Why does Adobe hate non-Americans so much?

[Rob C]

Rob, why do you need Photoshop?

Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom is specifically designed for photographers and offers just about anything you could need. Brilliant program for less than a hundred quid.

Most photographers I know ditched Photoshop for Lightroom ages ago.Keith

Keith –

You may have asked the $60,000 question.  All I want to be able to do is make the odd print that looks reasonably good and/or play on the Internet by posting the occasional image like I do here.

Within PS6, the main things I do are play around with Curves, Colour Temperature, Layers (lots of them, even with Cellpix! – probably most of all with Cellpix), print using the Adobe 1998 space, upload to Internet using that sRGBIEC1966-2 space (thanks again for having had the patience to guide me through all of that stuff – over and over again!) and that’s about it, but I would like to be able to correct verticals a little bit without having to go to the expense of buying T/S lenses that I know will never earn me a cent. Unfortunately, PS6 doesn’t allow that correction – AFAIK! I also want to be able to add text here and there.

I have no idea if Lightroom does all that or not.

Actually, perhaps my NX2 does a helluva lot more than I use it to do, too, but looking briefly at it, it all seems very ‘amateurish’ in its scope and ways But I wouldn’t want to lose anything that PS6 can let me do, so I hold on tightly to what I already have - and understand a little… that’s the human bit, I’m afraid.

;-)

Rob

[KLaban]

Rob, I'm sure there are many here who can tell you more about Lightroom than I can. I'm still using Hasselblad Phocus and Photoshop, but almost every pro I know now uses Lightroom or Capture One instead of PS.

Can't promise it won't mean altering your workflow...

Keith

[Chris Pollock]

Now here's a thing that puzzles me. Microsoft no doubt have the money and the expertise to do an MS version of Photoshop. Give them a year and I'm sure they could cook up something pretty much as useful.

I've been wondering the same thing myself. Given the high price of Photoshop, Microsoft could undercut them by a fair margin and still make a tidy profit. It would also make them popular with a lot of people. I can think of a few possible obstacles:

Perhaps Adobe hold some key software patents. Dubious patents are commonly used these days to block innovation in software, amongst other industries, but I don't think it's a likely explanation in this case. Most of the features in Photoshop can be found in other products, it's just that none of them offer the same feature set in a single integrated package.

Photoshop has the advantage of incumbency, with a large number of plugins, countless books, and an established user base. I don't think this advantage is insurmountable to a company with the size and marketing clout of Microsoft though. They could certainly capture a large part of the amateur market without much trouble.

Likewise I don't doubt that Adobe could create an operating system to rival Windows if they put their mind to it and yet it doesn't happen.

That would be a much harder market to break into. People use an operating system to run software, so a new operating system, even if superior to Windows and Mac OS, would be almost useless without an established software base. There are already several good free alternatives to Windows such as Linux and FreeBSD, but they've failed to gain much of the desktop market.

You don't think our man Bill enjoyed an agreeable lunch with the head honchos of Adobe at some point do you? I mean such a thing would never happen in the competition driven world of US commerce, surely every right thinking, freedom loving, gun toting US citizen would object to the formation of monopolies in this fashion, unless of course they were sold the product cheap to shut them up.

I think it's quite possible that Adobe and Microsoft (and others perhaps) have made a quiet gentleman's agreement - we'll have the graphics software business, and you can have operating systems. Competition is good for the customer, but not so good for companies.

Actually the amount of competition is hard to get right - too little leads to mediocre products and price gouging, but too much leads to workers being exploited, corners being cut (think of the airline industry), and companies going out of business. Capitalism is indeed the least bad economic system devised so far, but it's by no means perfect.

[Chris Pollock]

Funny, that comes from a guy who starts a thread how an American company hates non-Americans.

Yes, I criticized a single American company. I admit that the title of the thread was provocative, but in no way could it be called anti-American. If Adobe gave the British a lower price, and charged everyone else more, the title would have been "Why does Adobe hate non-British so much?"

