It's official - Adobe's finally going all Cloud

[Joe]

Just quark? So they have no plans on doing image edits or artwork in Illy/PS?

They have CS6 now so those apps are still going to run for awhile. Their biggest issue is they use some specialized Indy plug-ins for Classifieds and ad management and it runs them $13,000 to upgrade when InDesign gets updated by Adobe. And with Adobes plans for more frequent updates that can get pricey really quick. Of course I can see Quark moving to a cloud based subscription too as most software will. So that puts them right back in a similar boat...just one with a bigger hole in the bottom of it. :laugh:

[born2print]

The bottom line is that printers are not the big part of the software market, Adobe does not sweat our half-bakes threats, we will get away with what we can until we cant, then right back into their warm embrace.

[Joe]

True. Every printer in the world could switch to Publisher and it wouldn't make a ripple in the Adobe ocean. :laugh:

[gnubler]

I can see Quark moving to a cloud

So the atmosphere is about to get even stinkier & dirtier.

[Slappy]

Was Googlin' to see if Quark 9 had a decent seps preview (of course, it doesn't) and this is was the auto-complete it came up with:

 

[born2print]

perfect 

[Slappy]

Not sure who made it but - yah.

[gnubler]

Was Googlin' to see if Quark 9 had a decent seps preview (of course, it doesn't) and this is was the auto-complete it came up with:

 

lol

I had to google sepsis as I'm not a medical professional...

a severe blood infection that can lead to organ failure and death.

Sounds like how I feel after a few hours with quark, only change organ to brain. 

[David]

your brain is an organ...

in most cases

[Skryber]

Was Googlin' to see if Quark 9 had a decent seps preview (of course, it doesn't) and this is was the auto-complete it came up with:

 

lol

I had to google sepsis as I'm not a medical professional...

a severe blood infection that can lead to organ failure and death.

Sounds like how I feel after a few hours with quark, only change organ to brain. 

Funny, I'm also a medical reTARD. I was the only one in the family who didn't know what septic meant went Jer's dad was in the hospital when we had a meeting with the doctor. So I asked and the one sister explained it to me but talked to me like I was a fucking 3 year old. If it wasn't for the fact her father was on his death bed, she would've been choked.

[hotmetal]

I had the following exchange with the Digital Media Communications Director at Adobe. I don't think the uber geeks at Adobe are expecting to be wasting their resources supporting ink on paper for much longer, they're as convinced that everything is soon to be digital as the marketing nitwits who bought Quark from Tim Gill were convinced that Macs were on their way to the junkyard, and that they should throw their resources behind supporting the PC version. As far as Adobe waving this wonderous "TypeKit" service in our faces, who the fuck cares about having thousands of fonts "on the web" when at any given time you might lose access to them?

This is Quark's big chance for a comeback, and I'd love to see them pull that rabbit out of their offshore hats, but instead I'm betting that sooner, rather than later, some unknown smart kids from far out in left field will figure out how to steal Adobe's lunch and get enough funding from some venture capitalist to pull it off.

*******************************


On May 8, 2013, at 11:23 AM, Russell Brady wrote:

Hi Hotmetal

Thanks for your very thoughtful and civil email.  Believe me....not all have been!  We understand this transition will be difficult for some people -- and it's not something we did lightly.

As a craftsman who embraced change before - the move from analog to digital is, I would respectfully argue, something far more scary than what we are doing.  I just ask you to have an open mind.  We do not want to lose customers like you.  Indeed, Adobe was founded to bring your industry into the digital world.  And one of the great things about Adobe is we're still engaged actively in the type world (last week we released our font rasterizer to the open source community, to help iOS and Android devices display type better).

We firmly believe that the old model was broken: customers want the latest software as soon as our engineers come up with their latest magic.....and not have these big 18-24 month releases.  Now we can deliver innovation to products like InDesign immediately to customers without waiting on the next CS "launch train".  And it's not just the apps you get for $50 per month (less if you are a current customer) it's new services.  Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a bit of an old font nerd......and it is astonishing to me that through our TypeKit service, that is part of Creative Cloud, you have access to thousands of fonts for legal use on the web and in print: indeed if you bought all these fonts from Adobe and participating foundries....they would cost over $25,000.  But they are accessible and usable as part of your $50 per month.


Thanks again for reaching out.  A full customer FAQ is available here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html

Best

Russell Brady
Communications Director, Digital Media
Adobe
Tel: 408-536-6048




On 5/8/13 7:52 AM, Hotmetal wrote:

Dear Mr. Brady:

I am 61 years old and was a senior typesetter at Pastore DiPamphilis Rampone in NYC in 1987 when they upgraded their Autologic film output devices to Postscript and we began working with Macintosh hardware and software.

