What do you think of the new "Adobe Cloud?"

[Joe]

Like most people, I am skeptical of the subscription model that Adobe is moving to.
In the recent past, Adobe has updated the Creative Suite about once a year.
I upgraded 10 seats to CS6 Design Standard 14 months ago for $269.17 per seat.
I just spoke to Adobe last Friday. To get "Creative Cloud for Teams" it will be $39.99 per seat per month.
So essentially I have to go from paying $270.00/year to $480.00/year per seat.
Where is the value in that?

That $39.99 per seat per month is just the first year price. After that it goes up to regular price which is now $69.99 per month. By the time that first year ends it could be higher than that.

 

[Joe]

It might just be able to do some of those things. It looks like they have made MAJOR tweaks under the hood. Also, with Quark, and customers sending PDFs, I could postpone upgrading for much longer. All my computers are CS6, and with PitStop Pro we can make most edits and changes to supplied PDFs. It is an option. Not necessarily a long-term solution, but an option to bide time and see if something else steps in, or if Adobe pulls their collective heads out of their as*es. Maybe. Or we're all just screwed. but I really don't like that last option. that's really going to put a huge strain on an already struggling industry.

It's Quark. I'm quite confident Quark is not going to include vector, photo editing and PDF editing within the Quark Xpress application on the level of Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

 

[Joe]

I don't see Quark as a competitor to Adobe anymore, in fact Adobe's main competition are Torrent sites where piracy has proven to be a perennial loss for Adobe. Creative Cloud is an attempt to stem that loss by turning Adobe's portfolio into Software As A Service instead, the only alternative imo is open source and products like GIMP provide a platform where the community can develop a true Adobe alternative this requires Adobe to annoy enough folks to get motivated and from their arrogance so far this will only be a matter of time.

The Open Source apps like GIMP, Inkscape, and Scribus are pretty decent but nowhere near the level of the Adobe apps. Plus I don't think there is a Open Source PDF editor. At least none that can work with Pitstop which to me is an absolute necessity in prepress these days.

 

[Alith7]

That $39.99 per seat per month is just the first year price. After that it goes up to regular price which is now $69.99 per month. By the time that first year ends it could be higher than that.

If you have CS6 now, you can get in before the end of the month for $19.99/month for the first year. not saying it's great. but slightly better.

 

[Alith7]

I don't see Quark as a competitor to Adobe anymore, in fact Adobe's main competition are Torrent sites where piracy has proven to be a perennial loss for Adobe. Creative Cloud is an attempt to stem that loss by turning Adobe's portfolio into Software As A Service instead, the only alternative imo is open source and products like GIMP provide a platform where the community can develop a true Adobe alternative this requires Adobe to annoy enough folks to get motivated and from their arrogance so far this will only be a matter of time.

The only thing I have to say about that is when Adobe first released Indesign, the same things were said about Indesign. "it's horrible" "it will never compete with Quark" etc. etc. Market Suicide is still suicide. Adobe may be better in almost all things, but even that can change when you leave an opening. Adobe took advantage of that fact almost 10 years ago now. if Quark is smart, they will take advantage of Adobe's oops. And they may not. Maybe it's just a pipe dream.

 

[Possumgal]

I'm surprised some of these open source apps didn't see this coming and really ramp up development of their apps to compete. Once the Cloud started, you could sort of see this was the way Adobe would go eventually. Maybe in another year or so, we'll see some real competition.

Quark is a competitor to one of Adobe's programs, it was never meant to be a "one stop shop." Adobe doesn't have a one stop shop, all in one program either. The raster editing and vector competition will have to come from elsewhere.

 

[dabob]

Dance with the one that brung ya!

Dance with the one that brung ya!

I havn't head from anyone on the adobe side - could be they don't know or haven't figured it out yet . . . I will admit that when they killed the AASP program it didn't make me feel good about them - but I got over it . . . they ditched free software to the service provider . . . end of an era . . . now they do this . . .well I for one haven't been stabbed in the back yet . . . I propose a truce until they show us what they are going to do in the long run as far as "rental" pricing . . . it they maintain contact with this earth and keep the pricing competitive, aka affordable we might as well shut up and keep going to the dance with them . . . after all they are the ones that brung us . . .

P.S. and they do keep coming up with some really Kewl "Dance Moves"!!!!

 

[Joe]

If you have CS6 now, you can get in before the end of the month for $19.99/month for the first year. not saying it's great. but slightly better.

Yeah, that is for a single subscription. The OP was talking about a Team subscription which can be had for $39.99 right now and $69.99 is the current regular price.

