I hope the staff at Adobe are reading these forum posts.
First question: the following quote
As far as the future of CS applications, in his Adobe MAX keynote, David Wadhwani said, 'We have no plans' to continue perpetual licenses. We are not ruling that out in the future.
Just exactly what is meant by this statement? Is Adobe already looking for a back door if the Create Cloud doesn't pan out? I really would like to know what this means. It sounds ominous and dubious and it sends mixed messages.
As far as the Creative Cloud model goes, is this really a benefit to your customers? I can see it might make Adobe a lot of money (if you don't lose a vast majority of your customer base) but how does it really benefit your customers? Your loyal customers? The customers that made you the rich company that you are today.
Speaking for myself, I do not use all the programs that will be available in the cloud on a regular basis. During the summer when I don't have classes, I don't use some programs at all. But I have to keep paying whether I use them or not. If I stop paying, I will lose access to my software. How is that a good thing for me? For the majority of your customers? You think because we pay a monthly fee that most people won't equate that we are having to fork over more than $300 a year? In some cases over $600 a year. And it never stops. How is that good for the majority of your customers?
Do I really need to have the latest software constantly? No, I don't. But you are now forcing the issue whether I want it or not. Forcing your customer to do something does not seem like you really care about me. About us.
What about my students? We have hundreds of students that go through our Adobe software classes each semester. Every student told me they would not go with the Cloud, either because they don't have the money or they were going to protest Adobe's "money grabbing scheme" (one student's actual quote). The students sure don't think Adobe cares about them. If the students stop taking the classes because of the software access, then we start cutting sections. Does Adobe care about that? I'm sure no, but think about those hundreds of students each semester that will no longer be learning to use Adobe software.
Adobe is putting a stranglehold on its customers and the customers are going to say enough is enough. Perhaps new software (open source?) will emerge to take the place of Adobe. Perhaps people using InDesign will go back to QuarkXPress. Perhaps enough of these former Adobe customers will force Adobe to check their hubris and greed at the door. But maybe not. The world will move on, one way or another.
One thing I am supremely sure about is Adobe has got it really, really wrong on the Creative Cloud strategy.
BTW, you might want to read the following link entitled Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement. It is not pretty:
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2013/20130508_1a-Adobe-legal-agree ment.html