Adobe lays off 900 staff - CS4 slow seller

[gordo]

Adobe lays off 600 workers, CS4 demand weaker than expected | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

"Adobe said demand for Creative Suite 4 was weaker than expected and “the main cause for the shortfall in fourth quarter revenue.” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said the global economic downturn hurt revenue."

best, gordo

 

[Cory Smith]

The release cycle on the CS suites have been short. I also wonder at what point does the tank run dry in the new features department. Sure there are some great features in CS4 but no "killer" feature IMO.

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

 

[jlazerus]

I posted this message on the ZDnet comments for this article also:

CS4 demand weaker than Adobe[b/] expected! I do not see ANY
reason for our business to continue to shell out cash for software
products that do not noticeably improve productivity, but rather create
productivity slowdowns due to cumbersome upgrades that seem to fail
more often than they work. In addition, now we have to spend time on
the learning curve for the new product, not to mention undocumented
incompatibilities with the OS and/or existing plugins. THANKS A LOT!

Maybe Adobe should cull some of their product line, now that they've
decided to take over the content creation world. Adobe has so many
products now, it's difficult to determine what they do exactly. Web?
Print? Design? Should everything be a PDF, or what? Adobe started with
the Postscript code, but has gone so far afield of that, one would be
hard pressed to say exactly what it is they do.

600 people losing their jobs is not cool, and I'm sure very few of those
people are in upper management. I agree- stop trying to sell your loyal
customer base useless upgrades every 18 months.

Sincerely,
Regular Guy's experiments in www

 

[Morning Flight]

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

Cory, while I agree that Adobe's version cycles are too short, your wife may want to keep an eye on upgrade eligibility to avoid having to pay for the full version down the road. I own CS3, so I can afford to sit out the upgrade.

Hal
http://www.printshopmakeover.com/

 

[Tech]

The release cycle on the CS suites have been short. I also wonder at what point does the tank run dry in the new features department. Sure there are some great features in CS4 but no "killer" feature IMO.

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

I agree, new features in CS4 really are not killers that everyone need and full updates are indeed too fast. I certainly wouldn't push our Creative Dept to upgrade unless our printers stop supporting CS3. CS2-CS3 does everything we need as well.

This is the same problem with Quark, people really don't need 7 or 8 when v6.5 does a fine job as is.

 

[Brad38CMU]

I 100% agree with all of you. I work in graphics for a large flexo printer and we could get by with CS if our customers would supply us the files. There haven't been any major upgrades that increase our productivity since I began using the products in 2004 (I'm still a newbie).

 

[Vee]

You'd think if they would lay off the upgrades, and incorporate the "new features" of say two upgrades into one, they would get more interest in a purchase. Keep the folks in suspense instead of cramming upgrades down our throats on the regular.

 

[prepressguru]

I agree 100% stick with what works. Newer doesn't always mean better. And since when should we purchase a new version just to get bugs fixed.

Good luck

 

[traceysl]

It's not just CS4

It's not just CS4

In a bad economy, people are only buying what they absolutely must and no more. And the other thing about these upgrades: it's never JUST the Adobe stuff; it's all the plug-ins as well. The Creative Suites are great buys for people who don't already have the software, but not for those who've already made their investment.

 

[Steve_S]

Cs4

Cs4

If it were not for the fact that we are ASN members, we would not have CS4 yet either. Unfortunately, we have some design clients that are upgraded as soon as the dvd's are on the shelf for purchase. We could function fine with 2 or 3, although 4 does have some nice features. Not enough to warrant full ticket for the suite, but nice.

 

[roguebutterfly]

Rationalizing the changes

Rationalizing the changes

Adobe does have a vision of the creative content future that you can buy into or not. The past two upgrades have focused on integrating the Macromedia technology into Adobe products and unifying the user experience in the products from the two companies. They are also focused on corporate and instutional users. Lots of new technology for developing web based applications and standalone programs for all kinds of devices. The improvements in the use of metadata from one version to the next is important to corporations that rely on it for storing and retrieving their files. With CS4, Adobe is also into user-configurable interfaces. Once again, a corporation could create palettes and menus that match the functions they need for producing their deliverables and save a lot as a result of fewer clicks. Most of this stuff is under the hood and more valuable to integrators, corporate users and others who can use it to customize workflows and increase productivity. For the average individual user, the changes can be more confusing than useful.

 

[pwydler]

I downloaded cs3 and I rather my cs2 except for dreamweaver and flash Cs4 I am not buying because of adobe´s going for the money not fr the design and the people I´ll wait for cs5

 

[JaimeZ]

Like SnappySteve, we have the upgrade because of the ASN program, but we have not installed yet. I don't care what platform, upgrades are rarely easy upgrades without having to deal with the OS itself.

