Rumours that Avid is to follow Adobe's lead to cloud-based computing

[nst7]

I agree that subscription is not ideal. But there is a lot of wrong info being circulated.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by nst7

I agree that subscription is not ideal. But there is a lot of wrong info being circulated.

How so? The way it was presented was that Adobe has gone subscription only for all Creative Suite products (individual components as well as the whole suite).

[Dnnspv]

Responding only to the rumor and also to what I think is an interesting topic...

I can understand this for the giant HD studios.

Who would pay a subscription for PT Native when the features truly worth subscribing to are HD only? Does this rumor support the rumor that Avid is moving to the high end HD market only.

[nst7]

Jack,

Yes, they've gone subscription only. I wasn't arguing that. But it's still software you download and install, and you don't need to be connected to the internet to use it, other than once a month for them to check your eligibility.

It's not like certain subscriptions where the program is actually hosted in the cloud. It sounded like a previous poster was implying that.

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by nst7

Jack,

Yes, they've gone subscription only. I wasn't arguing that. But it's still software you download and install, and you don't need to be connected to the internet to use it, other than once a month for them to check your eligibility.

It's not like certain subscriptions where the program is actually hosted in the cloud. It sounded like a previous poster was implying that.

But don't you still have to pay for it each month whether you use it or not?

For something like a graphics house or a large recording or post studio where the software is in use virtually every day a subscription-based model is fine.

But what about for those of us who may go for a month without touching any of our DAWs?

Remember the software-as-a-service model of a few years back where you paid fee to use software over the web that was located on some company's servers?

That didn't seem to fly very well either.

I can appreciate that companies are trying to find some type of model that will assure a constant revenue stream. I can also appreciate that McDonalds would love it if I paid them $300.00/month whether I ate there or not.

Then there is economic reality...

If Microsoft goes out of business tomorrow my copy of Word or Windows will keep on working.

But what happens to the "subscription" users if Adobe goes out of business?

[nst7]

I agree, Bill. I'm not defending the subscription model. Just pointing out a minor inaccuracy. It's still a pain for non-pros and semi-pros, regardless of the details.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

But don't you still have to pay for it each month whether you use it or not?

My understanding is that you can let it expire after a month and then re-subscribe when you need to use it.

A software developer going out of business has always been our greatest financial risk. The other side is how incredibly cheap this technology is compared to life without it. It's just so many people take it for granted or even believe they are entitled to ever declining software expense.

[Logichead]

Uggghhhhh


Best...H

[Craig F]

god I hope not
watch Media Composer, it already was a net authentication option so if the HASP option goes away in 7 that may be telling

[froyo]

Hello. Actually to add to what some have said and just to clarify further what Adobe is doing. I read all the questions on their website and shot them an e-mail on the subject.

As others said, first off the applications do not live on the cloud, you download and install them on your system, all you files live on your system. Secondly, you only need to check once a month via internet so that Adobe can check your authorization to use the software.

As far as the price, in some instances the subscription model is cheaper than the outright purchase. For example, Photoshop was (is?) around $600 to $700 for a purchase but if you wanted to just subscribe only to Photoshop for $10 a month it would take almost 6 years to get up to that price point. A pretty good deal actually.

Now for $20 a month one gets access to all the software not just one, so that's $240 a year, or $720 in three years, roughly the price of one Photoshop license. That's three years of using a boatload of applications. In my case I just want Audition which used to go around $300 or so. Even then, for me at $10 a month (price to subscribe to one solitary program) it will take two and a half years of use to hit that price point. Not bad.

Strictly in money terms, Adobe subscriptions are either the exact same price points or in some cases quite a bit cheaper. These prices are for current Abode users. New customers pay a little more but not a lot more. Again, strictly on price, the deals are actually good.

On the updates front, Adobe has promised that all applications will be updated much more frequently and at their own time. Photoshop could update in February, Premiere in July, Dreamweaver in October, etc. They don't have to all wait for the new Suite update to all show up at the same time. The user decides if he wants to update to the new software or keep his current one. Pretty cool again.

As Bob mentioned earlier, you can subscribe and cancel and subscribe again at any moment. Say you have Photoshop, you use it in January and February then skip March, April, May, June but use it again in July just to cancel it again the rest of the year. All you pay under those terms are the three months you used it, $30. All you have to do is go online, authorize it for that month, pay the fee and off you go. At the end of your month you cancel. Done. It's actually fairly practical and easy.

The humongous elephant in the room obviously is the fact that if you choose to cancel the service, the software no longer works. That absolutely without a shadow of a doubt sucks big time. I don't mind paying monthly or any of the other aspects, but this one major, major, major pitfall and flaw in the design is what makes it very unflexible and probably unworkable for a lot of users.

For the people that need the software day in, day out the subscription system actually looks like a pretty good deal that will work in the users favor. Most of those facilities will not mind making a monthly payment. The occassional user is the one getting screwed here with that one major flaw.

I'll have to decide if I want to subscribe to Audition or just stay where I am at.

If Pro Tools goes in that direction, they will have to figure out a way to let the user have access to the software when they are not subscribed.