Adobe to charge users to update their software

Moogle Pepper

From Cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57433091-83/adobe-users-must-pay-for-security-upgrades/

From the look of it, it looks like if customers who want to "update" their CS suites they will have to upgrade to CS 6.

thoughts?

Art Scott

that really sucks ... ... ...

Dan7312

Just to be the the devil's advocate:argue here... I've developed software in the past and tried making money from it; it's really hard. Developers and testers paychecks have to come from somewhere.:D

I think the vulnerability that's mentioned here is that a specially crafted tiff file can make some Adobe products crash. That means that if someone spent enough time at it they could figure out a way to use the crash to install malware. From what I've seen this is only a possibility I don't think it has been observed in the field. An if someone went to all that effort you would have to load TIFF's from an unknown source to be affected.

All software has possible vulnerabilities in it, just one we know about.

FWIW I think Adobe is moving to a subscription base for it's software going forward. This is the way, in effect, software was sold BPC (before PC's). It's also the way most companies have for a long time purchased software from Microsoft. It's also the way most developers of Microsoft applications purchase their tools from Microsoft.

Once Adobe get's their user population on a subscriptions (assuming that that ever happens) it makes it much easier for them to apply resources to fixes because there will be in effect just one version of their software out there. But then we will find out that the "current" version won't run on 5 year old machines but that is just another can of worms:cry

So subscriptions are a two-edged sword. On edge keeps extracting money from us, but the other is that the Adobe has just a single version of their products to apply development resources to so they can enhance and fix them.

For all their foibles I've gotten a lot of good milage from Adobe tools over the years, I'd like to see them stick around. For me the Adobe subscription works out niecely, maybe not so much for you. Maybe I should be more suspicious of Adobe, but I think if they can move everyone to a subscrption basis we'll end up with better products more quickly.

Just my thoughts... please save the flames for barbeques this weekend

Art Scott wrote: »

that really sucks ... ... ...

Richard

Dan,
I've also spent time as a software developer and understand their need to make money. But I'm less sympathetic in this case, for reasons I explained in this post.

Dan7312

Yup, I hear ya'. Remember I'm just the Devils' Advocate here.

I know Microsoft is still doing security updates on XP, but a huge proportion of their customer base is paying by subscription. Now you can't get XP by subscription any more, but many of Microsofts subscription based customers still have some XP systems they can't take out of service and even though their subscription doesn't cover XP, they expect the security updates.

My guess is that if Microsoft had zero subscription based customers you wouldn't see XP updates... in fact Microsoft probably wouldn't even be in business any more:D So I think the only reason Microsoft does XP updates is because many of the big customers demand it.

But I see that the TIFF problem is because Adobe messed up and so they should pay for fixing it. But these kinds of problems have always been and always will be in software. Adobe is saying "We won't pay for it directly, we'll give you a discount on your first year subscription... and then of course after that you will have to pay whatever we want to keep using it."

I don't know if that will work or not for Adobe. But I think Adobe realizes what Microsoft rediscovered a long time ago; you can't really "sell" software, you need some way to insure a constant income stream from it, that's the only way you can afford to fix up the problems that are just inevitable.

I keep trying out other tools just to support the meger graphics and now video stuff that I do, ther is a lot out there that is a lot less expensive, but in the end I come back to Adobe because it just ends being up a better solution for me.I just get more done in less time with it.

YMMV

Richard wrote: »

Dan,
I've also spent time as a software developer and understand their need to make money. But I'm less sympathetic in this case, for reasons I explained in this post.

basflt

although English is not my native language , i think you are missing the point here

upgrade is not the same as update

you allways needed to pay for upgrades ( CS3 to CS4 , CS4 to CS5 , CS5 to CS6 )
updates has always been free AFAIK

or did i missed something ?

quote from the article :

According to Adobe's site, it will cost at least $199 U.S. to upgrade to Photoshop CS6, $249 to upgrade to Illustrator CS6, and $99 to upgrade to Flash Professional CS6.

Dan7312

Updates are free, but the article says that there will not be an update for the TIFF problem for CS5.5 and earlier. So to get the update you will have to pay to upgrade to CS6.

basflt wrote: »

although English is not my native language , i think you are missing the point here

upgrade is not the same as update

you allways needed to pay for upgrades ( CS3 to CS4 , CS4 to CS5 , CS5 to CS6 )
updates has always been free AFAIK

or did i missed something ?

quote from the article :

basflt

still nothing new

Richard

Dan7312 wrote: »

Updates are free, but the article says that there will not be an update for the TIFF problem for CS5.5 and earlier. So to get the update you will have to pay to upgrade to CS6.

I'm glad to report that Adobe has changed it's mind and will issue a fix for the security problem. It was creating quite a shitstorm, so they backed down quickly.