Adobe goes Subscription only

So do I need to be connected to the internet to use the software or not?

Luckless wrote in post #15908271
1. Reasonable for whom exactly?

2. Are you in software development? Have you worked on a major software project in the past?

Ditching future developments of the non-cloud version either eliminates a production branch of code, or greatly simplifies a security feature set. They don't have to test against authentication of Subscription vs authentication of lifetime license on maybe eight versions of Windows (Remember, not good enough to just test software against windows 7, you have service packs and the like!), and a pile of OS X versions. (I'm on a project at work that is on OSX, and I should know how many versions are being tested against, but I can't for the life of me remember how many.)

Oh, and don't forget you need to do localization passes against all those as well, so multiple that by the number of supported languages. Also don't forget to add in your hardware variations to your test matrix!

Dropping one of the two models is going to save them at least $10,000 in direct QA labour based on other projects of this size. And that is Per Build that receives a full test pass. Each patch or upgrade you see as an end user is going to represent many builds. Odds are with software like that you are getting at minimum of 5 builds getting a test pass.

Long story short: Dropping dual purchase methods is going to save them a pile of money. They are a business, they are in business to make money and turn a profit, they are NOT in business to ensure you can edit photos.

As for making it easier on programmers in general: With a subscription model like this, the development cycle is no longer "Version Bound" on features. That is, if I am a programmer and I have a good idea that the team supports, then my new feature doesn't have to be budgeted closely and worked into the project as a whole where it is allotted a tight money and time frame budget. I can be sent off into my corner to program away, and when my feature is done, it is done. That feature doesn't have to wait till the next major in six months time to be included, and my feature can't delay the release of other features. My feature merely gets rolled out in the next content update at the end of the week along with the general bug fixes.

Working under a subscription based model is far nicer, and with a lot less stress.

Under the old system of large monolithic releases with "big version jumps" (ie, CS6 to CS7) the programmer is always under the risk of some delay in the features they are responsible for. Bugs happen, designs fail, things go wrong. If a programmer knows the product is shipping as a whole at the end of a milestone, then they are under a huge amount of pressure when they find some bug or issue a week from release. Crunch time sucks. You don't see your family, you barely get to leave the office, you have managers breathing down your neck constantly asking you what is going wrong, why isn't it working, is it done yet, why wasn't this caught sooner, what kind of idiot are you to have missed this, etc.

Under the new system, it is far more practical to release smaller updates far more often. Programming a new Red Eye reduction system? Is it ready to get to final QA and be included in this week's release on Thursday morning? No? Oh,... well, next release cycle is in a week or two, which is more than enough time to finish it. Since you won't make it this week, and will dig into the next cycle, may as well take the afternoon off, go clear your head, and spend a bit more time looking for issues.

Way more relaxing, and vastly more productive.

Adobe have always prereleased up coming major new releases as betaware for testing. What now ..... are the $49.95 per month subscription payers the perpetual guinea pigs?

banquetbear wrote in post #15908055
...well no that is an opinion, not necessarily best practice. There are many ways to manage cashflow and you obviously have chosen yours. I didn't plan on getting photoshop at all for the next few years because in my forecast cashflows I didn't see a $1500.00 spike at all that I wasn't going to commit to either gear upgrades or reserves. I was content on using GIMP even though it took me forever to do basic tasks. Now my cashflow hardly takes a hit: its the price of four cups of coffee a month. If there was no Creative Cloud I wouldn't be using photoshop right now. And I won't be the only business that makes that same decision: for many businesses its smart to spread out costs like this and it would be ridiculous to do otherwise.

banquetbear wrote in post #15908133
...at $20.00 a month it would take six years to pay it off. And I would be using a version that was six years old. If I close my business at the end of the year I would simply stop my subscription: and would only be $240.00 "out of pocket". A $1500.00 software expenditure is classed as capital expenditure here: so would have to be depreciated. A twenty dollar subscription isn't a capital cost. There are plenty of advantages for small business here.

