Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[andy patterson] “Why pay $49.99 for CC if the competition can make a better offer? What if BMD offers fusion and DR for $199.99 at NAB 2018? I doubt that will happen but who knows for sure? FCPX is only $299.99 and Motion is only $50.00. The competition in the world of NLE is lowering prices. “
Maybe BMD does all that but DR adaption as an NLE remains relatively small because most people are happy with their current NLE and don’t see a compelling reason to switch? If Adobe’s numbers start leveling off (due to competition or just market saturation) and thinks a price drop is needed my guess, like we’ve talked about before, is that they’ll probably release CS-like bundles for a bit less than the Master Collection that they offer now.
Though for the last 5yrs the points have been free DR, $299 FCP X, $49.99 CC, and $999-$1299 MC (or $49.99 for a 12/mo subscription), yet Adobe is hitting their subscriber numbers and their stock is amaze-balls. I fail to understand why the price gap is a such a problem now when it hasn’t changed over the last half decade. Even if Adobe cuts it’s CC price in half it’s still going to be more expensive than free DR from day one and more expensive than FCP X and paid DR as soon as year two of the subscription rolls around.
I think blindly chasing falling prices will topple Adobe the same way it toppled many PC manufactures that chased Dell in its race-to-the-bottom pricing (with Dell itself ultimately bottoming out too). Adobe has to focus on selling value, not price, because they will always lose a price war to companies like Apple and BMD. If people find sufficient value in a product then they will pay for it even if it costs more than the competition. Maybe in a few years people will get tired of the recurring payments (which is a greater problem for Adobe than prices), or maybe the payments will fade into the background just like our phone bills, ISP bills, insurance bills, Netflix subscription, etc.,… It just becomes another cost lost in a seas of costs.
[andy patterson] “…web blogger it is. Not everyone has clients in the year 2017. Some do it as a hobby. “
Someone vlogging as hobby isn’t going to spend $1800 on the Production Premium CS. Even if Adobe cut its CS prices in half it would still be way more expensive than free DR and $299 FCP X (especially when you factor in Adobe charging for annual upgrades where as Apple and BMD do not).
You keep contrasting poor vloggers to post houses even though the industry is much more diverse than that. Every week I see job ads posted on Staff Me Up, Film and TV Pro, Media Match, various FB groups, Craigslist, etc., from small and medium sized businesses across the US looking for editors that know Premiere Pro. Corporate, news, ad/marketing, web/digital, low budget indies, docs, etc.,.. Over the past few years I’ve seen nothing but growing demand for Premiere users across the spectrum.
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[Brian Seegmiller] “I would think have all those tabs of sequences would get confusing after awhile. As far as tagging goes, I would rather have organized my footage in case the client comes in and wants to see a certain part of the interview or something and for me as well to find what I need faster than trying to find it in 15 or so sequences.”
I mainly use sequences for organization and with the pancake method (broll and interview sequences on top, editing sequences on bottom) it’s pretty straight forward to keep it organized. With regards to finding parts of interviews, I place all my interviews into their sequences and drop markers w/notes at the beginning of questions and answers, and whenever I think something very worthwhile is said. That way I can just open up the Marker window and read my notes (which are searchable). I can also export the Mark window into an spreadsheet if I want to print out a hard copy. Of course I try to work w/transcripts whenever possible so that usually negates me having to mark up things in the NLE.
I’m just not starting to use X, so I don’t have a solid enough reference yet to really do a point to point comparison based on experience.
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[andy patterson] “At 17:30 Bob Zelin basically said the exact same thing I have said many times but I get dissed for saying it. Will Bob get dissed for saying it or be revered as a genius with tremendous insight? “
Disagreeing isn’t dissing. Of course all companies have to find ways to keep competitive, but (again) I think value weighs more than price alone. FCP X has been $299 for how long? Adobe CC has been $49.99 for how long? A nearly fully functioning version of DR has been free for how long? The big drops in price (and I mean compared to 15-20yrs ago) and opening up of hardware means that it’s no long an either/or choice. It’s very affordable for people to have access to multiple NLEs if they choose (even more affordable if you just need a short term rental from Adobe or Avid). For example, I currently have copies of X, Adobe CC, DR (paid version) and MC (and still FCP 7 just in case) and that wouldn’t have been affordable 15 years ago. Yet now, at last in my experience, it’s fairly common for people to have multiple NLEs installed on their system (which is mostly like an off the shelf Mac or PC).
With regards to MC First, Avid has gone the free NLE route before (as well as making other down market versions) and it never worked out well for them. Maybe it will be different this time, maybe not, but MC First certainly isn’t any competition for free DR. On a related note, anyone keeping track of how well ProTools First is doing?
