So how is that Subscription Service working out for Adobe?

[dseelig]

The divide in this country between rich and poor grows every day and it is in the long term going to destroy us all. Adobe has become part of that divide.

[chez]

3. Adobe invested twice as much in Sales & Marketing as they did in R&D. (According to the linked Q413 Earnings pdf)

Its amazing what selectively picking numbers can do. What you forgot to mention is Adobe increased the R&D budget by 11.3% in 2013 while increasing their marketing budget by only 6.8%...almost twice as much. An increase of over 10% in R&D over 1 year is substantial.

[chez]

The divide in this country between rich and poor grows every day and it is in the long term going to destroy us all. Adobe has become part of that divide.

Get serious will you. You just using a modern DSLR along with a computer to access this board already puts you onto one side of this divide.

[dseelig]

I have never made 50 k in a year in my life Actually only cracked 40 once. Never had kids was a stepfather for a time. I have sacrificed everything for my life in photography. I have been lucky in cheap places to live. I was orphaned at 16 and been on my own since. At 17 while having my own apt and getting social security I could not get a job and had to steal to eat for a year of my life. Do not begin to tell me where I am in life. No one here has a clue. I have been published in Time Life Sports Illustrated Rolling Stone Stern and on just about every continent on the planet. But my publishings have been stock not assignments fees which in journalism pays a little better. If you want to know me look at my personal work on my website. I do not take every post to advertise myself. But again www.davidseelig.com
www.davidseelig.net

[Farmer]

So stop using Adobe products.

[ButchM]

Its amazing what selectively picking numbers can do. What you forgot to mention is Adobe increased the R&D budget by 11.3% in 2013 while increasing their marketing budget by only 6.8%...almost twice as much. An increase of over 10% in R&D over 1 year is substantial.

What you fail to see ... is most of the Sales and Marketing investment for 2013 went for naught (considering the drop in revenues earned) ... perhaps if there were a more balanced budgetary allotment for R&D, much less effort would need to be expended to meet goals. Comparing year to year really doesn't help ... when considering there was such a disparity between the two line items in both years.

I, for one, would be more interested in seeing more software engineers employed at Adobe, rather than more sales staff or more advertising purchases.

A superior product usually sells itself and does not require such intensive marketing campaigns to convince customers it is in their best interest to purchase the product.

What you also need to consider is the fact, by these examples, Adobe places much more importance on Sales and Marketing than they do on R&D ... so when it comes time to make budgetary cuts due to low revenues ... which area will suffer more?

[Farmer]

Sorry, but that's bordering on absurd.  You don't know what's required for R&D of these products so making a statement that they're not spending enough is silly.  It's not an arbitary thing that they must spend X on Sales and Marketing and 2X on R&D (for example).

[chez]

What you fail to see ... is most of the Sales and Marketing investment for 2013 went for naught (considering the drop in revenues earned) ... perhaps if there were a more balanced budgetary allotment for R&D, much less effort would need to be expended to meet goals. Comparing year to year really doesn't help ... when considering there was such a disparity between the two line items in both years.

I, for one, would be more interested in seeing more software engineers employed at Adobe, rather than more sales staff or more advertising purchases.

A superior product usually sells itself and does not require such intensive marketing campaigns to convince customers it is in their best interest to purchase the product.

What you also need to consider is the fact, by these examples, Adobe places much more importance on Sales and Marketing than they do on R&D ... so when it comes time to make budgetary cuts due to low revenues ... which area will suffer more?

Did a quick bit of looking to see what other hitech companies spend on R&D as a % of revenue. Here they are:

Adobe     - 16.9%
Apple      - 3%
Microsoft - 13%
Google     - 13.5%
Toyota      - 4.2%
Pfizer        - 13.5%
Samsung   - 6%
Intel          - 15.5%
Panasonic   - 6.6%
IBM            - 5.9%
Cisco          - 13.5%

From what I see, I think Adobe is very much invested in R&D to keep their products moving forward.

