I wonder how long it will take the crackers to break the phone home requirement? Given their past performances I'd say within a few months.
Adobe collected $300,000,000 via CC during its first year, sounds a lot but it isn't for a $21B corporation. The stock price has fallen a touch since the announcement. Whilst the stock market likes the idea of the rental software model and the steady income it brings, they know there is going to be a backlash for the first companies that do it.
Adobe are desperate for people to adopt the model, absolutely desperate, hence the hiding of CS6, the introductory offers, the forum apologists who are employed by Adobe to be here and every other forum I have seen (
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=367787 ) etc etc, they need to show good conversion numbers as it is a direct figure for income potential and it will affect the share price. Unlike an upgrade cycle where people have been able to pick and choose if an upgrade is worth the price, the onus used to be on Adobe to keep coming up with new and compelling features, now the onus is on the user to keep paying, new features or not.
As I see it the real "issue" for Adobe is not us smaller user photographers, hell we can work around corporate greed just the same as ever, just keep CS4-5-6, buy LR5, render using LR and when OS's don't support that anymore set up a dedicated Mac Mini, or Windows whatever, as a dedicated image computer (I did that just over a year ago and couldn't be happier), nor is an issue the big heavy users who do want and need every new feature in their big graphics departments. The real battleground for Adobe is the smaller genuine businesses, the 4-10 user license group, they need a lot of convincing to adopt this new model.
I am related to a family of printers, the various family members own small print outlets all over the world, individually the shops fall into the 4-10 license group and they are doing some serious soul searching. However good their cash flows look they have all had hard times. They are very resistant to the idea that they won't be able to buy a perpetual license and stick it on one machine in the corner and always have access to the program that made their customer files. It is a very common situation for customers to come back years later to use graphics that were made previously. They don't like the idea one bit that the shift of power has flipped so completely to Adobe, they know they will not be in the position to miss a payment, ever, for ever, or that Adobe can up the price whenever they like whether it is reasonable or not.
To most of them it just doesn't make economic sense to tie their work and output to a program that only works via subscription. They are actively looking for work a rounds, they intend to get one CC per shop and isolate it, see how it goes, but do 90%+ of their work on their current CS6 licenses.
These are the users who's adoption rates will be the making or breaking of the subscription model. And despite Adobe's commitment to the new model, it could be broken comparatively easily, there are special verification free versions out there..........
Show Posts
)
