I considered AVID but felt the initial learning curve was too steep – I’m talking about the browser and how it interacts with the finder on a Mac. You could just not hit the ground running with newbies to get them excited. Also there were those concerns as to its financial health. That left FCP X and Adobe. The adobe suite was very tempting. The cloud model was a deal killer. Yeah I’m only one example but its not an uncommon consideration. Even at home I would love to have the suite so I can use photoshop and after effects. But if I decide to go in a different direction I can’t open my old projects? I could stop using ms office today and could open my old office projects in other programs. Adobe needs to assure us of that. And for ed circles allow us to use last year’s updates until funding is available. We’ll buy in again when we need to and when we have the funding. If we have 3 year old computers that are not powerful enough for the 2016 update we’ll stay with 2014 update that is still working great.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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