[dseelig]

To everyone to me it is the responsibility if you feel a wrong in this world to try and change peoples mind's about it. Yes I knew there were friends of Adobe people here. For those that tried to tell me who i am money wise or am I some kind of pro photographer I am a waiting an apology

[Schewe]

If you want to know me look at my personal work on my website. I do not take every post to advertise myself. But again www.davidseelig.com

Nice work...you seem to have had a tough life...my sympathies. However, it appears to me you've become pretty bitter. If all you can see regarding Adobe is corporate greed, you are ill-informed. Adobe could have behaved like Microsoft over the years and made very aggressive moves to kill off competition by leveraging their leading position in so many areas of digital imaging and have never really done so. In fact, they go out of their way to play nice with others and try very hard to advance the industry by working on a long list of not-for-profit efforts and standards (which apparently you are unaware of).

Adobe has become a monopoly not because of their actions but because of the quality of their software. Photoshop is so successful in-spite of everything Adobe has done, not because of anything Adobe has done. Thomas Knoll and all of the Photoshop engineers over the years have been driven to do the "right thing" and Thomas, after all these years is still doing the right thing (now mostly on Camera Raw).

Adobe found themselves in a situation where they had to make a tough choice and change their fundamental method of doing business. If you think the decision was easy, and based on greed, you are just plain wrong. Adobe full well knows they will be making less money for their shareholders for several years while the subscription model takes hold. But they also viewed the perpetual license model as a dying model for both technical and financial reasons.

You don't have to like it, but you do have to deal with it. If you choose to refuse to subscribe, that's your way of dealing with it which leaves you with very few and generally less adequate solutions...

But if you truly think this is all about greed, then you are wrong and I think you need to evaluate your perception of this industry change. Doing what you do without Photoshop won't be easy...are you sure you want to cut your nose off just to spite your face?

[Schewe]

For those that tried to tell me who i am money wise or am I some kind of pro photographer I am a waiting an apology

Hum, if directed at me, I wouldn't hold your breath bud...(seriously, the phrase "cold day in hell" comes to mind).

[Farmer]

Sorry, no apology.  What you wrote, questioning the moral character of individual employees that are not personally known to you, forever struck you off the list of professionals in my mind.

[LesPalenik]

Reading about the experiences of some CC users about being dependent on monthly payments, installation problems, inability to contact Adobe support, and program bugs is very scary. Personally, I had a bad experience when I ordered online from Adobe the LR 5 upgrade. Filled out a lengthy form, supplied my CC info (only to be recorded for benefit of some hackers), and next day received email from Adobe that they were not able to process my order without explaining what was the problem. I was not unable to contact Adobe and resolve the problem with the order.
Finally, I purchased the upgrade on a disk from a local camera store, and was able to install on my computer. No problems since.

Similar to my last order of perpetual PS.
I got it on a disk, installed it without any problems, and never had to contact Adobe again. I liked it that way.

[dseelig]

Didn't expect a thing LOL but you guys were so wrong about who I am it is not even funny. I doubt when Knoll wrote the first photoshop he had anything but good motives now Adobe is all about money and it makes me sad.

[Schewe]

I doubt when Knoll wrote the first photoshop he had anything but good motives now Adobe is all about money and it makes me sad.

Knoll still works at Adobe and he still has good motives...as do the other engineers working on Photoshop, Lightroom and Camera Raw. And I seriously doubt I could ever change your jaded point of view, but Adobe is not all about money...yes, they are a publicly owned corporation so they have to be concerned about shareholder returns–it's their job and responsibility. Perhaps you just hate all corporations? If so, it must make your life miserable having to deal with huh?

[Jeremy Roussak]

Didn't expect a thing LOL but you guys were so wrong about who I am it is not even funny. I doubt when Knoll wrote the first photoshop he had anything but good motives now Adobe is all about money and it makes me sad.

