Adobe profits are falling since Creative Cloud. What do you think they will do next?

al4x said:
Is it right to say that piracy actually keeps the cost down?

Would be interesting to see revenue from private vs corporate accounts
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There are many forces pushing and pulling on each other.
Generally, consumer customers are very price sensitive, and companies that cater to them often run on incredibly thin margins. By contrast business customers are far less price sensitive, and there is much larger scope to increase product margins.

Without competing products, Adobe is free to name it's price virtually and business customers will pay whatever as they have no choice. Adobe can enjoy large margins in this scenario.
In contrast, much fewer consumers can afford or justify such expenditures like business customers can.
If there was no piracy, such consumers would be forced to use either free or cheaper alternatives. This would increase the revenue and profit of competing products. With this added revenue stream, competitors can begin to invest in R&D to more rapidly improve their products. Over time these cheaper alternatives will begin to match adobes feature set more closely as the software matures. At some point, business customers are going to have a viable alternative. When there is a viable alternative, suddenly pricing becomes a factor to the business customers. If pricing becomes a factor, this means squeezed margins for Adobe in order to maintain marketshare. Shrinking margins decimates profits as shown with Adobes CC pricing.

Fortunately for Adobe, piracy exists. These smaller companies trying to compete are unable to get their foot in the door. Why? because they cannot compete with free.
This is probably why Photoshop's strongest competitor is GIMP, which is free.

http://www.gimphoto.com/2007/08/features.html
 
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englishpremier said:
I too much prefer PCPX to Premier. Simple but powerful.

I haven't tried Capture one, but I do like Lightroom.

Photoshop I can do without.
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I haven't tried capture one yet. From what I can tell it's missing 3rd party tool support. I use things like VSCO keys which is critical for me.
So I'll keep using lightroom until it becomes a CC only app. By then hopefully capture one will be where I need it. By all accounts it has a very good raw processing engine.
 
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An Exception said:
I haven't tried capture one yet. From what I can tell it's missing 3rd party tool support. I use things like VSCO keys which is critical for me.
So I'll keep using lightroom until it becomes a CC only app. By then hopefully capture one will be where I need it. By all accounts it has a very good raw processing engine.
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I actually went to a presentation on Capture One last week at a local camera club. The guy couldn't stop saying how much better it was than lightroom and how rubbish lightroom was. Then on questioning it turned out that he still uses lightroom for the stuff Capture One can't do, and also photoshop, Nik software etc. So basically it appears the 'auto' button does a better job than Lightroom, well worth the purchase...
 
Personally I can't stand software on subscription models, I prefer to buy a tangible product. Then again I'm fairly cloud skeptic in general, dunno why and being a child of the Internet generation I should by all rights be totally embracing it. However, I just can't get behind something that I don't physically own, or something that is reliant on some other infrastructure to work.

That said, I do see the benefit of making Adobe's otherwise prohibitively expensive software accessible to more people.
 
I think that people just don't understand the 'cloud' part. I've spoken to many photographers who are not on CC because they thought it needed a permanent internet connection, they didn't realise the price was as good as it is and many other things I found quite surprising. On this basis maybe Adobe's problem is the marketing.

I bought the CS6 suite for £395 (bargain) and I got about 2 years use out of it before moving onto CC. As I do this as a hobby and do not make money out of it £26.68 a month is about the max I would be willing to spend on the complete package as I don't use all of the apps. For Lightroom and Photoshop I would say up to £14.99.
 
randal said:
Personally I can't stand software on subscription models, I prefer to buy a tangible product. Then again I'm fairly cloud skeptic in general, dunno why and being a child of the Internet generation I should by all rights be totally embracing it. However, I just can't get behind something that I don't physically own, or something that is reliant on some other infrastructure to work.

That said, I do see the benefit of making Adobe's otherwise prohibitively expensive software accessible to more people.
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Its the thought of them just being able to turn it off that irks me. Or one day saying "Yeah, £100 a month now please chaps, if you don't like it there's the door".

To anyone thinking of transferring to Capture 1 be careful what you wish for. Yes, it has a very good raw processing engine, and yes it's the industry standard for that and tethering, but its such a horribly clunky slow program. It doesn't have any of the polish of an Adobe product. I bet a lot of you would tire of it quickly.
 
Adrianr said:
one day saying "Yeah, £100 a month now please chaps, if you don't like it there's the door".
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That's a big one for me, as well as the fact they know once customers have 'accepted' subscription pricing, they can charge more annually if the payments are spread over monthly instalments.
The next biggest thing is once the transition phase has past, it removes the incentive to invest in R&D as income is guaranteed. Investing in new features simply becomes an unnecessary expense to the accountants.
 
Adrianr said:
Its the thought of them just being able to turn it off that irks me. Or one day saying "Yeah, £100 a month now please chaps, if you don't like it there's the door".

