In my January 7, 2013 blog post, The Cloud – Storm Clouds Ahead, I discussed Adobe’s strategic decision to offer their products through a subscription-based pricing model. At that time, the user had a choice whether to purchase software outright or to pay for the software on a monthly or annual subscription.
For users of the Creative Suite, that choice will soon end. The current version of Photoshop is CS6. There will not be a CS7. In the future, if you want newly introduced Photoshop capabilities, you will have no choice but to pay for a Creative Cloud (CC) subscription. Whether Adobe’s decision will cost you, the user, more or less, depends on the number of Creative Suite programs you use. If you are a Photoshop only user or a Photoshop and Lightroom user, it will cost you more than what you have been paying with Adobe’s past upgrade pricing and new version cycle.
When I wrote the January 7th blog post, Adobe stock was trading at just under $38. Yesterday, it closed at $46.49. Sure wish I had bought Adobe’s stock which would have helped me pay for my increased cost of using Photoshop and Lightroom!
How do you view this change in Adobe’s pricing strategy and will it affect your use of their products? Please share your Comments below!
An overview of Adobe’s newly announced strategy can be found HERE.
More information about Adobe’s introductory pricing (emphasis on INTRODUCTORY) can be found HERE.
A good Q&A from Scott Kelby is HERE.
Adobe response to reaction, especially from photographers is HERE.
Adobe was going to change the upgrade policy so you could only upgrade from the previous version but soon caved to customer outrage. I’m hoping the same will happen with this. Adobe will realize how many customers WON’T rent and will be forced to sell upgrades as usual or go broke. Increasing profit margins while loosing market share is an unsustainable business model. The power of the consumer is everything in business!
Sure hope Steven is right. This is really bad news for all photographers. Lightroom too? Off to read the link. Thanks for keeping us posted.
I am not happy about this, it was bad enough with the 18 month upgrades now every month fee. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong and this will be a good thing. I’m pretty happy with CS6 and may stay that way for a long time. Thanks Alan for update.
Will users with multiple computers – desktop and laptop – be able to share a cloud license across systems or will they have to pay 2X?
[Alan, I sincerely appreciate your efforts in keeping us informed of these and other changes that impact/affect our photography. Thank you!]