Your argument is valid in your situation because your retail price is MUCH higher than ours. I just bought CS6 yesterday as a final cry of pain to stave off disaster as long as possible. It was "only" approximately $660 with taxes. That's 33 months compared to your 72 months.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #15907898
I'm curious, why this train of thought? If adobe changes their psd file format, that doesn't mean that previous versions of Ps will stop working with psd files they produced. Nor does it mean that third party software manufacturers will stop supporting the original psd file format. More likely it will be similar to Office products, where you are given compatibility options when you save your work.

This is true, but what happens over the long haul, and some of us are old enough farts that we've seen the long haul, is that the OS changes enough that you can't run the app that opened the file anymore.

There are versions of PS that won't run on Windows XP, let alone on 7 or 8.
If we stop getting the new versions of PS, eventually we will be running Windows 15 128 bit and won't be able to install our old PSCS (PSCS2 in my case, which Adobe already says won't run on Windows 7 64 bit even though it does thank Darwin)

It just depends on how far down the road you look.

Now, on the other hand, your right, I'm not in a rush, I'll have access to them for a long time. But someday.. I may need to take this step, or to another file format we've never heard of.

dalto wrote in post #15908201
I don't upgrade every version and my current average cost is far less than $50/month, so for me the total cost of ownership is less in the current model.


Not really, I am considering the amount of time in which I can afford to pay it.


If I continued to buy upgrades to perpetual software for 15 years and then kept the last version it is likely I could continue to use this software for some time. Perhaps not another 15 years but probably another 5-10. Look at all the people on this board that are still using CS2 for an example of this.

This is where you TCO formula breaks down for me. If fails to capture the trailing usage of the products that is not available in a subscription model.

First, I'm not trying to convince you one way or another. I absolutely agree that there are MANY users that don't have the latest CS version.

There is no TOC formula. It's simply, factor in the costs that you think you will use for either method for the identical amount of time (total ownership time). This gives you a total cost number to compare... unfortunately, at this time there really won't be a stand-alone version cost that you can use. It's basically, buy CS6 now and use it as long as you can, or go with the Creative Cloud and pay as long as you can.

Without doing any math, I'm almost positive that most people would end up cheaper with the previous method, thus the reason that Adobe is forcing the new method upon everyone.

Having said that, my preference would be a hybrid model. I'd like to be able to purchase a version of the software which I'd own the rights to. Additionally, I could have the option to pay a yearly "maintenance" cost which would include any/all updates that were released that year. At any point, I could choose to opt out of the maintenance program and retain usage of the software to the latest version that I paid for (including updates, which I'd had also paid for). After opting out of the maintenance program, if at some point later I decided that I wanted to get updates again, there would be a pro-rated cost to opt back in... For example, it would cost more to upgrade from CS3 to CS6, than it would from CS4 to CS6. This is a model that I may be willing to accept dependent on pricing of course

osh_sekta wrote in post #15907914
I am making benches and tables for a living. I need a screwdriver and hammer. I buy them, so it is at my place all the time.
When once a year I need some uber small screwdriver for a laptop, I borrow it from a mate for an exchange of couple beers [rent it].
And exactly that's why I do not want to rent the hammer, because everytime to rent it will cost me boxes of beers, that is waaay more than the hammer is worth.

Right, you get to won your tools without being beholden to seomeone that has to supervise you to make sure it works.

And your friend can let you borrow it,. no beer rental, and that's not piracy!

cdifoto wrote in post #15908289
Your argument is valid in your situation because your retail price is MUCH higher than ours. I just bought CS6 yesterday as a final cry of pain to stave off disaster as long as possible. It was "only" approximately $660 with taxes. That's 33 months compared to your 72 months.

and at the end of 33 months (or even prior) if you go out of business you can still use your CS6 version for person use...

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15908304
This is true, but what happens over the long haul, and some of us are old enough farts that we've seen the long haul, is that the OS changes enough that you can't run the app that opened the file anymore.

There are versions of PS that won't run on Windows XP, let alone on 7 or 8.
If we stop getting the new versions of PS, eventually we will be running Windows 15 128 bit and won't be able to install our old PSCS (PSCS2 in my case, which Adobe already says won't run on Windows 7 64 bit even though it does thank Darwin)

It just depends on how far down the road you look.

