Adobe lowers prices on PS Lr cc combo

[Schewe]

That's quite a leap...engineers receive their marching orders from higher up the chain.

Who do you think gives Thomas Knoll his matching orders? (hint, it's Thomas Knoll)

The top Photoshop engineers are now more in control of what will developed than they've been since Photoshop 7, the last non-suite version of Photoshop. Ever since CS, it was indeed the suite product management that dictated the dev time and schedule that dictated what features could or couldn't be done. That has now all changed back to Photoshop being in charge of what and when new features will be added to Photoshop.

[digitaldog]

That's quite a leap...engineers receive their marching orders from higher up the chain.

I'm not sure. I really don't believe some 'suit' said to the Photoshop team "come up with Shake Reduction" or PV2012, or Content Aware Fill. I would suspect that engineers do receive the marching orders from higher up the chain to come up with useful feature we end users want. Not much more specific however.

[designpartners]

if it's like any of the large multinational companies I know, who ever controls the budget controls the amount of development. That's not to say they necessarily control what they develop, but I would think they have a strong say in it.

and ultimately, any company that's floated on the stock exchange, well, they have a whole other group to please. 

[chez]

For you to make that statement shows that you are either naive about the development process in a major corporation....or believe we are.

Development projects have budgets, which are driven by the return ( profit/ revenue ) expected from them.  Thomas, in the recent video interview with Michael, mentioned the marketing driven "demo-able" features that they needed to work on for each major release.  Unsaid, but alluded to was that these tied up work that could have been better spent in other areas.

Questioning Adobe's future action....that is the actions of a profit driven corporation...in no way reflects on the creative workers in the trenches.  It is not unreasonable to fear that once the subscription model is driven into our hearts that Adobe...the corporation...could not "cash cow" the product.

In the beginning, you attempted, unreasonably, to beat down all complaints.  In fact, you probably did more to feed the flames then the actual action by Adobe did.

And I thought I was on a photography forum...my mistake I guess.

[Wayne Fox]

That's quite a leap...engineers receive their marching orders from higher up the chain. No one on this forum is denigrating the efforts and motivations of the people in the trenches, but they do have to focus on what comes down from their superiors and that is the part of the Adobe structure that many of us have lost faith in. I certainly hope this expressed concern is misplaced, but I sympathize with and understand those who worry.

It appears Adobe engineers may be more empowered than many other companies.  At Photoshop World, I was having a sandwich and the only seats were at a small table with one person, so my friend and I ask if we could sit there.  Shortly after the normal banter I notice he's wearing an Adobe shirt, which of course changed the direction of the discussion.  He mentioned he was an engineer at the Adobe "codathon" booth, a booth where engineers were seeking input and indeed doing some coding from Adobe users.  He was extremely inquisitive about things we thought would help Photoshop, and when I mentioned that PS should somehow adopt some of LR's color management features, especially the one of allowing users to see only the output profiles we want when printing I could see he was really listening closely.  This went on for 30 minutes.  Great guy, fun conversation (including a brief discussion of the entire CC thing).

When we were finished I ask him for a card, I was surprised to find out he was being a little modest, as it was David Hackel, Photoshop Engineering Manager (4th name in the credits when you do about Photoshop. 

[Schewe]

When we were finished I ask him for a card, I was surprised to find out he was being a little modest, as it was David Hackel, Photoshop Engineering Manager (4th name in the credits when you do about Photoshop. 

Yep, that's the way the Photoshop engineers are...they eat, drink and poop Photoshop.
(well, you know what I mean).

:~)

[jrsforums]

It appears Adobe engineers may be more empowered than many other companies.  At Photoshop World, I was having a sandwich and the only seats were at a small table with one person, so my friend and I ask if we could sit there.  Shortly after the normal banter I notice he's wearing an Adobe shirt, which of course changed the direction of the discussion.  He mentioned he was an engineer at the Adobe "codathon" booth, a booth where engineers were seeking input and indeed doing some coding from Adobe users.  He was extremely inquisitive about things we thought would help Photoshop, and when I mentioned that PS should somehow adopt some of LR's color management features, especially the one of allowing users to see only the output profiles we want when printing I could see he was really listening closely.  This went on for 30 minutes.  Great guy, fun conversation (including a brief discussion of the entire CC thing).

When we were finished I ask him for a card, I was surprised to find out he was being a little modest, as it was David Hackel, Photoshop Engineering Manager (4th name in the credits when you do about Photoshop. 

Wayne, we used to have many engineers, engineering mgmt, marketing, execs, etc. at major product shows.  

All of them were "empowered".  That is, they had input to the product plan.....what the market needs and what was possible to build.

In most cases, what wants to get in the plan vs. the budget available is akin to fitting 10 lbs into a 5 lbs bag....the ones tat get in the bag are drive by those which will garner the most revenue.....and those which meet the financial expectations of return on investment.  When they don't meet ROI and/or when purses are tight the bag can shrink to 2 lbs....even maintenance only.

[jrsforums]

And I thought I was on a photography forum...my mistake I guess.

Have you been reading this thread???

[chez]

Have you been reading this thread???

Exactly....

[john beardsworth]

And I thought I was on a photography forum...my mistake I guess.

