Adobe lays off 900 staff - CS4 slow seller

[Vee]

Yep, I agree with Cory.
I have several friends working at ad agencies, utility companies, hospitals, organizations of all shapes and sizes. Most of them follow this model: All jobs over $2500.00 US, are required to have a minimum of 3 bids from 3 different printing vendors. The cheaper guy gets the job. Under $2500.00, they just get the PO signed, and send it to the guys they like the best.

[PDFninja]

true. still its a sorry business model to follow.
when we spend 4 hours practically relaying out a job in prepress and we can't charge out because we got the job for being cheapest we loose money not make it.

we give away 100k a year easy in free prepress time to fix/relayout files with problems related to poor choice of layout software or to using every know text effect in CS3 that our ApogeeX lite system won't interpret correctly and it has to run on 40in plates so we can't redo an imposition for putting it on 26in plates that has a ApogeeX commercial system pushing that plate setter.

doing the job at a guaranteed price is garbage. when you get handed a turd to work with... polish it all you want. it won't be what the customer wanted cause it doesn't match their screen.

[Vee]

With all due respect....
Clearly it's a good business practice on their end if you are giving up 100k a year, to the customer. Maybe it's the business practices / procedures at your shop that need to be revisited. So you can keep that 100k.

Or just leave that work to the other "cheap guy"... pick your poison..

[PDFninja]

With all due respect....
Clearly it's a good business practice on their end if you are giving up 100k a year, to the customer. Maybe it's the business practices / procedures at your shop that need to be revisited. So you can keep that 100k.

Or just leave that work to the other "cheap guy"... pick your poison..

run that by the people they've laidoff

that doesn't even account for profitable jobs we could have been turning out the door either.
and from the months we tracked our freebies it averaged 65 hours per month x 3 of us @ 75/hour
thats closer to 200k. and yes some of that could be recoupted by billing practice i bet.

not much you can do when you try to be the cheapest & then you get the files. you're stuck with chicken and they want roast duck, at a discount price.

[Grnofslt]

Hi Everyone,

I've not bought any of the CS4 products yet, but I have used the Illustrator CS4 demo (sad that my 30 days ran out). I personally love the way they upgraded existing features. We use CS3 where I work for all our major typesetting, converting PDF files to Illustrator file, (our service providers will only accept Ai files or eps graphics). The way that they revamped smart guides, gradients, having the multiple art boards etc all are especially useful with what we do, Our service provider probably will tell us that we still have to save backwards to CS2 but they may have CS4 on one computer.

I am now just getting into learning the new features of InDesign CS4 and that program has had a major overhaul. I've been working through the Lynda.com videos and playing with the demo that I downloaded. Again, I'll be sad when the 30 days are up.

I have yet to play with Photoshop CS4, but will be looking forward to that after I finish with InDesign.

Now I work in a very backwards work flow, still using a camera and film to do line shots and opaquing pen to fill in pin holes. Like I mentioned in a post elsewhere, my bosses name is Mr slate and my nearest co-worker's name is Fred, and Betty works in my department.

That being said, the price of the suites as an upgrade really aren't that expensive, not for what you get. 599.00 US for the design premium version of the Suite, and look at what you get, Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Indesign, and Acrobat 9 Pro. Now if one were to already have the creative suite on their system from a previous version, the enhancements to the work area alone might be worth the money. I agree that the initial price of software is expensive and while the creative Suites are expensive the first time buying, just think how expensive it would be if you had to purchase each application separately. Photoshop by itself costs over 650 for the full version from the average retailer. The suites are a bargain. If you are only in Print production, then you would probably only need the Standard version, which as an upgrade from a previous version of the Creative Suite is 499.00 US.

Now about the speed of the upgrade cycles of Adobe, I don't think a year and a half between upgrades is all that fast but rather that is about what it has been since 1999 when I first bought Photoshop 4. Apple has upgraded it's operating system a little less than every year and a half except for Tiger to Leopard.

Now at present I am not a business owner, but if I had a small printing shop and a couple good sized presses, I really believe that I would have the most up to date software just to be able to service my customer base. I would also pay to have my designer(s) and pre-press people trained to bring them up to speed. The shop that makes the investment in his people and in his equipment in order to provide services to his customers will be in the company that remains in business. The person who decides to not invest in his future is investing in his future failure.

Just my point of view

Bill Jacobs