OT: Corporate madness - Adobe software to be subscription only

[Bill Swallow]

It's not SaaS, it's subscription. Yes, the name "Creative Cloud" (CC)
is confusing but it's not web-only applications. You download and
install them.

I like this model for a few reasons:

1. Cheaper for multi-application users. Rather than buying one-off or
a suite at a time, you get access to all CC apps for a monthly fee. If
you're corporate, that means you can easily control the number of
licenses at any given time. (Ever experience licence rot, when you
lose an employee or several and have open licenses just collecting
dust? You paid for that.) If you're a contractor, you only have to pay
for the apps for the duration of the gig, and not have them sitting
around unused. (This is great for short-term contracts where they just
need an InDesign jockey for a few weeks to edit some files.)

2. While you may only have immediate need for one or a few apps, you
have all the others at your disposal to learn. Think about it; how
many times did you wish you had access to the full version of a
product to learn it for work use evaluation, or for resume fodder? Now
you have that option at a reasonable price.

3. You can completely avoid the back version blues. How many times
have you worked in a team where you decide on a tool, get the initial
funding, and then get push-back on upgrade pricing from the bean
counters? And then hire someone new, who needs a license, but they
don't sell version X anymore and to get everyone on version Y would be
a huge expense? Or your team is merged with another, or your company
acquires another company, and your software versions don't match up?
Problem solved.

I don't see this as being a bad thing. I see it as being different.

Bill

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Steve Rickaby
<srickaby at wordmongers.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I have just heard a rumor that the CS Suite is going to available in future only on an SaaS basis, by subscription. TCS/FrameMaker could follow?
>
> I do wonder whether the accountants that run large corporates like Adobe understand how important their software is to the countless thousands of freelances who have to scrape every last penny to buy it - but at least then they own something, not vapor that goes phut as soon as you stop paying for it.
>
> For the last two decades FrameMaker, Illustrator, Acrobat and Dreamweaver have been the rocks underpinning what I do. I'm far less sure about the future, though.
>
> --
> Steve [somewhat aghast]
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-- 
Bill Swallow
Writing and Content Strategy Consultant
http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood