{"id":1994,"date":"2011-11-28T18:50:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T23:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2011-11-29T12:38:27","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T17:38:27","slug":"an-open-letter-to-adobe-from-scott-kelby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=1994","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Adobe from Scott Kelby"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am surprised and disappointed in Adobe with their announced intention to require users of Photoshop to buy version CS5 in order to upgrade to version CS6 when it becomes available. <\/em> If you don’t buy CS5 for about $150, when CS6 comes out it will cost you about $650. It is time to write to Adobe and protest. Why?
\n<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

In the past you didn’t have to buy every version in order to upgrade.\u00c2\u00a0 You could buy every other or every third version. For example, you could go from version CS2 to CS5, skipping the two versions in between and saving a lot of money in the process.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I agree with the following open letter to Adobe which was was posted Nov, 21 on Scott Kelby’s blog<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

***\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 ***<\/p>\n

Dear Adobe:<\/p>\n

As president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)<\/strong> I represent more than 70,000 Photoshop users around the world. However as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing this open letter to you today, I would say that most of our 70,000 members have no idea about the upgrade policy changes you just announced, or about how these changes will affect them.<\/p>\n

From the information I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gathered, it appears to me that this new upgrade policy for the next version of Adobe Photoshop and the Creative Suite (presumably called CS6) will leave a significant number of your customers with no affordable upgrade path to Photoshop CS6 or the Creative Suite.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my understanding that when the next version of Photoshop and the Creative Suite is released, if you do not already own Photoshop version CS5<\/strong> or CS5.5<\/strong> (or the 5 or 5.5 Creative Suite):<\/p>\n

(a)<\/strong> You will not be eligible to upgrade to Photoshop CS6 (or the CS6 Creative Suite). Instead the only way to get Photoshop CS6 at that point will be to repurchase the entire product again at its full price (presumably $699 US). If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a CS4 Creative Suite User, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to buy the entire suite all over again to move to CS6.<\/p>\n

(b)<\/strong> For Photoshop CS4, or CS3 users, their only real option is to pay to upgrade now to CS5.5 (though you are offering a 20% upgrade discount upgrade until the end of the year), and then to pay again to upgrade when Photoshop CS6 is released, or sign up for your new monthly subscription plan.<\/p>\n

While I understand that Adobe needs to make business decisions based on how it sees market conditions, I feel the timing of this new pricing structure is patently unfair to your customers (and our members). Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why: You didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell us up front. You didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell us until nearly the end of the product\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life cycle, and now you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making us buy CS5.5 for just a few months on the chance that we might want to buy CS6 at a discount when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s released. Otherwise, we have to pay the full price as if we were never Adobe customers at all.<\/p>\n

Those users who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t upgrade to CS5 or 5.5, either couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford the upgrade, or couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t justify the upgrade, or they would already be on CS5 or 5.5. But now you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re kind of holding us hostage\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201cyou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making us buy something we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need now, just so we will still have the option to get something that we may want (CS6) when it is released without buying it all over again from scratch. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re playing hardball with your customers\u00e2\u20ac\u201deither upgrade twice or you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the Adobe we know.<\/p>\n

I have always felt that Adobe was very customer centric, and that their decisions were based on what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best for their customers, but in this particular instance I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see how cutting off CS4 and CS3 users, and making them either pay two upgrades in a row, or pay the full retail price to get CS6, benefits anybody but Adobe.<\/p>\n

With that said, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my plea to Adobe:<\/strong>
\nIf you really want to be fair to your customers, at the very least don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start this policy yet. Start it with Photoshop CS7. Make CS6 your new upgrade pricing transition version, and tell everybody now, up front\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201cat the start of the product\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life cycle, that everybody will need to upgrade to CS6 at some point because the next version (CS7) won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t support older users. That way, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not spending money just to spend more money again. Adobe, you can still have what you want\u00e2\u20ac\u201d-you can still get everybody on the current version, but it gives us time to save, time to plan, and anybody still left behind at that point will have had more than fair warning.<\/p>\n

Another option I feel would be very fair to Adobe customers would be to offer a tiered upgrade which rewards your best customers (customers who upgraded to CS5 or 5.5) by giving them the best upgrade deal, but then offer CS4 users a reasonable upgrade path (they would pay more for their upgrade, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting all the features added in CS5.5 as well, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair) and then why not even offer an upgrade path to CS6 for your CS3 users? They would certainly wind up paying the most in upgrade fees, but at least it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the full $699 (or even more if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the CS3 suite). This tiered approach gives everybody an opportunity to stay on as an Adobe customer, but still gives your best customers preferential upgrade pricing.<\/p>\n

I know, Business is business\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/strong>
\nI understand that Adobe is not in business to be our friend or our buddy. Adobe is a public corporation with a responsibility to its employees, partners and shareholders to continually generate and grow profits. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy Adobe products because we think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re our friend\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe buy Adobe products because you make amazing products and tools for creative people like us. You have the right to charge $5,000 for the Creative Suite if you want, and likewise we have to make decisions based on what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right for us and our business.<\/p>\n

I also know that the clearest message you can send any company is not to buy their product and I am not suggesting in any way that we intentionally don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy Adobe products, but I am afraid for many people, including many of the Photoshop users I represent, that will be the case. Photoshop CS4 will wind up being their last version of Photoshop ever, and I for one would hate to see that happen. I think that would be a lose\/lose for everybody.<\/p>\n

Adobe, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not too late<\/strong>
\nYou can still fix this. You can stand by your customers and make CS6 the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Transition upgrade\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d-the one where going into it from the start ,everybody will know that after CS6 there will be a new upgrade policy. That way you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave anybody behind that wants to stay with you. Nobody can say you pulled a fast one on them at the last minute, or didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give them reasonable notice about the next upgrade. You never go wrong by doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

Thanks for listening, Adobe.<\/p>\n

All my best,<\/p>\n

-Scott Kelby<\/strong>
\nPresident, The National Association of Photoshop Professionals<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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