[andy patterson] “Having said that Lightroom and Photoshop are kind of the industry standard for photo editing but they are bundled together for $9.99. “
This is my take on that, when Adobe first offered the $9.99 bundle Apple’s Aperture was a still serious competitor to Lightroom and given the extreme ire over going CC only I think Adobe was worried they’d lose a huge part of their base to Aperture and a ‘good enough’ Photoshop replacement like Pixelmator. The rest of the suite didn’t really have competition like that which is why the photo bundle is a one-off thing (at least for now). Sure, PPro has competition, but what about After Effects? And how many editors need After Effects? If an editor already pays the $49.99 to get After Effects, doesn’t it seem likely that they’ll give PPro a shot since it’s included in the $49.99? Especially if this is a few years ago and it’s an FCP 7 editor looking for a new NLE.
When Adobe starts missing it’s subscriber goals I think they’ll do something like offering bundles (similar to the CS bundles) for $34.99 or $39.99. I wouldn’t expect Adobe to drop the bar too low because once you offer something for a lower price, it’s extremely difficult to go up again.
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[andy patterson] “I am saying many YouTubers will opt for FCPX or DR because of the costly rental paradigm when compared to Premiere Pro.”
Based on what? My experience with YouTubers parallel’s Oliver’s in that PPro is popular in that sector. Of course “YouTubers” itself is a vague term that covers everyone from vloggers making $10/mo to Video Game High School that had a budget of $2.3 million for it’s final season.
[andy patterson] “I just remember the day when Adobe wanted to compete with the competition by offering a good product at an inexpensive price. Premiere Pro is not inexpensive when compared to DR. “
When was the Production Premium suite inexpensive compared to Apple’s Final Cut Studio package? I think Premiere (not Pro) was cheaper than FCP back in the day, but demand for Premiere was so low from Mac users that it wasn’t worth Adobe’s time to make an OS X Premiere Pro version until Apple switch to x86 (which greatly reduced Adobe’s cost to make a Mac version). Coming back to the present, FCP X is expensive compared to the free version of DR. Again, I think you are placing way too much emphasis on price alone. If price outweighed all other factors so decisively then the free version of DR should just be crushing it to the point that charging any amount of money for an NLE would be borderline impractical.
You also seem to be relying on a common fallacy that dropping prices would inherently lead to an inversely proportional increase in customers and revenue (ex. if Adobe cuts the price by half then twice as many people will sign up) even though there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support that. What if the biggest roadblock to potential subscribers isn’t price at all but the concept of renting software in general? In my experience that’s the more common complaint than cost. Similarly, I’d say price isn’t the problem for many/most people not adopting FCP X. Apple could make it $99 and they people that are saying “screw you and your magnetic timeline” will still be saying ‘screw you and your magnetic timeline’.
[andy patterson] “Like I said DR has been getting great upgrades for the past two years and the price dropped. If I had said last year at NAB 2016 BMD is going to lower the price of DR in 2017 I imagine you and many others would have said ” you are on crack dude” but it happened. Didn’t it?”
I agree that DR has been getting a lot of great updates, but many of them have been features to provide parity with the competition as BMD continues to improve DR’s NLE functionality. As with Premiere, MC and X, the ‘wow’ upgrades will be fewer and farther between as DR matures. Will being a ‘super app’ (top level NLE, grading and audio mixing all in one piece of software) be enough of a differentiator that people will leave Avid, Adobe, or Apple in large numbers? Only time will tell. It’s certainly something that many users have pined for and no company has gone there yet like BMD has w/DR.
With regards to the price cut, I didn’t expected it but given BMD’s MO I wasn’t shocked by it. They’ve always given away a free version that had nearly 100% feature parity of the paid version, and even give away copies of the paid version for free if you buy a BM camera. It’s not like the price drop will suddenly make DR more accessible to a wider audience than it had been in the past. The paid version has always been for the niche of a niche market that wanted/needed those specific, higher end features, and if you are in that market a one time fee of $999 isn’t really a barrier to entry.Tell me BMD is going to cut their camera prices by 2/3 and I’ll say yer on crack. 😉
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[Robin S. Kurz] “When did FCS ever cost $1200?? I only remember $999.”
It was $1299 from the first Production Suite (2004) through Final Cut Studio 2. FCS 3 was the only bundle to have the $999 price point. At least here in the States (not sure what overseas pricing was).
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Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but people that got a look at it in person said there’s no apparent door/hatch to access the RAM like on other iMac’s so RAM might not be upgradable.
Apple confirming official support for eGPUs is great news, but that feature isn’t expected to be released to the masses until Spring 2018 (and it requires Thunderbolt 3).
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In hindsight, I admit that my gas and chips analogy is poor.
-Andrew
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Since the iMac Pro will use Xeon CPUs does that mean it won’t have Quick Sync to speed up H.264 encoding?
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[andy patterson] “As I stated if you purchased CS 4.0 they would make minor updates with bugs fixes and a few new features. Same with CS 5.5 and CS 6.0.”