 

[Steve_S]

Plus we have been putting off upgrading our MAC's but we had to buy one new to use CS4. (and our folks that bring us the newest files are always mac users...)

 

[richielj]

Cs4

Cs4

I think the problem here is that Adobe is supporting its marketing department instead of its customers...

 

[michaelejahn]

Adobe Photoshop CS4 - scratching my head

Adobe Photoshop CS4 - scratching my head

As a marketing person in the software vertical for pdf tools for prepress -I have to always weigh the 'hey, we have to make a living on support, maintenance agreements and upgrades" -- against "what can we really do to improve the useability of this tool (or application set) - and the two often contradict.

That being said, lets assume that all software developers (including biggies like Adobe) try and correct crappy implementations and un-intuitive tools so they can decrease the amount of flame filled email complaints - but sometimes - well, they should leave things alone.

Adobe Photoshop is a VERY mature application, with many professionals using it all day and all night. Many have their quick key chops, custom actions - and get familair with the way a tool behaves. To change a tool with this crowd, it better be for a VERY good reason - but this seems to NOT be the case with Photoshop CS4.

Nearly everyone - and I mean some very big names - on the colortheory forum, a yahoo group run by sterling ledet and moderated by the Photoshop expert Dan Magulis - have all run the CS4 trial and found it to have changed far too many things without improvement, and I have to say that the few tools I use seem to be even harder to use - now, perhaps they wanted to dumb it down for the new user, but this really has me stumped - what were they thinking when they made these changes to the Adjustment Panel ?

No wonder people are not upgrading - this is a huge step backwards for many powerusers, and these are the folks who other folks as "should we upgrade?"

This 'we are sticking with CS2 or 3" has NOTHING to do with the economy, this has all to do with someone not paying attention to the core base.

 

[Laurens]

Average upgrade cycle should be longer

Average upgrade cycle should be longer

When CS4 came out I got curious and posted a poll on my site asking people how often they would like to see upgrades of their apps. 70% favor a 2- or 3-year cycle! You can still see that numbers in my archive at The 2008 archive | Prepressure

There are some nifty features in CS4 and I really liked the InDesign flip-book feature. It is simply that yearly upgrade cycle that is getting cumbersome. That is in fact true for both hardware and software. I am still happy with my aging G5, which is fast enough for most of my work.

 

[DeletedMemberx0938140]

Yeah it's costly

Yeah it's costly

I totally agree with the theme of this thread. We're still running Indesign v2.0 (not even CS) and we can do more than what our customers want with even such an old version. It supports transparency, feathering and live drop shadows. Seriously you can do heaps with that alone!

However, we've had to bite the bullet and upgrade to CS4 since we're now putting on a new designer (trainee) and need to have the same software across the board. So I can open his, the other guy can open mine, trainee can open the tradey's. (3 of us).

More than a small fortune to upgrade, even after going through the eligibility process. (can I upgrade Photoshop CS2, or Indesign for this one).

And yes, it does frustrate me no end when they change short-cuts! Arggghh. I used to be able to hit 'Z' in Acrobat and get the zoom tool. Now I'm hunting in the tool bar for it.

The other reason (and a biggy) is that although we love to receive PDF's some customers just want to supply native files and sometimes it's quicker doing that, then spending hours on phone trying to train a newb.

But if we keep upgrading everytime they bring out a new version we'll be able to manage our cashflow a bit better than forking out $1K or more in a few years when you're forced to upgrade.

I still love ID2.0.2 (it just works and has no bugs)

 

[Tech]

This 'we are sticking with CS2 or 3" has NOTHING to do with the economy, this has all to do with someone not paying attention to the core base.

When our dept are informed to stop printing to color Xerox printer because we have been exceeding monthly quota, it does mean money is tight. I can assure you, our director is in no mood to spend money. I'm still waiting for a larger 1TB hard drive I request for six months ago.

If there is one thing I hate about Adobe products is how they manage to over simplified technique and effects for designers to just hit a few buttons in each upgrade. Easier is not better, maybe faster but definitely not better! We really don't need more designers whom don't understand how things are actually created. We need apps that pushes designers toward creativity not laziness.

Sorry Adobe, make sure next time you release a full upgrade during recession, make it a killer app, not another "we change interface/better integration/some dumb-down cool effects" upgrade.

 

[Rushlight27]

Adobe rhymes with greedy

Adobe rhymes with greedy

Isn't it wonderful how Adobe are now behaving like Quark used to. As far as I'm aware you can't backsave Indesign to older versions and if you've bought the suite you can't buy individual upgrades, it has to be the whole lot which is expensive.
As everyone has said, CS4 is at least two CSs too far and I, for one, am not shelling out.
God bless PDF.