To anyone thinking of transferring to Capture 1 be careful what you wish for. Yes, it has a very good raw processing engine, and yes it's the industry standard for that and tethering, but its such a horribly clunky slow program. It doesn't have any of the polish of an Adobe product. I bet a lot of you would tire of it quickly.
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C1 and Lightroom have been pretty even in terms of actual processing tools though. I actually prefer it over LR, the curves/levels/colour editor is really flexible and having layers built in saves me from roundtripping into Photoshop all the time. I can't say much about the cataloguing features of C1 since I've always worked in session mode with it.
 
An Exception said:
That's a big one for me, as well as the fact they know once customers have 'accepted' subscription pricing, they can charge more annually if the payments are spread over monthly instalments.
The next biggest thing is once the transition phase has past, it removes the incentive to invest in R&D as income is guaranteed. Investing in new features simply becomes an unnecessary expense to the accountants.
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Maintaining a competitive product is only linked to the licensing model on cost. If the product lacks features the buying public will move on. If the Adobe photographer bundle becomes too expensive for me or gets left behind, I have no problem moving to whatever the new better product is. Currently you can still get a standalone LR install to view/print your catalogue after you stop a subscription, you just cannot edit. As long as they stick to that I'm happy enough.
 
Yep reason I don't like it is similar in that subscription only leaves you open to sudden loss of product of price goes beyond your means

I still have cs6 and won't upgrade unless a new revolution comes up.
I'd rather commit to a 5 year fixed subscription (Mobile phone contract style) than a year one as I'd know id have an affordable, updating product for 5 yrs
To not really know whether I will have access to subscription product in 6 months (due to a X% price rise) just doesn't sit well with me

Also..
I wouldn't use the CC
1 I don't know what it really is
2 I hate subscription cloud (I only use Dropbox as it is permanent and free)
3 before Fibre I just got used to unusable Internet so have a home server
4 of price suddenly became unpalatable I'd need a new cloud solution
 
Rojin said:
Maintaining a competitive product is only linked to the licensing model on cost. If the product lacks features the buying public will move on. If the Adobe photographer bundle becomes too expensive for me or gets left behind, I have no problem moving to whatever the new better product is. Currently you can still get a standalone LR install to view/print your catalogue after you stop a subscription, you just cannot edit. As long as they stick to that I'm happy enough.
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That only happens with competition. It will be a long while before adobe actually has to start looking over it's shoulder, instead they can just potter along.
 
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al4x said:
Yep reason I don't like it is similar in that subscription only leaves you open to sudden loss of product of price goes beyond your means

I still have cs6 and won't upgrade unless a new revolution comes up.
I'd rather commit to a 5 year fixed subscription (Mobile phone contract style) than a year one as I'd know id have an affordable, updating product for 5 yrs
To not really know whether I will have access to subscription product in 6 months (due to a X% price rise) just doesn't sit well with me

Also..
I wouldn't use the CC
1 I don't know what it really is
2 I hate subscription cloud (I only use Dropbox as it is permanent and free)
3 before Fibre I just got used to unusable Internet so have a home server
4 of price suddenly became unpalatable I'd need a new cloud solution
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For the LR/PS package it all works offline once installed. You just have to connect to CC one a month for it to verify your account is active. It can run in your system tray to check for updates anyway.

An Exception said:
That only happens with competition. It will be a long while before adobe actually has to start looking over it's shoulder, instead they can just potter along.
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I don't disagree, it's a niche market though and it's up to the competition to push them. Also to be fair they are pretty decent products. I used a few alternatives when I started using Fuji as LR was seen as being rubbish. Technically I can get better results using alternatives, but ultimately I would only do so for important large prints. The workflow and usability of LR I still find much better. That could (is) because I don't like spending lots of time PP though! :D
 
Adobe can stick the subscription model where the sun doesn't shine as far as I'm concerned as it just doesn't work for the casual user. As soon as I buy a camera that isn't supported in LR I'll simply move to a different software package or convert the RAW's to DNG.
 
Indeed. However your currently enjoying honeymoon pricing. Clearly the subscription model itself doesn't work for a large number of folks (especially the non-pro's), else Adobes profits wouldn't have fallen off a cliff.
 
An Exception said:
Indeed. However your currently enjoying honeymoon pricing. Clearly the subscription model itself doesn't work for a large number of folks (especially the non-pro's), else Adobes profits wouldn't have fallen off a cliff.
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Maybe, I'm nearly two years in with this honeymoon period then and taking full advantage :D As a non-pro amateur user. I've still spent less than CS5 and LR cost me in the 1 year I actually did any paid work.
 
I don't like the subscription model, Lightroom is much more expensive for a year under CC than it is as a one off purchase and the cost continues to increase as time goes on, the other software I don't use. If LR goes sub only I'll end up pirating it.

When companies try to control users in this manner I lose any respect for them. You could spend hundreds on CC software then go through a bad financial period and lose access to all your software, and if you're a pro there goes your business.
 
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They're not controlling anyone, just like any company they offer a product. No-one is forced to buy it. Your comment on pirating says it all tbh.

If a pro doesn't budget software expense that is critical to their business then that is their fault, nobody else's.

The subscription model has been around for years, if it doesn't meet your needs then that's fine. At least Adobe aren't basing the monthly fee you on your annual turnover like a lot of project management SaaS providers do!
 
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