What companies were able to get away with a decade or more ago is moot. Those infractions are now being caught (see my previous mention of Apple and Avid) so software companies have become much more mindful of the regulations.
[andy patterson] “Adobe could change the CC paradigm by stating if you subscribe to the CC for at least 3 years you can stop your monthly payment and still have access to the software but you will not get any more updates until you start paying again.”
I raised the exact same point years ago and got a good explanation from Tim Wilson about how that violates SOX. Basically a company is either offering software as a subscription service or selling software as a product, the two can’t intermingle. Hence why Avid offers two distinctly separate paths for Media Composer. There has also been discussion about why didn’t Adobe do the same thing as Avid did, but IMO that wouldn’t work for Adobe even though it works (clunky as it is) for Avid. Again, all this is retread from multiple, in-depth discussions in this forum and in the Adobe CC Debate forum.
[andy patterson] ” Stating BMD sells hardware is a moot point because DR is competition for Premiere Pro.”
It’s not moot from a money making perspective and companies have to make money to keep the lights on. Understanding the business model is required to understanding what options are viable and what aren’t for each company. It reminds me of people that use to say that Apple was doomed because all of their computers are too expensive compared to what Dell offers.
I think you are putting too much weight on price and not enough weight on value. If price was absolutely paramount then everyone would flock to Resolve and Media100 because they are free. For example, is $299 a more attractive price point than what I pay to Adobe and Avid? Yes, but for my needs Adobe and Avid represent a significantly better value so eschewing them for FCP X or Resolve based solely on price would be penny wise and pound foolish. Going back to Apple, they survived the race-to-the-bottom computer wars by because many customers viewed Apple’s products as a better value even if the price tag was higher.
[andy patterson] “Do you finally see my point about competition? $49.99 for the CC in another two years may seem expensive depending on where the competition is at.”
I always saw your point and continue to disagree with it. Your position is built on random price changes, baseless assumptions, and ignoring the changes in the software market that have helped shape the various business models that are in play today. You prefer the old software business model. I get. I generally preferred it too. I also preferred when gas was $0.75 a gallon and I could get a Coke and a bag of chips for a buck. Just because it was viable in the past doesn’t mean it’s still viable today.
By what metric is Adobe failing and in dire need of a change of course? Their revenue continues to grow. Their subscriber numbers continue to grow. Their stock price continues to hit record highs. Go back to the beginning of the Adobe CC Debate forum and you’ll see a bunch of people saying Adobe is doomed and they’ll never come close to hitting their subscriber and revenue goals… Obviously things turned out differently and that’s a big reason why the Adobe CC Debate forum has been a ghost town for months. When Adobe’s numbers start to level off they will have to take corrective action, but expecting them to drop their price by more than half when they having this much success is wishful thinking.
[andy patterson] ” If it was not for the CC subscription I imagine some of the people would have stuck with Premiere Pro although FCPX and DR are both good NLE.”
If it wasn’t for the subscription model they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford going with Adobe at all. $400 for FCP X, Motion and Compressor vs $1900 for the CS6 Production Premium bundle.
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[andy patterson] “They could go back to the CS days although I know they will not. “
It’s not a coincidence that Microsoft, Avid, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Blackmagic, etc., don’t sell software the traditional way with perpetual licenses and upgrades at a discount. Those days, the CS days, are vanishing.
[andy patterson] ”
I know they have to be accountable to the stockholders. “It’s not about being accountable to shareholders, it’s about how companies can report revenue and was born out of the Enron disaster. In our neck of the woods SOX basically turns every software update into potential land mine.
For example, say I’m a publicly traded company and in January I sold you an NLE for $200, and then in May I released a free update adding multicam functionality. In the eyes of SOX I sold you an incomplete product in January and later delivered the ‘missing piece’ in May. So I’m not allowed to record a $200 sale in January, I can only record some of the revenue and I must defer the rest until the update comes out in May. And I can’t just defer an arbitrary amount until May, I have to figure out what a reasonable and customary amount for multicam functionality would be if it was sold as a standalone product on the open market.
With how frequently software is updated these days I’m sure you can see impossible it would be to figure out the monetary value of each and every update for each and every piece of software. A way to avoid this is to charge for each and every update but consumers don’t really like that (I don’t know if you remember when Apple charged users for things like Facetime updates and iOS updates for iPod users).
Avid presumably got stung by this a few years ago when they mishandled an update. They stopped filing required SEC paper work to fix some ‘accounting errors’ and eventually got de-listed from NASDAQ. When Avid ‘reemerged’ their old software sales model of perpetual licenses and discounted upgrades was gone and in it’s place was a subscription option and a perpetual license with a mandatory support contract. Upgrades are no more.
[andy patterson] ” Adobe needs to rethink things. “
Their growing revenue and stock price say otherwise currently.