I don't think I've ever posted anything that derogates Americans, or any other nationality for that matter. Regimes and governments are another story.

[Farmer]

I think you guys under-estimate the resources required to engineer a product like Photoshop, to update it, improve it, support it, etc.

I'm sure patents come into it, but so do having the engineers with the experience, knowledge and understanding.  It would be a huge understaking for someone to take on PS, let alone the entire Suite.

[Justan]

I've been wondering the same thing myself. Given the high price of Photoshop, Microsoft could undercut them by a fair margin and still make a tidy profit. It would also make them popular with a lot of people.

Probably the key stock holders decided that the 2 groups make more by not pretenting to compete in this area.

Check out the Vanguard Group in their many incarnations, as example, who are a major holder of MS. They are also major holders of Adobe. There are a few others who have a pretty large interest in both companies.

While the two companies products go under different corporate names (MS/Adobe), they are tied at the top to many of the same owners. Why would they try to cut the legs out from under their golden cash cow?

[Chris Pollock]

I think you guys under-estimate the resources required to engineer a product like Photoshop, to update it, improve it, support it, etc.

I'm sure patents come into it, but so do having the engineers with the experience, knowledge and understanding.  It would be a huge understaking for someone to take on PS, let alone the entire Suite.

I don't disagree that it would be a huge undertaking, but Microsoft is a huge company, and could afford to hire the best talent. Starting with a clean slate would enable them to avoid some of Photoshop's weaknesses, such as limited use of multithreading and less than perfect stability. It would take a while, but I don't doubt that Microsoft could create a competitive product if they wanted to. Perhaps the company has become relaxed and complacent in middle age, and no longer has the drive to boldly venture into new markets?

[johnbeardy]

They've just gone into different markets, especially enterprise-level software, where there's more money to be made.

Someone earlier mentioned Expression Web. That was when Microsoft did tilt in the direction of entering this market, buying the Creative House (?) products, iView MediaPro, and setting up technology partnerships with PhaseOne (I suspect they took an investment). They hired people including a well-known guy from Adobe who some would count as "the best talent" and spent a lot of money developing photo-centric apps including one which could have been a competitor to Lightroom/Aperture. Then they lost interest. Presumably they concluded they couldn't make money from it.

You should also consider what Apple did when they launched Aperture, their long-rumoured "Photoshop-killer". It made a certain dent in the market, but not for long.

[Chris Pollock]

You should also consider what Apple did when they launched Aperture, their long-rumoured "Photoshop-killer". It made a certain dent in the market, but not for long.

Speaking for myself, the biggest problem with Aperture is that it's Mac-only. In the Windows world I at least have a choice of hardware (I prefer to assemble my own machines) even though the OS is proprietary. I have no desire to buy into a platform that is tied to a single hardware vendor. (I also have no desire to debate the relative merits of Windows vs Mac OS.)

I don't doubt that if Apple released versions of Aperture for other operating systems (I'd like it on FreeBSD, but I'm probably unusual) they could sell a lot more copies, but they obviously won't do that, because they also want to sell Macs. I hear that it's also tightly integrated with Mac OS, so porting it would presumably be no trivial task.

[johnbeardy]

No argument from me there. Being limited to one brand of computers is a big downside, and I've often wondered what market share Apple would achieve if they ported Aperture to Windows. I have a self-built desktop and a Mac laptop so I could choose freely, and some features are (sadly) well ahead of Adobe's efforts with Lightroom. As for tight integration, Apple would certainly find a way to back flip on that!

[RSL]

What ticks me off is what I just saw with Dreamweaver. Less than a year ago I bought Dreamweaver CS5. Yesterday I decided to upgrade to CS6. Turns out the upgrade from CS5.5 -- don't know when it came out, but it must have been less than a year ago -- is $125. But the upgrade from CS5 is $250. In other words Adobe is going to make you pay for EVERY damn upgrade, including the ones you skipped. But I can buy a new copy of CS6 from B&H for $383. Screw it! I can't see that many improvements in CS6 over CS5, so I guess I'll skip an upgrade or two and then buy a new copy from scratch when there are real changes. Whoever's making pricing policy at Adobe must be smoking something strange.

