Corporate madness - Adobe software to be subscription only

Sat May 11 15:43:13 PDT 2013

Hi, John!

Clearly, there will definitely be people for whom it will work ... and if the model works for you, then great! But, I think that in many cases, the complete set of CC tools may not be needed and/or wanted.

For example, all I need from Adobe is for the old update fee for FrameMaker, and possibly Acrobat Pro - which would keep me using it in the future. The price for this _was_ only a few hundred dollars for two years (my justification for continuing after the version upgrade price jumped form $199 to $399 for FrameMaker).

If FrameMaker gets bundled into CC, then the cost of $1200 for two years (at $50 per month) is high, since I don't need/want any of the other tools in there. If each program independently costs $20 per month, then the cost of FrameMaker and Acrobat at $960 for two years is still excessively high, IMHO.

If this new model causes Adobe to lose many smaller single-users from continuing with Adobe tools, and Adobe does not care, then I'd say my belief is valid.

However, like I had mentioned in my previous, this is purely my opinion and belief ... :)

Z

From: John Posada [mailto:jposada99 at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:18 PM
To: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net)
Cc: Steve Rickaby; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Corporate madness - Adobe software to be subscription only

Syed: "smaller-entity" users (such as individual tech writers, graphics artists and consultants) for whom the cost of tools is an issue...

I AM one of them and the cost of tools is very much an issue...I could never have afforded the one-time purchase of thousands of dollars I'd need to get what's in CC. OTOH, $50 a month a can easily afford. IMHO, this is a great thing.

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:54 PM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net<mailto:Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>) <Syed.Hosain at aeris.net<mailto:Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>> wrote:
This is not just a rumor I think ... it is mentioned on the Adobe web site for their CS tools (... have not seen anything for FrameMaker though). This may work for some (many?) corporate users, but as far as I am concerned, it is just one more nail in the Adobe tools coffin (for example, see my recent rant on their FrameMaker license maintenance policy change).

To me (and I emphasize I am only expressing my opinion and belief), it looks like Adobe is heading away from supporting their "smaller-entity" users (such as individual tech writers, graphics artists and consultants) for whom the cost of tools is an issue.

So we have to look for alternatives. For example, I now use Xara Photo and Graphic Designer instead of Adobe Photoshop (I stopped upgrading at version CS3). The good news is that there are less expensive, rational licensing, alternatives to many Adobe products. FrameMaker is one that may be more difficult to find an alternative for - I simply plan to never upgrade from version 11 again and just look for alternatives. I am even back to Word (eek!) for many shorter documents - my last five or six 10-20 page white-papers have come out reasonably well in Word! Where I used to fire up FrameMaker to do all writing, I find myself using Word more and more for trip reports, memos, white-papers, etc. And the experience isn't as bad as I was afraid it might be.

My bottom line is that a SaaS model is not an acceptable model for these kinds of tools.

Z

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com>] On Behalf Of Steve Rickaby
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2013 9:38 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: OT: Corporate madness - Adobe software to be subscription only

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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