Comments on: “Dear Adobe…”

By: Bobby Dimitt

Bobby Dimitt — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:57:45 +0000

I think one could make a case either way. I seem to recall that when the Big 10 finished their season before Thanksgiving, they had teams that would steadily move up the polls as other teams played a game the next week, then the conf championships would knock a few others down a peg. Say, a team would be at 6 or 7, then find themselves in the top 3-4 by the time everyone else beat up on one another. A downside was that by the time the bowls came around, they had not played for 50 days, but they cashed the check nonetheless.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:40:31 +0000

I used CS2 for many years without issue – did exactly what it said on the tin – no more no less. Unfortunately, when I had to upgrade my PC, CS2 no longer worked, so I reluctantly (and expensively) upgraded to CS5. Needless to say, this has proved an expensive nightmare! Talk about ‘full of shit’ – CS5 has cost me ten-fold what I paid for it in productivity nightmares, on the basis that there’s so much shit in it I’ll never use and the Adobe Community pops up, everytime I want to do a certain function. I require a full refund and compensation for the lost revenue and heartache. BTW: This is the ‘clean’ version!!!

By: Aerin

Aerin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:24:42 +0000

I just got a big shock today when I tried to upgrade from Dreamweaver MX 2004 to CS4. Turns out that because Dreamweaver MX 2004 was part of a suite, I can’t upgrade just that one application! The sales rep could give me no logical explanation (just that it was Adobe “policy,” even if it didn’t make any sense). He also suggested that I should have known about Adobe’s upgrade policy when I bought MX 2004 Studio — which would have been a trick, because I bought it from Macromedia. I didn’t need most of the suite, but bought it because it included both Dreamweaver and Freehand — only to discover that Freehand had been ruined (in response to a lawsuit by Adobe, natch). Instead, I’m still using Freehand 8 in the Mac Classic environment. So Dreamweaver is the only app in the suite I have been using, but I can’t upgrade it for $199. My choices are to buy it new for $399 or upgrade to the CS4 Design suite for $599. (I currently have the CS2 Design suite.) I don’t need to upgrade Photoshop, Acrobat, or InDesign (the apps I use in that suite). All I need to upgrade is Dreamweaver. I don’t understand why I can’t. Shouldn’t “downgrading” from a suite to an application be possible? And even less expensive than “upgrading” the entire suite? And I can’t even get Customer Service to give me the name and title of someone in Adobe customer relations to whom I can complain in an actual letter. (The people in India with whom I have spoken either have hung up on me or claimed that there is no such position, department, or function at Adobe and no address to which complaints about policy can be sent. Right. I’ve found this site, read all the posts here, and written this note all while on hold for a supervisor while Adobe Customer Service waits for me to give up and hang up. )

By: stib

stib — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:10:38 +0000

I think the lack of market for Linux is purely a chicken and egg issue. I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat if I could run my Adobe apps on it. The reasons for preferring Linux are for another forum, but the main reason for not using it is the lack of “real” software for it, with potatoshop being the most oft cited example.
The elephant in the room is Open Source. For example, I got sick of waiting half an hour for the acrobat reader to load every time I wanted to look at a pdf, so I went looking for a replacement. The Sumatra PDF reader is coded by one person, and is a 1.2 megabyte application that does the same job, but better. What have the people in the acrobat reader department been doing all these years?
My point is that if open-source apps like these start doing adobe type things better then people are not going to be nearly as receptive to crap like the overseas pricing scam for long. And they’ll discover that Adobe isn’t the only game in town.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:45:55 +0000

John, I owe you an apology: for badgering you about Adobe’s international pricing policy and their clear unwillingness to address the issue.
Now that I’ve done a little research into the subject, I see that it’s absolutely standard practise to charge more for software (and some hardware) over in Europe at least. I found an article going back to 1992 using the phrase ‘price gouging’ – an ugly-sounding term which, since it has a specific legal meaning in some States, is something I won’t accuse Adobe of.
Since the current type of pricing policy is standard practise, Adobe would be crazy not to follow suit. Some companies are absolutely fair and charge the equivalent price (before taxes and allowing for currency fluctuations) in all markets. Others charge a premium of 10% to 20% for, ahem, ‘localisation’, something most European users would be comfortable with. Not happy, but OK with it. But Adobe’s policy with CS3 and it appears CS4 is not fair, reasonable or ‘OK’. The differences make no sense until you realise that Adobe think that the European market will bear the price they’re charging.
The big corporate market probably will. But most small to medium businesses aren’t that wealthy and not that stupid: if it’s cheaper to buy at the US price, that’s what they’ll do… I wonder how many US-purchased licenses are actually operating in Europe? (NB most continental Europeans involved in the Media speak excellent English: a native-language version may be perceived as an expensive luxury). And let’s not get into the whole P2P thing.
The simple fact that a lot of software used in Europe is actually the US version tilts all sorts of statistics – including the sort of statistics companies use to justify their international pricing policies. This pushes us into a vicious spiral, one which I think has already started. It’s up to Adobe to sort it out. By all means charge us Europeans a little more for all the reasons that software companies confronted with this practise fall back on (none of which stand up to close scrutiny). Most of us will give you the benefit of the doubt. There’ll always be some who buy US versions simply because they’re a bit cheaper. Adobe need to get their pricing structure organised to the point where, for most of us over here, it makes more sense to ‘buy local’.
If pricing was fairer, it would also take away one of the ‘justifications’ used by the P2P brigade. That would lead to less people going down that route. That would mean them actually paying money for their software.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:58:26 +0000

