Let's not wine and cry over the $2,000 price. Just think if you were a plumber and had to pay for plumbing tools and a truck. CS6 and a MBP totals less ten $5K and lasts about 3 years. Even $2K per year is cheap compared to what a plumber or a cabinet maker or other tradesmen spend.
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Adobe Introduces Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud
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Pay through the nose
I thought CS6 Photoshop would appear on
Apple's App Store for a friendly price, boy was I wrong!
I thought CS6 Photoshop would appear on
Apple's App Store for a friendly price, boy was I wrong!Like saying you're a master chief? Nah... I think that's people who play too much Halo.
A master chef, maybe.
I thought CS6 Photoshop would appear on
I wouldn't count on it. Even should OS X ever switch to App Store only app distribution, I'd imagine Adobe would resort to leaving the Mac platform entirely before using the App Store as a distribution mechanism (admittedly, I probably would as well; walled gardens are one thing on a mobile device, but full control over my Macs is a must). They're far too greedy to either sell for any less than their current asinine price tag, or to hand any of that sum over to Apple. You'd think the fact that Photoshop has the highest piracy rate of any software title would possibly lead them to the realization that it's overpriced...
I thought CS6 Photoshop would appear on
Adobe and Apple aren't exactly buddy-buddy, so it's not really a surprise that it's not available through the App store. Even if, for some insane reason, it did show up there, Adobe charges what they want. People that have been using Adobe products for a while know not to expect a friendly price tag. If you want that, get Photoshop Elements (if it offers what you need) or look for a solution from a different developer.
Student versions typically have a "not for commercial use" clause in their licensing agreements. With photoshop prior to creative suite they used to run some excellent promotions like if you bought a wacom tablet it would have elements bundled, but you could upgrade to full photoshop for $350 or so. This was a very long time ago, but they did run offers like that at different points.
Regarding piracy, I was saying that I don't think they lose that many sales of the full version to it. They may lose potential sales of elements, and it probably hurts sales of things like Pixelmator. If such an option was unavailable, I doubt those guys would all pay for the full version. If you're using it for work, you pay it and write it off. It still costs something, but it's not that bad.
If those were my only required purchases, that argument would be far more applicable to me
. It ends up being many many thousands per year to keep hardware, software, and storage up to date.Except I also have to keep my equipment up to date and buy other software and licenses too, web hosting, etc. I'm not crying over the price, but I wish their prices were more reasonable.
The cloud service works out to being a good deal for me and I'll probably give it a try, but I do worry about the frequent updates as Abobe has a very poor track record with backwards compatibility and supporting hardware that isn't the latest and greatest.
You can make money while you're in college (I think) but not after you graduate.
I thought the reason they offered the Student version was to get people to learn how to use it... not to get a cheaper version for commercial use...
At least that's my understanding of Student versions. Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition says something similar:
-- "Office Home and Student is not for use in any commercial, nonprofit, or revenue generating business activities, or by any government organization."
I would assume Adobe has the same limitations.
So let's say you take photos for a friend and edit them on Photoshop and your friend pays you $50. Is this a violation? (Not my situation, just a thought)
Now as much as I don't see that as a violation, I guess if I continue to get more business through my site, using a student edition would be wrong?
I get about 2 weddings a month as I'm only student. Would this be wrong?
Adobe's greatest competition is themselves. It's entrenched and the market is saturated by their own product. That's why the product is bloated. They're not trying to create the best tools; they're trying to repeat sell the same thing, each year or so, to the same people. Why do you think the pricing is getting worse for those who prefer to skip versions & buy separate applications? Frankly, I've lost interest. I love photoshop, but only just. It's become bloated, slow, filled with junk I don't want and I'm aware of how much a waste of resources that junk is because I've watched it get added over the years. The only thing that compells me to ever upgrade any more is that my OS forces me to, or I can get some kind of excellent deal (which I won't get any more, since I'm now unemployed & not a student). They've repeatedly added undesirable crap to their product line up and I'd rather keep a machine stuck at an older OS generation as long as possible than waste money & system resources on the latest attempt to resell the same stale crap.