Yes, your mistake. Try reading the forum's title - it's "digital image processing". How narrowly do you want to define that?

[chez]

Yes, your mistake. Try reading the forum's title - it's "digital image processing". How narrowly do you want to define that?

Maybe we could actually discuss image processing rather than how energetic Adobe engineers are since we know dick about Adobe engineers.

[Rhossydd]

since we know dick about Adobe engineers.

Given some of them are participants here, those of us that have been here a while are starting to learn quite a bit about them and how they work.

If you don't like the way things are discussed here, there are plenty of other web forums for you.

[Wayne Fox]

Wayne, we used to have many engineers, engineering mgmt, marketing, execs, etc. at major product shows.  

All of them were "empowered".  That is, they had input to the product plan.....what the market needs and what was possible to build.

In most cases, what wants to get in the plan vs. the budget available is akin to fitting 10 lbs into a 5 lbs bag....the ones tat get in the bag are drive by those which will garner the most revenue.....and those which meet the financial expectations of return on investment.  When they don't meet ROI and/or when purses are tight the bag can shrink to 2 lbs....even maintenance only.

I'm unfamiliar with your background and what company you are referring to, but I will say I've never seen a high level Adobe engineer working an Adobe booth before.  I did get to meet Eric Chan at a Photoshop world once which was a nice surprise, but this case it was a dedicated booth staffed with engineers seeking feedback on what users would like to see.  Normally  Adobe doesn't send engineers, they send evangelists.

As far as budgets, I don't believe the normal software development/upgrade cycle fits, as they now are looking for constant improvements frequently.  How they handle this will have a big role in the success of the cloud model, but it does seem their development budget process may be undergoing a drastic revision from typical software companies.

I do believe the engineers and others are  more empowered with this new CC model than before to address real issues, needs and wants. 

[ButchM]

I do believe the engineers and others are  more empowered with this new CC model than before to address real issues, needs and wants. 

That may very well be the case ... however, should the flow of revenue slow or diminish, you can rest assured that the empowerment in question will also diminish at an equal rate.

[Vladimirovich]

Who do you think gives Thomas Knoll his matching orders? (hint, it's Thomas Knoll)

The top Photoshop engineers are now more in control of what will developed than they've been since Photoshop 7, the last non-suite version of Photoshop.

so mr Knoll can make a non subscription model of PS happen ? good to know.... otherwise nobody was doubting purely technical stuff side.

[Schewe]

so mr Knoll can make a non subscription model of PS happen ? good to know....

He did once...and I suspect he could do a new non-Photoshop pixel editing app if he wanted to. But in terms of the subscription model, he doesn't mind the subscription only model (he just was unhappy with the way Adobe did it). Don't underestimate what Thomas can do if he sets his mind to it...he wields enormous power and influence at Adobe.

[John Camp]

I was resistent to the original suite offer because it cost way too much for a product that I only used occasionally (PS), and there were a lot of unresolved questions about what happens if you go off-grid for a few months, etc. This offer more or less parallels what I'd probably pay anyway -- PS upgrades every 2-3 years, LR upgrades as they come along, so I'll probably go for it. I do think they should also offer an annual billing, if they don't ($9.99 x 12) so that if something does go wrong with your credit card billing cycle, as Thom Hogan says happened to him, at least the chances of a problem would be reduced. I have to say I'm not too impressed with the 20GB cloud offer -- I have thumb drives bigger than that. 20TB would have been interesting.

But, I'll probably do it. In fact, I'm sure I will, if I don't drop dead in the next week. As for all the questions about whether we'll get upgrades and so on, I don't much care, because PS/LR does pretty much everything I need, right now, and if they just do maintenance forever, that'd be okay with me.

However, I don't believe Adobe when they say the price is good forever. When interest and inflation rates get back to normal, which looks like it'll be in the next year or two, you can expect that the value of the dollar relative to what it will buy will drop about 3% a year or so...which would be a real loss to Adobe, and a real gain for the rest of us. I doubt they will tolerate the loss, so at some point, "forever" will end...I suspect that will come along in perhaps five years. As for the "you should have read the fine print argument," what a bunch of BS. That fine print is designed NOT to be read, and I doubt that more than a small fraction of 1% actually does read it. Even if you did read, say, the CS3 fine print, would that mention the possibility of giving up your license for a product that didn't even exist back then? Maybe, but why would you pay attention to that, or remember it?
 
Still, with all the obvious objections, I'll buy it anyway, for now, and worry about it in five years.

Oh, yeah, one more question. I have two photo processing stations, and also a laptop, all Macs. What provisions are there for using your various machines with the subscription suite? Can you sign off and on like you do with the stand-alone products?

[Rick Popham]

He did once...and I suspect he could do a new non-Photoshop pixel editing app if he wanted to.

Fingers crossed...

[Vladimirovich]

Fingers crossed...

there is a difference between ability to code one (which he can and nobody doubts, one-two man teams do things like PhotoLine) and actually making that application within Adobe realm... by the way, I always miss a junior one - that PSE(lements), is that also a subscription only like PS ?

[Vladimirovich]

He did once...

he did once what ? averted a subscription model only several years ago ?