 

[Joe]

The only thing I have to say about that is when Adobe first released Indesign, the same things were said about Indesign. "it's horrible" "it will never compete with Quark" etc. etc. Market Suicide is still suicide. Adobe may be better in almost all things, but even that can change when you leave an opening. Adobe took advantage of that fact almost 10 years ago now. if Quark is smart, they will take advantage of Adobe's oops. And they may not. Maybe it's just a pipe dream.

I've seen nothing from Quark that would indicate they have learned anything.

 

[Alith7]

Yeah, that is for a single subscription. The OP was talking about a Team subscription which can be had for $39.99 right now and $69.99 is the current regular price.

unless I read "the fine print" wrong, all a "Team" subscription gets you is networking and sharing tools. Every computer still needs it's own subscription for the software.

from Adobe's "Team" section of the site:

"Annual plan each user
US $69.99
per month"

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/teams.html

 

[Alith7]

actually...now, instead of volume licensing getting you a price break, it looks like it's going to cost you more. unless I'm missing something?

 

[Joe]

I think the "Manage your team's seats yourself." indicates you only have to create one account to manage all of your team. Which makes it slightly easier to manage. But not an extra $20 per month per user easier. You do also get 100 mb of cloud space per user and I think 2 "free" tech support calls a year per user. Still not worth it. In my mind if you have a lot of users means you will be buying more licenses and in the past you've always gotten a price break by buying more copies of the software. Now Adobe thinks you should pay extra since you have more users. Adobe would be wrong.

 

[Joe]

actually...now, instead of volume licensing getting you a price break, it looks like it's going to cost you more. unless I'm missing something?

Yes, exactly. For "Volume Licensing" price breaks you have to have over 100 copies. So you have to pay more for "Team" licensing from 2 - 99 users.

 

[Alith7]

I think the "Manage your team's seats yourself." indicates you only have to create one account to manage all of your team. Which makes it slightly easier to manage. But not an extra $20 per month per user easier. You do also get 100 mb of cloud space per user and I think 2 "free" tech support calls a year per user. Still not worth it. In my mind if you have a lot of users means you will be buying more licenses and in the past you've always gotten a price break by buying more copies of the software. Now Adobe thinks you should pay extra since you have more users. Adobe would be wrong.

100 GB...but still...they're NUTS! Or are they thinking people will jump on the concept of "well, it costs more, so it MUST be better"?!?! The more I read into this the more I WISH I had the option to tell Adobe to Shove it...

 

[Alith7]

Yes, exactly. For "Volume Licensing" price breaks you have to have over 100 copies. So you have to pay more for "Team" licensing from 2 - 99 users.

well...actually...it doesn't SAY you'd get price breaks... Only that you have to contact them for pricing...

 

[CathieHarris]

I agree that I wish we could tell Adobe to stick it - I'm with Alith on that one. Is it possible to upgrade right now from CS3 to CS6 and leave it at that for now? I'd like to upgrade and though that Adobe said you could do that until Aug. 1. Still not going for the cloud, though.

Anyone sign the petition?

 

[Alith7]

I agree that I wish we could tell Adobe to stick it - I'm with Alith on that one. Is it possible to upgrade right now from CS3 to CS6 and leave it at that for now? I'd like to upgrade and though that Adobe said you could do that until Aug. 1. Still not going for the cloud, though.

Anyone sign the petition?

I did! not that it will do any good!
check Ebay and resellers like Newegg and MacMall. You might still be able to get it.

 

[Joe]

well...actually...it doesn't SAY you'd get price breaks... Only that you have to contact them for pricing...

True and I did not check on that pricing because we are not hiring 86 more people so we can get "Volume Licensing".

 

[Joe]

I agree that I wish we could tell Adobe to stick it - I'm with Alith on that one. Is it possible to upgrade right now from CS3 to CS6 and leave it at that for now? I'd like to upgrade and though that Adobe said you could do that until Aug. 1. Still not going for the cloud, though.

Anyone sign the petition?

You can still buy CS6 at the Adobe store but it only lists upgrades for CS5 at $549. If you can still upgrade older versions the price would go up as the version you are upgrading from gets older. But looking at their store they only offer upgrades from CS5.

 

[Possumgal]

100 GB...but still...they're NUTS! Or are they thinking people will jump on the concept of "well, it costs more, so it MUST be better"?!?! The more I read into this the more I WISH I had the option to tell Adobe to Shove it...

Yeah, but you'll get that big fat Cloud storage! Whoop de do.