The alternatives aren't nearly comparable, which makes the situation even worse. And Adobe knows it. Adobe is market king and that's a bad thing for their product & customers. They've been taking on "new features" that attempt to make users feel the few competitors aren't worth going to, outside Adobe (such as natural media emulation, which could happily be a separate product category, such as Painter, if not for the marketing need to bloat the existing photoshop), which just makes those competitors even less likely to maintain/gain traction, & less able to spend on the engineering needed to compete with Adobe's products' heavy lifting (ie high-dpi, cmyk, complex layering/masking, massive image support, plug-in support, etc).
The industry is stagnant and Adobe takes advantage of users' limited options by repeat selling the same crap & increasing pricing while offering barely anything of significance other than "the right to keep using the tools." Sound familiar? There are a few other notable companies doing the same.
Subscription licensing is the only way dominant companies can continue *increasing* profits every year & the only companies that can force the market to accept it.
That's why the software is pirated so much. Users (individual & corporate) know they're being abused & no one wants to spend much money on intangible things when tangible things are far more compelling. The best solution is to stop abusing the users with high cost & anti-piracy/user BS. But developers like Adobe won't reverse their direction. It's beyond their corporate culture's ability to comprehend.
Antisocial entities don't get better. There's no immediate incentive to, & instant gratification is all that matters. I don't even know why I'm bothering to say any of this.
The alternatives aren't nearly comparable, which makes the situation even worse. And Adobe knows it. Adobe is market king and that's a bad thing for their product & customers. They've been taking on "new features" that attempt to make users feel the few competitors aren't worth going to, outside Adobe (such as natural media emulation, which could happily be a separate product category, such as Painter, if not for the marketing need to bloat the existing photoshop), which just makes those competitors even less likely to maintain/gain traction, & less able to spend on the engineering needed to compete with Adobe's products' heavy lifting (ie high-dpi, cmyk, complex layering/masking, massive image support, plug-in support, etc).
The industry is stagnant and Adobe takes advantage of users' limited options by repeat selling the same crap & increasing pricing while offering barely anything of significance other than "the right to keep using the tools." Sound familiar? There are a few other notable companies doing the same.
Subscription licensing is the only way dominant companies can continue *increasing* profits every year & the only companies that can force the market to accept it.
That's why the software is pirated so much. Users (individual & corporate) know they're being abused & no one wants to spend much money on intangible things when tangible things are far more compelling. The best solution is to stop abusing the users with high cost & anti-piracy/user BS. But developers like Adobe won't reverse their direction. It's beyond their corporate culture's ability to comprehend.
Antisocial entities don't get better. There's no immediate incentive to, & instant gratification is all that matters. I don't even know why I'm bothering to say any of this.
Interesting, so while you probably wouldn't get in trouble, ethically it would be wrong?
Also, I'm running a business while in college, so that would make it okay until I graduate?
I was mentioning a possible technicality, not judging anyone on it. I wouldn't worry about it.
I passed on CSS 5.5 and I still have CSS 5. $50.00/mo for ALL Adobe products w/Creative Cloud? Wow.
7 years ago I got CS3 which included every app for $1,299. Now to get that I have to spend $2,500 almost double.... Someone got greedy
Typically yes, in Adobe's case no. They fully allow commercial use with student versions. Student versions are also fully upgradeable. I got into CS 3 with a student discount and now have full commercial CS 5 by upgrading the student license.
It's always best to check individual facts!
Here it is from adobe: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/314304
At this point, I'd bet that it is partly scaremongering on their part, in order to try to post a good 4Q12 number for stockholders.
But you are indeed correct that Adobe is cracking down on "skip upgrades": I expect that after 12/12, what won't be scaremongering in the above is the upgrade availability for CS3 owners ... I fully expect that one to go POOF.
What Adobe seems to be on the path to is to only permit upgrade pricing for the prior two generations...this would allow CS5 for CS7, but it wouldn't permit CS4 for CS7.
Bingo.
I'm in a similar situation: I'll be upgrading to CS6 ...not because I want to, but because I know that I need to because I'm running CS4 and am stuck with the "Now Or Never" upgrade extorsion.