John you should probably read this: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/29/adobe-cs4-pricing-plain-wrong Please get the powers-that-be to pay attention to this, it's doing nothing good to Adobe's reputation.

By: AJ

AJ — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:21:09 +0000

[You're mistaken, actually. We put a lot of work into making Photoshop CS3 launch faster and made great progress. I've just seen the final results for CS4, and overall running a suite of actions is faster than it was in CS3 on the same hardware. When you factor in the new GPU and 64-bit features in CS4, other wins become apparent. --J.]
I’m glad to hear it. But my recent experience with Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, and Reader leaves room for a lot of improvement in this area. Switching between modules in Lightroom (1.4) is painfully slow, and I can’t even browse my library of images quickly because Lightroom insists on continuously re-generating the thumbnails. I’ve read that LR 2.0 is even worse in this regard although I haven’t experienced that first hand.
From what you’ve said in your reply it sounds like Adobe is putting more focus on responsiveness over feature capability. That’s a good thing. But I suspect that in order for most users to once again feel like Adobe’s products are fast and responsive the balance needs to shift even further.
What is the standard for acceptable speed? If a function is “acceptable” on the latest and greatest hardware, it’s not going to be acceptable on mid-range equipment, or even on three year old top of the line stuff. Most of us can’t afford to upgrade our computers annually.

By: AJ

AJ — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:48:16 +0000

From a user's perspective, what I see is this: Computers have become faster, and your applications have become slower. [You're mistaken, actually. We put a lot of work into making Photoshop CS3 launch faster and made great progress. I've just seen the final results for CS4, and overall running a suite of actions is faster than it was in CS3 on the same hardware. When you factor in the new GPU and 64-bit features in CS4, other wins become apparent. --J.] That's the wrong way round. It doesn't matter what the reasons. What does matter is the user experience, and key to that is responsiveness to the user. Sitting and staring at the monitor while the application loads (and loads and loads) or updates or does who-knows-what when I want to get to work is annoying. Trying to use a tool and having to deal with lag or repeated appearances of the "wait" icon interrupting the task is unbelievably frustrating. The user comes first. If a new application, or feature within an application, cannot be made responsive, fix it, simplify it, or drop it. [We do that all the time. Earlier this year we gave a sneak peek of some very cool selection-refining technology we've been developing. When push came to shove, however, it became clear that we weren't going to be able to make it as fast as it needed to be to ship. It'll still be a great feature eventually, but we're not going to ship it in a state that makes interaction unpleasant. --J.]

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:29:01 +0000

“You know, Adobe is a big corporation. Maybe John and others aren’t ALLOWED to discuss the pricing situation.”
Yes, I know. I’m calming down about this issue now.
I don’t mind what Adobe are asking for their products. I just object to paying significantly more for the exact same thing than other people do.
And I know that John has tried to get a response to that objection. Adobe’s failure to offer any kind of explanation suggests to me and many, many others that they don’t have one, at least one that’s palatable to their user base outside the USA.
On the plus side, it means I can book a weekend in New York, see a show, buy Design Premium CS4, fly back and be no worse off than buying it online in the UK.
Which is obviously crazy, but there you go.

By: SteveJ

SteveJ — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:52:21 +0000

You know, Adobe is a big corporation. Maybe John and others aren't ALLOWED to discuss the pricing situation. [It's not a matter of being allowed so much as of me not being the right person to do the discussion. I have no involvement in the development of Adobe's pricing, so I'd rather you hear info from the horse's mouth, so to speak. --J.]

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:48:07 +0000

John
I am disappointed, but not surprised, that no-one from Adobe has answered questions about pricing disparities between different regions.
But I can’t describe how angry I am that Adobe are doing the same thing with CS4: it’s between 50% and 60% more expensive in the UK, and considerably more in the ‘Euro-zone’.
Are Adobe banking on the fact that many users this side of the pond will have no choice but to stump up? Well, maybe we will. But we will also know that we’re being ripped off, and that’s not good for Adobe or for us.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:44:53 +0000

I have a huge problem with Adobe’s upgrade policy. When CS3 came out I had just purchased Premiere Pro and Encore and was told I had to pay the same price for an upgrade as someone who had never Paid Adobe for Encore previously. (I should have recieved more of a discount!)
Now I purchased Photoshop CS3 less than two month ago and Adobe wants me to pay another $199 in order to get CS4?
I think if they keep this up customers will be looking for non-Adobe solutions!
[Why is this related to Adobe in particular? If you bought a Canon 5D last week, would you expect to get a discount on the 5D Mark II in November? What if you bought a new computer or car right before a faster, cheaper version was announced? --J.]
Grrrrr!!!!!!! Snarl!!!!!!!

