Off Topic: Adobe CS6 maintenance discontinued.

[taugust04]

Hi all - just thought I would pass this along to the list, since Adobe is my most favorite vendor these days. We received this guidance from SHI when preparing budget numbers for our next fiscal year:

Due to the release of Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe had removed the upgrade plan option for many of their software. Design and Web Premium is one of the software they have discontinued the maintenance plan. We will be working closely with Adobe around April/May when these renewals are closer to expiration and work on any renewals that Adobe still offers. Please let me know if there are any questions. SHI is the largest Enterprise Adobe reseller in North America maintaining Platinum Reseller over the years. We have a team of 6 dedicated Adobe pre-sales specialists who have been working closely with Adobe sending feedback and best practices so we can help customers purchase and utilize the product under this new licensing program. I wanted to make you all aware of some major changes to their licensing. Summary: Adobe announced Creative Cloud for Teams Adobe has introduced a new licensing program (VIP) Discontinued Upgrade Plan and M&S for all Creative Suite products 1-1-2013 Last month Adobe announced Creative Cloud for Teams which is the annual subscription to Master Collection along with new applications such as Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge. With Creative Cloud for Teams, customers have immediate access to new versions, updates and patches without waiting for releases. It also allows for collaboration and storage in the Cloud (100GB). This is a retail Subscription that lists at $480. With the release of Creative Cloud for Teams, Adobe has introduced a new licensing program. The new VIP (Value Incentive Program) is a subscription model for institutions that often purchase at the department or workgroup level or for customers with a user base of less than or equal to 25. VIP is an ongoing agreement with low cost of entry and is meant to simplify and ease the way customers acquire, deploy, purchase and manage Adobe software. SHI is one of the few authorized resellers to sell under the new VIP Program which gives us an opportunity to provide customers with extended support. Since Adobe is concentrating all their efforts in the Cloud, effective January 1, 2013 Upgrade Plan and M&S for all Creative Suite products have been discontinued and no longer available. The Creative Cloud will begin replacing Upgrade Plan as the mechanism to ensure Adobe licensing customers of Creative Suite products always have the latest innovation, updates and upgrades from Adobe. For those customers who have already purchased Upgrade Plan or M&S in any of Adobe’s licensing programs, including ELA , Adobe will communicate a great offer to help you through the transition and expedite your onramp to Creative Cloud. Best,

I'm interested in seeing how much Creative Cloud costs. In addition. I'm unfamiliar with Creative Cloud itself, but, it also sounds like a method to get some of their other products installed (ie Premiere, AfterEffects, Audition) on computers that might be using competing products, if the only option for subscription for the price is Master Collection. Anyone speak with Adobe about this not under an NDA? We have a large installed base of CS6 Design and Web Premium, and were anticipating a cost of about $125-$150 renewal for our bi-annual maintenance via our higher-ed agreement with NERCOMP. This sounds much more expensive.

I'm also concerned about ease of install of Creative Cloud. There is already guidance that some parts of the current Creative Cloud suite aren't able to be installed via AAMEE 3.1.

Ugh.

[chrisjacek]

I've been going several rounds with Adobe on the phone, trying to get anyone to explain to me how they can justify yanking the rug out from the educational market by discontinuing our maintenance license. Whenever I ask for an alternative for our Production Premium maintenance contract for our college, they keep reading the same script about Creative Cloud for Teams. That sounds great, except for the price. It's $40 a month per seat for this service. We are currently paying $150 for two years of maintenance licensing, which works out to $6.25 per month per seat. When I say that we can't afford a 600% price increase, they keep reading the same line about Creative Cloud not being a single product, and that we get cloud storage, blah blah blah. No real explanation of why they are sticking us with a six-fold price hike. Are there any other educators out there who are as infuriated as me? Over the course of a student's 4-year career, that's an extra $1600.