I know Adobe since it was 11 people, and they really haven’t changed all that much. They’re surprisingly run by engineers and not suits.
That having been said, engineers are junkies. There are more than a dozen teams in Adobe, all responsible — to us AND the board — for their own apps and making their apps (increasingly) talk to each other in a sensible way.
I personally pay the rent — cause that’s how we look at it — rent to use Adobe products. I have to pay it 12 months or 18 months at a time, but we rent their skill in developing software that’s literally changed the way people communicate. Adobe engineers have provided tools that let us talk to each other and display our individual creativity (or, in my case lack thereof) in ways impossible before now.
Add to that the fact that one half — one half, man — of the people that bought CS are still using it globally. Want the numbers? They’re out there. Adobe grows on new users — or people that do not upgrade every version. Because you do — or somebody in your company pays for our seat and the software near it — doesn’t mean that everybody does, or that adobe is some kind of evil entity out there to destroy us. That’s silly and meaningless. If it bothers you — don’t upgrade.
So people do not — repeat do not — have to upgrade anymore than they have to trade in a new car every two or three years. In some cases client demands require it — like in the case of a printer or prepress house that has to process files coming in from new versions of old and proven apps — but artists used to use friggin paint, remember?
I sense a whine, but who am I to judge? I’m a user who rents a car that lets me make a living without ink on my hands or poured into the river near my house. And their software rocks.
Gary in tampa
On 11/27/07 12:45 PM, in article
, "toby"
wrote:
On Nov 27, 12:35 am, "Scubabix" wrote:
I’m sure you said the same thing about CS2. They have you where they want you: on the upgrade treadmill. When the next bright shiny is marketed… you’ll drop CS3 like last night’s fishbones.
And you’re driving a 1906 Ford and use an IBM 8088-clone because you don’t upgrade? Everyone that uses technology is on the "upgrade treadmill’ whether we like it or not. Some take the steps a little slower than others, but we all still take the steps. Of course, you could always create the software that is so good it will never be upgraded.
It’s never too late to wake up to the real reason upgrades are thrust upon us. (Quarterly *cough* reports *cough* of public *cough* companies.)
Rob