[KLaban]

Whoever's making pricing policy at Adobe must be smoking something strange.

$100 bills?

[Justinr]

Probably the key stock holders decided that the 2 groups make more by not pretenting to compete in this area.

Check out the Vanguard Group in their many incarnations, as example, who are a major holder of MS. They are also major holders of Adobe. There are a few others who have a pretty large interest in both companies.

While the two companies products go under different corporate names (MS/Adobe), they are tied at the top to many of the same owners. Why would they try to cut the legs out from under their golden cash cow?

That would make sense but then if I were a stockholder I'd want the companies motivated somehow.

BTW, I might have missed it somewhere but how does the cost of Photoshop cloud differ globally?

[Rhossydd]

I can't see that many improvements in CS6 over CS5, so I guess I'll skip an upgrade or two and then buy a new copy from scratch when there are real changes.

Swap 'when' for 'if' and I think that would summarise many people's attitude to Adobe's imaging products at the moment. They've reached a state of maturity where making significant improvements(ie worth paying for) becomes harder and harder.
I'm quite happy with CS4 for PS, ID, Il, & Acrobat9 and whilst they run on my systems I see no reason to upgrade. PP CS5 does everything I'll need, so that won't need changing either.

Whilst Adobe are trying to screw every penny out of their customer base and increasingly annoying them with changing upgrade policies and poor PR on other issues, free alternatives like The Gimp, Scribus and Lightworks continue to improve and are starting to look credible alternatives for anyone with concerns about budget.

[Justinr]

Whilst Adobe are trying to screw every penny out of their customer base and increasingly annoying them with changing upgrade policies and poor PR on other issues, free alternatives like The Gimp, Scribus and Lightworks continue to improve and are starting to look credible alternatives for anyone with concerns about budget.

Point to note. Items like the Gimp, Irfanview etc are put together on a shoestring and although they are no match for the sleekness of PS they can still render comparable results yet we are told that it would be nigh on impossible for MS to do the same even with all their resources. Something doesn't add up.

[johnbeardy]

Of course it's not impossible, and they did have something - Google "Microsoft SmartFlow". The ROI probably wasn't enough.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Oh, man! So many brilliant business-strategy ideas in this thread! I am sure Microsoft talent acquisition experts are trying to locate you as we speak. In the meantime, or if that does not pan out, why don't you try to participate in the "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" show?

[Rob C]

Rob, I'm sure there are many here who can tell you more about Lightroom than I can. I'm still using Hasselblad Phocus and Photoshop, but almost every pro I know now uses Lightroom or Capture One instead of PS.

Can't promise it won't mean altering your workflow...

Keith

Hi Keith

Had a look at Lightroom over on the other section of LuLa; it sure appears to have problems - one of them, for me, being the need for a much more powerful computer! Guess I'll get along without correcting any verticals...


Oh - a new art gallery opened here on Sunday - run by the front lady who ran the big one here that was closed down recently because the owners realised that there were more profitable things to do with property. We had a chat - something may come from it at some time. At least we know each other from the old gallery, so it's not cold calling!

;-)

Rob C

[KLaban]

Had a look at Lightroom over on the other section of LuLa; it sure appears to have problems - one of them, for me, being the need for a much more powerful computer! Guess I'll get along without correcting any verticals...

Damn, best laid plans...

Hope something comes of the renewed gallery contact.

Keith

[Justinr]

Oh, man! So many brilliant business-strategy ideas in this thread! I am sure Microsoft talent acquisition experts are trying to locate you as we speak. In the meantime, or if that does not pan out, why don't you try to participate in the "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" show?

Never watched it, must be on Sky I guess. Is it any good?