*** From the Archives ***
This article is from June 3, 2009, and is no longer current.
Creative Suite Price Hike… and Drop
I love the tools that Adobe creates, but sometimes I just have to wonder about the people who set their pricing models. This morning, I’m scratching my head over this news report from Macworld UK saying that the cost of CS4 will increase by 10% next month. On the other hand, the article also says that prices will come down by 13% in “some European countries.” Hm. Well, that’s welcome news… to some folks.
The difference is based (according to Adobe) on the fluctuations of the Pound-Euro exchange rate.
But wait, there’s more! Adobe is also now offering $100 off the upgrade to any of the Creative Suite application until August 31 (click here for more information). However, the fine print at the bottom of the page says that this is for U.S. and Canada only!
(It also says “void where prohibited.” I always wonder where it is against the law to offer discounts. Those wacky lawyers.)
So buy and save now! Or wait and save later (in some European countries)? ;)
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If they had just stuck to a single worldwide price — the same for everyone — then price changes that honestly reflect fluctuating exchange rates would be transparent, and no one would feel that they’ve been dragged into one of those con artist’s “find the lady” card tricks (or maybe I mean shell games).
I know nothing about marketing, but I’ll bet Adobe have lost rather than gained from a pricing policy that plays fast and loose with their customers’ goodwill.
We’re going to Italy next week. Should I wait and buy then? (Just kidding. It’s too late.)
Looks like the discount is only for upgrades from various suites and not from individual products. (I have the suite at work, but only individual products at home.)
I live in the US and am looking into buying CS4.
I went to DealCatcher and found this.
Is there any way this is legit? I mean CS4 for $668! Sounds too good to be true.
Does anyone have any experience with these places or know what the deal is with them?
I’m willing to bet that it’s an educational license, or worse…
Stay far, far away from those “deals”…
I try too keep it simple and IMHO Adobe is a very simple company. They want 1000 clams a seat every two years. Hence I’ve stopped buying boxes and got a CS4 Master Collection TLP license with a two-year upgrade deal.
Easy:
-discs via DHL, Mac & Win license codes at adobe.com
-no activation/deactivation
-major change in setup results in automatic update of discs.
Reasonable:
-it’s like 2 clams every work day
-if you can guess the next release date, you can squeeze three upgrades to one stack o compulsory clams. (don’t tell’em I said so)
-Tommi
On the introducing of Indesign I spend a late summer in Australia. A cross upgrade (from quark) would set me back a low number of hundreds. Back home (Holland) a cross upgrade was a mystery to all Adobe vendors. Explaining the Australian prices, someone in the Adobe Europe office reveald the mystery to me: Ausies were less likely to step over. So the price must be low in Australia. The Dutch customer however is a early-adopter. Even when the price is high with no special offers. What went wrong? Why didn’t they know about the Dutch being cheap?
A company always goes for the best result I think. It means in a transparent global market there will always be someone to regret it.
Now I had to pay a big load of cash. Buying down under would have saved me *does quick calculus* about 300 euro.
Well maybe a European upgrade license could clash whit the Ausies licence.
Special offers planned for the upgrade to CS5 according to a highly believable imaginary source within Adobe:
Buy 2, pay 3*
Early adopters get special bonus price hike.
(* only available where gullible)
Adobe’s pricing policy is becoming increasingly confusing and in a Global market it mystifies me, they seem to be going in a similar direction to that of a 90’s Quark, where they really don’t care what the end user thinks of their pricing. Do they not realise that alienating users in this way will leave a gap for competitors to muscle in.
Adobe seems really set to chase away their customers in Europe…. Or do they have an interest to start their own Torrent-network?
As far as I know from several sources CS4 is not selling well, let’s hope someone at Adobe will wake up and starts thinking about a reasonable price and a less frantic upgrade-cycle. Most people are using CS3 (at least in my area, Holland, Rotterdam) and are happy with it.
If I should ask my boss to buy 5 new licences for CS4 in these times of crisis and recession (we’ve already laid off 5 employees) he would not be a happy employer!
Adobe aren’t going to make any new friends in the UK. Prices are down 13% in continental Europe, up 10% in the UK. The price difference between the US and the UK is now 27%. See here: https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/04/adobe-software
Disgusted in Lancaster,
Peter
Question: if a person from the US buys their creative suite online as a download, does Adobe then lock out non-Americans by means of IP checking, or can anyone, from anywhere, log in using the correct Adobe ID and download the software?
Personally I prefer having the discs around, but if it’s possible to have a friend buy the software in the US and me downloading it here, thereby saving me a few hundred Euros and no risk of losing the discs in the mail…