I'm having a lot of difficulty working out where your complaint lies. The last version of PS which I bought was CS5. It cost about £800. I'm now paying around 1% of that amount per month (and if I'd not bought a perpetual licence for LR5 before all this blew up, I'd be getting that thrown in); it will be nearly 8 years - 8 years! - before I've paid as much as that single copy of PS cost, excluding the use I can get out of the cash which I've not paid to Adobe as a lump sum.

Frankly, I'm wondering why they're being so generous.

Jeremy

[hjulenissen]

Did a quick bit of looking to see what other hitech companies spend on R&D as a % of revenue. Here they are:

For comparision:
"Perfume and cosmetics companies spend an average of 19.2% of their net sales on advertising. By comparison, the ad/sales ratios for  pharmaceutical companies and wire-less communications providers are 4.2% and 3.1%, respectively2)."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45737734/A-Closer-Look-at-the-Cosmetics-Industry-and-the-Role-of-Marketing-Translation

[Damon Lynch]

I think this account from the desktop publishing world is well-written: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darling/

I think it's relevant to us photographers because as others have argued previously in these forums, Lightroom has genuine competitors. It's also still available on a perpetual license for those who want it. Photoshop doesn't have any real competition and therefore Adobe effectively has a monopoly. Is it just a coincidence that Photoshop is now subscription only from here on in?

Reasoned speculation aside, the psychology of this shift is fascinating to me.  At $10 a month for LR+PS with a promise that it won't go up in a years time, it feels much less objectionable. I'm now a subscriber. It doesn't feel like I'm getting blatantly screwed. Whereas before the $10 a month plan -- for my personal use case as a graduate student (prices for students increased dramatically!) -- the subscription shift was clearly very bad financially.  But more than this it was an acute feeling of having lost control about when I wanted to spend my money.  I felt like I was be taken advantage of by Adobe. Now the the price is $120 a year, and with a sense that I can take the risk to trust their claim the price will not go up, that feeling of a loss of control has dramatically subsided. So much so that it personally surprises me. (Then again, I also have the security of a perpetual PS CS6 license and perpetual Lightroom 5 license too, should that sense of risk and fairness change).

[hjulenissen]

I'm having a lot of difficulty working out where your complaint lies. The last version of PS which I bought was CS5. It cost about £800. I'm now paying around 1% of that amount per month (and if I'd not bought a perpetual licence for LR5 before all this blew up, I'd be getting that thrown in); it will be nearly 8 years - 8 years! - before I've paid as much as that single copy of PS cost, excluding the use I can get out of the cash which I've not paid to Adobe as a lump sum.

Frankly, I'm wondering why they're being so generous.

Jeremy

Paying a montly, low sum for a montly delivery of food can be a good deal.

Paying a montly, low sum for a picture that you intend to hang on your wall for the rest of your life may or may not be a good deal.

With your CS5 you pretty much know what you paid for. With the running service, you don't know what Adobe will deliver for your money, and you don't know how much money they will demand from you in the future to continue subscribing.

I think it is a fair assumption that they are being so "generous" because they see that they are unable to tempt users with updated products, rather they want to have a fixed (smooth) income for as long as Photoshop stays relevant.

-h

[john beardsworth]

I'm having a lot of difficulty working out where your complaint lies. The last version of PS which I bought was CS5. It cost about £800. I'm now paying around 1% of that amount per month (and if I'd not bought a perpetual licence for LR5 before all this blew up, I'd be getting that thrown in); it will be nearly 8 years - 8 years! - before I've paid as much as that single copy of PS cost, excluding the use I can get out of the cash which I've not paid to Adobe as a lump sum.

Frankly, I'm wondering why they're being so generous.

Jeremy

1%/8yrs applies to new PS customers, Jeremy, so it really doesn't apply to you. Still, Adobe is asking you for roughly the same as if you had upgraded each time - which may not as rosy as your 1% but doesn't seem skewed in their favour. But if I switched to CC from the CS6 suite, over 6 years I'd be paying double what I would have paid by upgrading every time. Frankly, I'm wondering why.

John