I am also a historian and have been taking constant notes about how this industry works, from the first day I sat down at a Varityper typesetting system in 1976.

After we typesetters all got laid-off and replaced by desktop publishers in 1991, the abrupt end of an honorable 400-year-old trade, I swam upstream and became one of the more knowledgeable digital prepress technicians in town, retiring from that when I hit 60. Now I've gone back to doing a little typesetting from time to time, on projects that interest me, mostly books. I'm very, very good at this.

I will not, however, be following Adobe into the cloud. Your new model is totally absurd and unacceptable to a long-time, extremely knowledgeable and loyal Adobe user such as myself. It is unfortunate that Adobe sees no profit in retaining legacy customers in their marketing plans. I will simply find other software to continue my work.

I suspect that, in the decades to come, when I get around to writing the final chapter of my book of my experiences in this industry, the eventual outcome from Adobe's decision to move to this new business model will follow closely the result of the poor decisions made by Quark, with a similar outcome. As I said, I am a historian, and I have a strong track record of being correct in my predictions.

But, so-long and best of luck. It was good working with you for the last 26 years.

Sincerely,
Hotmetal
Minneapolis, MN

[gnubler]

People pay for fonts?  :laugh:

[Joe]

Hi Hotmetal

Thanks for your very thoughtful and civil email.  Believe me....not all have been!  We understand this transition will be difficult for some people -- and it's not something we did lightly.

As a craftsman who embraced change before - the move from analog to digital is, I would respectfully argue, something far more scary than what we are doing.  I just ask you to have an open mind.  We do not want to lose customers like you.  Indeed, Adobe was founded to bring your industry into the digital world.  And one of the great things about Adobe is we're still engaged actively in the type world (last week we released our font rasterizer to the open source community, to help iOS and Android devices display type better).

We firmly believe that the old model was broken: customers want the latest software as soon as our engineers come up with their latest magic.....and not have these big 18-24 month releases.  Now we can deliver innovation to products like InDesign immediately to customers without waiting on the next CS "launch train".  And it's not just the apps you get for $50 per month (less if you are a current customer) it's new services.  Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a bit of an old font nerd......and it is astonishing to me that through our TypeKit service, that is part of Creative Cloud, you have access to thousands of fonts for legal use on the web and in print: indeed if you bought all these fonts from Adobe and participating foundries....they would cost over $25,000.  But they are accessible and usable as part of your $50 per month.

That is complete and total bullshit. The only one keeping Adobe from "delivering innovation to products like InDesign immediately to customers without waiting on the next CS "launch train"" was Adobe. They are the ones that chose to withhold new features and even bug fixes until the next paid release. They very easily could have released new features through Adobe Update.

Another tidbit I found out is that while the regular price is $49.99 they are gouging their biggest customers that buy a lot of copies $69.99 per copy per month. Take my company for example, we have 14 copies of CS6. To move to the Cloud we can do that for $49.99 per month but we have to subscribe to 14 separate accounts and pay monthly via credit card with 14 separate charges of $49.99 on the credit card. You can't just pay one charge of $699.86. If you just want to have one account of multiple users you have to get the $69.99 per copy per month plan which allows to only have one account and make one payment a month. Any other benefits? Yeah, you get a whopping 100 gb of cloud space instead of whatever the usual is which I think is about 5 gb for individual accounts.

[Mikie]

I am not digging their new direction. We got burned a little when CS6 came out, because one of our bigger customers immediately got updated(assume they were on the cloud at the time) so therefore we couldn't wait even a little time to upgrade. We usually wait and let others debug the new versions, and go as long as we can until updating. CS4 was such a waste we never moved on from having one copy of CS4 to down save files. The same with CS5. CS5.5 became such a hassle to down save all the way to CS3 that we then updated. I know this sort of behavior hurts Adobe so therefore can see their move to this service...but it sucks balls.

They are sorely mistaken thinking we all want the latest version, as my example shows...and they know it, which is why they moved to this strategy. As a print house, I have no way to NOT keep updated and pay their monthly fees now. We have 25 seats overall. That's $1250 per month, with the first year being cheaper. Almost ALL of the files I receive could have easily been mutilated by the designer with CS3, if not CS2...

Can't wait to explain this to bossman 

[Mikie]

i didnt know about he multi seat license Joe, thanks for the info. WTF am i supposed to do with 100GB of their server space? My webspace is fine(in house).

Don't even get me started on this font bs. As a printer, fonts can be supplied to me per the license agreement, to print my customers job. It is me breaking this agreement if I were to keep the font and use it for our own use, or for another customer....which of course we never do 

Did someone from Apple marketing leave and go to Adobe? Once a company starts talking "magical" I lose all hope.