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Swapping Out Software?

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Vurbal:
If Adobe doesn't amend its cloud-only subscription policy I'll be switching from Creative Suite to the first competitor to include the features that I want (I suspect that will take a while to occur).-cranioscopical (July 18, 2013, 08:45 AM)
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The good news is that Adobe's decision makes it much more likely for that competition to emerge. Let's face it, some of the features you get in a program like Photoshop are just flat out unrivaled. I can't pay what it costs and couldn't justify it in any case but as a GIMP user I'm insanely jealous of some of the things even someone with my limited skills can do with it. They could sell it for cheaper but it would cost so much to develop something comparable it's possible nobody else could.

But now Adobe has created a new opportunity for clearly inferior competitors based on a stupid policy that they mistakenly think is a feature. It's not. Features are what your customers want. So now somebody else can get their foot in the door and steal some of Adobe's customers with a product that's just good enough. It won't be good enough for the hardcore Photoshop users but it will be good enough to take some percentage. That, in turn, will produce an influx of revenue which can be used to accelerate the development process and eventually it will be good enough for more Adobe customers and then all bets are off.

This, in a nutshell, is the never ending cycle of business.

40hz:
^ I think a good deal of Adobe's motivation in what they're currently doing is to reduce the number of CSS customers (i.e casual users and non-pros) they have and focus on the hardcore graphics professionals. A market where they're firmly entrenched for many reasons both good and bad - but mostly good.

When selling complex products that require support, the last thing you want is to have every kid on the block using it badly. You can be profitable (sometimes even more profitable) with lower sales figures. Because sales don't automatically map out to better margins. Sometimes small, very fat, and happy is where it's at for a tech company.

Besides, non-professionals don't buy into those high margin support packages and add-ons that the pros do. No do they sign up for those expensive training sessions and workshops. You're lucky if they buy a book. And even luckier if they do more than give it a quick skim when they do buy one. Amateurs much prefer to tie up the support lines for ages when they need help. ("I don't know about any of that! Just tell me what I need to click on to do this...what? The tools menu? Where's that?)

Supporting unqualified users can seriously hurt the bottom line. Autocad realized that ages ago. So did the producers of most of the other heavy-duty CAD, 3D modeling, and animation packages. Many almost seem to go out of their way to try and steer the 'average joe' away from their flagship products.

No. This isn't an oversight, or hubris, or something stupid on Adobe's part. It's a very sharp and calculated business decision. I call it a "velvet rope" approach: qualified, target segment customers only, please?


You say you do this for a living?
Because your name's not on my list.


Time will tell if Adobe called it right with this one. FWIW, when it comes to CSS, I think they did. 8)

cyberdiva:
That's a hard thing to do- especially with software that others use that you depend on, like skype.  It's just a slow process... I mean, look at the adoption of word and how long it took (is taking) to get people to see alternatives.
-wraith808 (July 18, 2013, 08:48 AM)
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Yes.  Ironically, years ago I switched to Word (from WordPerfect, which I much preferred) because so many other people I worked with used Word.  And then, a few years ago, I dumped Word in favor of TextMaker, from SoftMaker Office, since TextMaker could read and write Word files, so it didn't matter what my colleagues were using.  

Renegade:
This, in a nutshell, is the never ending cycle of business.
-Vurbal (July 18, 2013, 10:40 AM)
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While I agree that moving to the cloud is a mistake, I think we get there for different reasons.

Time will tell if Adobe called it right with this one. FWIW, when it comes to CSS, I think they did. 8)
-40hz (July 18, 2013, 11:52 AM)
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I think you're wrong there. The cloud is simply a bad idea. Period. Ahem... Snowden... surveillance... etc. etc.

I remember over a decade ago having documents come across my desk and thinking that it was a really, really bad idea. I think my gut reaction then has been vindicated.

Now, pricing your product out of reach of hobbyists/amateurs is one thing, but pricing it into the cloud for pros... yeah... not really "feeling" that here.

Give me a way to put MY data on MY server, then OK. But putting my data on YOUR servers? Thanks, but no thanks.

When I worked at ESTsoft, they had the right idea for ALPass. It was bang on 110% right.

ALPass encrypted everything client-side and uploaded it to the server. That is, if you wanted to - it wasn't mandatory.

The fallout was that if you screwed up, there was ZERO way to recover your data. YOU were responsible for it. YOU needed to remember your master password. If you forgot, you were screwed.

However, I had the advantage of knowing all of that from working inside the company, knowing the developers, and knowing everyone involved in the process. Microsoft pledges that they do that kind of thing, but it's just another lie.

However, that's going way off topic.

Swapping out stuff... CS > GIMP & Inkscape as far as I can see there. For InDesign... I'm not sure about a replacement there, but I don't use it enough to care.

40hz:
+1 w/cyberdiva. I much preferred WordPerfect too! Liked XyWrite even more.

For Windows (and yes, I'm still reluctantly using W7 for some things) I'll mostly stick with WriteMonkey for my text composition needs. I'll only move over to a "real word processor" when I need to share the work with somebody else. Under Linux I'll just use any installed text editor I find.

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