By: Ian Davies

Ian Davies — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:54:07 +0000

Price of ‘English’ CS4 Design Premium from US store – ($1,799)
Price of ‘Spanish’ CS4 Design Premium from US store – ($1,799)
Price of ‘English’ CS4 Design Premium from UK store – ($2,318)
Price of ‘Spanish’ CS4 Design Premium from UK store – ($3,239)
All prices are those listed on the Adobe store, exclusive of any sales tax or delivery and converted using exchange rate at time of writing 1 British Pound = 1.856 US Dollars.
Spanish CS4 is $360 MORE in the UK than CS3.3 was just last week.
Conclusions:
Adobe thinks its customers are stupid.
Adobe deserves to have its marketshare stolen from underneath it by a more reasonably-priced competitor that releases bug-fixes without calling them paid upgrades.
As a direct result of this, I will actively seek out smaller, more focussed, more reasonably priced alternatives to all of Adobe’s applications that I use.
Pushing out over-priced, conveyor-belt ‘major’ versions every 18 months, regardless of whether there’s sufficient new functionality to make it worthwhile is like a geriatric dog that just drops a turd wherever it’s standing.
Better hope you don’t get put down…
Fuck you very much.

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:32:04 +0000

Let’s focus on the principle issues listed in the top 10 gripes at DearAdobe.com.
BLOAT & SPEED:
John said:
[ Will customers actually pay for just polish & bug-fixing? It will be very interesting to see what price Apple asks for Snow Leopard. My suspicion is that to command revenue, you need to deliver both sizzle and steak, changes both big and small. --J.]
Considering that at least three of the current top 10 gripes are about cutting the bloat and making Adobe products faster, I think there are a number of people who truly are serious about this. Adobe Reader 8 for Mac clocks in at 112MB, whereas Apple’s Preview 4 is 18MB in size. Unless an Adobe product is absolutely required, I prefer to use more light weight applications (Preview, Acorn) for my work. So I would say, yes, there actually are some people who would prefer a performance increase instead of a bunch of new features (which they may or may not use).
INSTALLER/UPDATER
The installation and updating process is a devil I’ve had to wrestle many times, especially with CS3. Did you have the PS CS3 Beta? Guess what, the final version won’t install without having to do some serious clean up of your system. The installer works sometimes, and other times it just locks up. The updater also works… occasionally. I’ve seen several cases where it refuses to even launch. Other times it won’t even find the new software. And if you are hoping that the updater will make it all the way through successfully, one might want to take up religion first. Installing Adobe Reader 7 was beautiful and simple. Just drag and drop. Reader 8 and 9 got ridiculous with their install process. When people are griping about just trying to install the program, that can’t be a good sign.
PRICING
I’ve heard similar complaints from my British co-workers that Adobe products get REAL expensive outside of the U.S. Hopefully someone is reevaluating this and making the non-U.S. pricing more reasonable.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:14:12 +0000

“Of course the top engineering item, ‘Stop creating new features and make your software fast, stable and straightforward,’ really means ‘stop creating new features except for the ones that really help me.’”
*facepalm* That sounds like an engineering team that just doesn’t get it. They’re hearing, but they’re not listening.
The last version of Illustrator I bought was Illustrator 10. If you came to me and offered an Illustrator 10.5 upgrade, and it worked exactly the same as 10.0 but faster and without the bugs, I would have bought it.
No more crashing, no more spinning beachball for 5 minutes (even though I’m editing a small document with 2 gigs of RAM), no more “auto-updates” from the web which destroy my Illustrator.app, an installer that actually works (without forcing me to call tech support and muck around in my System folder first), and so on. Zero new features. That would have been the world’s easiest sale, because I know I like Illustrator 10 (and I’ve invested the time to learn it). I just didn’t like that it was so buggy.
Instead we got “Illustrator CS”. Funny name (version numbers aren’t good enough any more?), new fluff features (pseudo-3d?), and no claims that any bugs were fixed. (On Amazon, it has 2.5 stars, and the second review is titled “too darn buggy”.) I can’t justify spending any money on that. Today, the Illustrator webpage says “CS3 users are finding a number of new features exciting”. I guess bugfixes don’t make good ad copy.
I’ve got Illustrator 10 open right now, for a new webpage design I’m working on.
Open-source applications, as awful as they often are, have release notes that are full of “fixed bug #12345″. I’ve never seen mention of bug fixes in Adobe software releases. It’s like you refuse to admit that your own software has bugs, much less that us users care about them getting fixed. And that is often even more frustrating than the bugs themselves.