Now, on the other hand, your right, I'm not in a rush, I'll have access to them for a long time. But someday.. I may need to take this step, or to another file format we've never heard of.

Good Point! Not only that but when they upgrade PS CC what happens when your computer no longer can handle that new version... gotta buy a new computer then.

drvnbysound wrote in post #15908317
and at the end of 33 months (or even prior) if you go out of business you can still use your CS6 version for person use...

Exactly. I can even sell it on to someone and recoup some of my "loss."

J_TULLAR wrote in post #15908318
Good Point! Not only that but when they upgrade PS CC what happens when your computer no longer can handle that new version... gotta buy a new computer then.

That's true too. I can't "eek by" with my POS setup that's good enough for my pathetic needs...no I HAVE to buy a new computer because the new version doesn't run on my old box.

fotoworx wrote in post #15908286
Adobe have always prereleased up coming major new releases as betaware for testing. What now ..... are the $49.95 per month subscription payers the perpetual guinea pigs?

The only real testing Beta releases offer is a discount on hardware profile testing. No major software company lets a beta go out the door without a good amount of testing.

And would you rather pay $50 a month and test extreme edge cases for a developer, or pay $600 one time and do the same tests for them?

My day job is software quality assurance. (In essence, my job is to sit there and tell people how they fail at doing their job.) My current project is in 'beta', and the team is horribly small. Handful of developers and a few testers on End User tests. We have been pushing a new "Beta" out to the "Testers" once every week and a half or so for the last while. Every morning when I get into the office there has been a new build waiting for me. 1 in 3 days I've gotten a second build before mid afternoon. And one day we had a total of eight builds to work on. For every issue brought up by a 'beta tester', QA has brought up about 50. In the three months of a beta release, I can count on my hand the number of issues the beta testers brought up that wasn't already logged by us in the system as a pending issue. (And one of them was simply because the server hosting our bug tracking software nose dived one night and did a roll back. QA and one of the developers knew of the bug, it was logged, we just lost it.)


Software development is NOT a trivial task.

"Customers have to come to terms with the end of perpetually licensed software," IDC analyst Al Hilwa told the Associated Press.

From BBC webpage
'Adobe starts subscription for Photoshop and Dreamweaver'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/n​ews/technology-22432171

cdifoto wrote in post #15908289
Your argument is valid in your situation because your retail price is MUCH higher than ours. I just bought CS6 yesterday as a final cry of pain to stave off disaster as long as possible. It was "only" approximately $660 with taxes. That's 33 months compared to your 72 months.

...I've made it quite clear that I'm speaking about NZ pricing. But the principals of managing cashflow don't change no matter where you are in the world. I've given the reasons why not only myself but for many businesses world wide adopting the subscription model is smart business. That was the point you responded to. Are you arguing that because it doesn't work for you my statement is not valid? Because if you aren't then I'm not sure what your issue is.

ThreeGuysPhoto wrote in post #15907947
L...
Also saw this in the 5 Myths post on the CC website:

=]You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you’ll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you’ll be able to use products for 180 days even if you’re offline.

So, they give you a little wiggle room on the monthly subscription validation.

So there is the back door. Sign up month by month, pay for the first month, then not again for 180 days, then pay again. That's $40 a year.

I THINK WE NEED TO STOP FOR A SECOND, AND EVALUATE THE NEED TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS.


Obviously, this model will work for some, perhaps many, even perhaps for the majority.
This we don't know, but clearly if this appealed to NO ONE, Adobe would be out of business in a matter of weeks.

Personally, it NEVER occured to me that this would appeal to "no one", so I;'m not sure why we are arguing about that.

It is great that this option makes life easier for many, and I hope they provide this option for that reason.

That said, I would also hope that anyone that likes this option would grant me the same respect in understanding that this option is not best for everyone, and thus should be offered as an option. Not an ultimatum.

right?

right?

O-kay. So let's back off with the name calling because someone has different needs from you.
Point counterpoint on pros and negatives for your side of the debate is constructive, but jeeze guys, calling people names because they don't want to ay for something the same way you do is just childish and weak minded.