It indeed most certainly does...and taking a class at a local college to get "Student Discounts" is going to become the next strategy for those Photoshop users who want to use the same tool at home as they've been using at work, etc.
If priced correctly, it can be a win-win ... but the challenge is in figuring out the right price for the non-business consumer - - particularly when the license terms often carry the stipulation that the software goes "POOF" as soon as you stop making monthly payments.
I used to believe in Adobe enough to locally champion buying Adobe licenses in our office as part of an end-of-fiscal-yet legitimization campaign. These days, I just keep myself legit and choose not to look beyond my nose at what other coworkers may be doing to manage their licenese.
Oh, it gets worse: my personal Adobe licenses came from a bundle that was sold just before the CS series started .. and Adobe said that despite having multiple valid licenses of all of the usual suspects that I wasn't even eligible for an upgrade into the CS family - - except at the price offered for customers who only had a single (eg, Illustrator) license. That was when I strategically started abandoning those Adobe apps that I only rarely used.
-hh
Hmm, I'm getting tempted by the subscription rate now that I realize it might include some kind of web hosting. For many, that could save some money to help partially cover, or small dent, in the Creative Cloud fees, plus access to all of Adobe's web applications that might not be in your current suite is nice. Not much detail is available for publishing websites on Adobe's host servers.
I just read the Creative Cloud FAQs and one of the things it mentioned was that you get two installs both of which can be either Mac or PC.
From their FAQ, I believe it said you can install on both mac and PC. But each still count to the limit of installs, which is 2 I think.
Though, I wonder, say you work on 2 PCs, desktop and laptop, and you install just Photoshop on those two. Can you then install Illustrator on a Mac? Basically, is the 2 computer limit associated with each application? I'm sure this is not the case, because they probably view the subscription as one computer license with one backup machine, and only use one at a time.
mac and pc
Here is what I found:
"Access to both the Mac OS and Windows® versions of the desktop applications and the ability to install them on your primary computer and one backup computer. So, if you have a Mac at home and a PC at work, you can install your applications on both as long as they are not running at the same time. "
So it sounds like you can have it on both.....this was my biggest problem with the shrink wrapped version.... I own cs4 for mac but could never use it on the PC......they may get my money now.
How would they know if you had them running at the same time??????
Here is what I found:
"Access to both the Mac OS and Windows® versions of the desktop applications and the ability to install them on your primary computer and one backup computer. So, if you have a Mac at home and a PC at work, you can install your applications on both as long as they are not running at the same time. "
So it sounds like you can have it on both.....this was my biggest problem with the shrink wrapped version.... I own cs4 for mac but could never use it on the PC......they may get my money now.
How would they know if you had them running at the same time??????
Pricing rip off in Europe
Over here in Europe, the 6th edition of the famous Adobe suite is outrageously overpriced!
Licenses cost up to 53% more than in the US. Adobe stated in the past that this difference was legitimated by the cost induced by developing various localizations. This argument doesn't quite gull me, as for the french localization of CS6, the french-canadian version sold in Canada costs the exact same as the standard american-english version sold in the US.
You will find enclosed, a more detailed spreadsheet about these disparities.
Over here in Europe, the 6th edition of the famous Adobe suite is outrageously overpriced!
Licenses cost up to 53% more than in the US. Adobe stated in the past that this difference was legitimated by the cost induced by developing various localizations. This argument doesn't quite gull me, as for the french localization of CS6, the french-canadian version sold in Canada costs the exact same as the standard american-english version sold in the US.
You will find enclosed, a more detailed spreadsheet about these disparities.
Attachments
It looks like you can. I got a special deal, 29 dollars a month for a year (ridiculous price really, 360 for everything for a year?), and on the order it said Mac/Win.
Seems like this person gets it. If you are a creative person and can't afford it to speed up productivity, well you are doing something wrong. I'm a freelancer and I think this is very reasonable especially if you work from home and don't have any other expenses like traditional businesses. There are many alternatives out there for people who's creativity doesn't provide the income to buy pro software.