Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 announced as paid update

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Brian Brown

The Adobe suite gives me a bevy of post production tools from a single vendor that is unmatched in the industry. To go from NLE, to compositing, to DVD authoring without a single intermediate render is extremely powerful for the "time is money" argument. For that reason, I'm a very loyal, and very happy Adobe user.

Huge point!
Adobe provides an entire ecosystem

[Brian Parker]

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

As far as the pricing, of course we are all sensitive to how that will play out. I believe that the Adobe folks know customers won't stand for significant increases in price. It's not like nobody is going to notice, eh? Speculation on my part: the per-year cost will remain about the same. What did an 18-month upgrade from CS4 MC to CS5 MC cost? About $1200-1300. What is a 12 month 5.5 upgrade from 5 going to cost? It's $549. Even if the major release next year is a hundred or two more (hopefully not, but...well, we don't know, do we?), the annualized cost would still be LESS than it has been.

So given the currently available info and doing the math, there is no cause to raise the BS flag at this time.

It cost me 159,000 yen to upgrade from CS4 to CS5. Adobe wants 100,000 yen for an upgrade to a .5 release. For me, everything hinges on the upgrade price going to CS6. If they charge higher for it, then I will either upgrade less frequently, or seriously reconsider my dependence on Adobe software. Especially now that FCP is being priced so aggressively.

I have been an enthusiastic upgrader because I wanted to keep up to date with changes in the software (I have upgraded each time since CS3 on the mac) and liked seeing the workflow get easier and easier, but have never really been able to financially justify the outlay each time I upgrade. It is looking to me that what was an already expensive upgrade it going to get slightly more expensive, and that could price people like me out of the game.

On a positive note though, I am still using CS3 and Audition 2 at work and they still cover almost all of my needs.

[Pete Bauer]

Ignoring the wild cards of tarrifs and taxes, the 159,000 yen per 18 months would be annualized to 106,000 yen/year. So the two pricing models would break even if CS6 turns out to be priced at 112,000 yen, and anything less would be a lower annualized cost for regular upgraders.

Of course, if one doesn't need the features in a particular upgrade, skip it and wait until a subsequent upgrade, which depending on upgrade pricing may or may not save you money in the long run.

[Ryan Czaplinski]

There's a few great things I like about the update reports for 5.5, but the notion that their monthly subscription is highly affordable I can't believe that. After 2 months you pretty much pay for the Production Premium upgrade cost alone!

In February we got the full Master Collection CS5 upgrade and that was not cheap, but the changes from CS4 to CS5 were VERY significant. The costs they're asking for minor upgrades (while a couple of them I would definitely get use from), the cost seems pretty darn high for those when you compare the costs to the suite upgrade costs from 4 to 5's specs.

If I upgrade to Production Premium 5.5 it will be full license and not subscription. That's an atrocious cost month-to-month.

[Russell Heaton]

I'm more cynical than most because I am affected in two ways by the Adobe upgrade cycle. Firstly, like everyone else, I am required to cough up for an upgrade that is sweetened by a few "deal breaker" changes but in the main the other changes are rubbish.

Secondly, unlike our friends in the US, we here in Australia (and most countries outside the US) pay a premium price for the identical product - for no reason other than we do not live in the US. Can those of you in the US imagine paying an extra 50% - 70% more for this software every time there is an upgrade, which is then downloaded from exactly the same server? What would this do to your cashflow and bottom line?

Adobe have quoted nonsensical arguments about supporting the distribution chain, cost of support and so on, but that just doesn't cut it with anyone. Support is done from India for everybody. A download is a download. There is absolutely no justification for such price gouging.

Over the past few years I have selectively killed off Adobe programs and switched to alternatives. The offensive is well advanced now and only Photoshop remains. It wasn't the actual software that did my head in, it was Adobe's price gouging policies for its (apparently not important) international customers.

Cheers

Russ

[Andrew Smith]

Actually, nobody is forcing you to upgrade to CS5.5. Your existing software will continue to work as advertised. At the end of the day you still get your work done.

Don't get me wrong, I know (ouch!) the pricing difference for Australia and I suspect that the "import duties" is quite small with the rest of the argument for the difference being made up by a retail profit margin for the Adobe reseller channel here in Australia. By all means purchase direct from the USA if you can — you'd be crazy not to.

Andrew

[Russell Heaton]

Hello Andrew,

There are no import duties payable on software and a 10% goods and services tax applies if the product is valued at more than $1000.00 AUD. But that is for the boxed product. If one is downloading, there is no tax to pay at the Australian end. The only problem is that Adobe have set up systems to detect and prevent non-US users from purchasing downloads from their US online store.

In essence they try, in this age of the Global Economy, to force you to buy the product from the shop in your home country (at their grossly inflated price). The only way around this is to buy through a friend or colleague in the US or set up a US account with Adobe, using a bogus address and telephone number. Even then you must pay by credit card because using Paypal alerts Adobe to your non-US address.

So they continue to milk their foreign customers and use us to cross-subsidise their US customers. No need to thank us!

Come to think of it, Australia and the US have a free-trade agreement and I think I will start making inquiries with our Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to see if Adobe are breaking any laws. Geez, it would be a laugh if they were contravening a Treaty and had to refund all of their Aussie customers.

Cheers

Russ

[Andrew Smith]

Believe me, I know about the extra cost and the special "Australian" serial numbers. I had to cough up $1430AUD instead of $800USD for a Design Premium upgrade because an Aussie serial number won't work for a US upgrade. For a few hundred dollars extra I could have just bought the thing outright on the US store.

"Not happy, Jan!" as we say over here.

Andrew