Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Pricing and Upgrades

[Blue Velvet]

The big question is if purchased today does CS 2.3 Premium upgrade to CS 3 Design Premium?

I'm not sure. I didn't actually take them up on their/Adobe's offer as generous as it sounds.

I haven't got time to mess around with 2 lots of ordering; the paperwork and invoices in getting things sorted through our finance dept and budget signoff are ridiculously tortuous. I also have to submit our serials to IT and FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) as well so I just want to keep things simple.

We'll just get 4 licenses of CS3 Design Standard or Premium when UK prices are released, upgraded from CS1... I'm hoping we can stretch to Premium if I can; I budgeted £325 each at academic prices and that can be stretched if necessary. We're a registered charity so get edu prices.

 

[Westside guy]

The academic prices are reasonable - nice to know being a public servant has some benefits other than low salary and long hours! I'll be curious to see if our university has finagled a lower price; they often do...

 

[brisully]

Thats still a ******** of money for a college student. I'm a film student and I need After Effects and Photoshop. There's no way I can afford to get Production Premium when I get my Macbook Pro for next school year. Between the Macbook Pro, Final Cut, CS3 Production, and other accessories for the laptop, I would end up spending at least $4000. That's more than I'll earn this summer for working.

Well when you have professionals in this very discussion say that that the suite costs too much money, and that they are going to buy the academic version for commercial use, it tends to drive up the price of the academic version.

 

[technicolor]

I'll be curious to see if our university has finagled a lower price; they often do...

Ours does too, its normally a 100 or 200 dollars lower than the the the price listed on adobe's site.

 

[TheAnswer]

Thats still a ******** of money for a college student. I'm a film student and I need After Effects and Photoshop. There's no way I can afford to get Production Premium when I get my Macbook Pro for next school year. Between the Macbook Pro, Final Cut, CS3 Production, and other accessories for the laptop, I would end up spending at least $4000. That's more than I'll earn this summer for working.

Doesn't your department have lab machines for this kinda work? If not, I'd wager to guess you don't need After Effects quite yet. I can't see any school requiring a purchase like that in order to do coursework.

The Final Cut purchase makes a lot of sense because you don't want to live in the lab (although the lab experience of editing your project while others are editing theirs, helping each other out and forming friendships is great).

 

[woolfgang]

we're all starting to sound really righteous here, but seriously...

stealing software is bad. it makes us legitimate users of software pay more. its the reason for the cs3 price hike. if you steal the software, then it clearly isn't worth your money, and you have no business using it.

Stealing Software is not cool. That said, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say that, from experience working with some software companies, a lot of them have simply used the Piracy problem to make more money. The people in the big companies, as I know some know, have, through the work of numbers analysts, have an idea of how much Piracy plays a part. I heard one analyst say that if company X added $5 to their price per unit, that would more than cover any losses. Company X added $20 to their price.

Again, STEALING SOFTWARE IS NOT COOL. But, I hate when the companies get let off the hook.

 

[mark88]

You may also pay a custom charge (I think). About an additional 20% (I think) of the sticker price, in addition to the VAT. Your shipper may also charge you an "admin fee" for processing thru customs.

Still should work out cheaper though.

SL

If you know someone in the US, simply order it and have it posted to them. Then get them to ship it to the UK and mark the value down for UK customs.

That's what I'm doing....

I'm not paying double price what is effectively a serial number. You can download the software over the internet anyway.

 

[wongulous]

No pity.

So you'll steal the Vette because in YOUR OPINION is isn't worth the price they ask for it?.. What kind of twisted logic is that?...

There are alternatives, especially for your stated uses. If you don't like the price, buy something else, or use the freeware tools like GIMP.

The problem with this, as well as with TheBobcat's post (though creds to both of you for speaking your mind) is that stealing a digitally-downloaded/cracked copy of software not to be used for profit is NOT the same as stealing a car. That exact physical car had thousands of dollars of materials poured into it, and hundreds of hours of manpower, plus energy used to weld it and sew the upholstery, transport fees to the dealership, took up space on a lot that is worth money, required time and effort from salespeople and detailers to prepare for sale and showing, etc. To steal this is not only to throw all of that away, but to deprive the company from paying back those finite, specific expenses; as well as to deprive a potential buyer (or someone who has already bought it and paid a finite dollar amount). To warez a copy of CS3 does not deprive the company of any assets it has specifically implanted into that particular copy, not even as much as a manual or CD or shipping to your home or retail store of choice; theoretically, ALL downloading a piece of software illegally is depriving Adobe is the actual cost of the development (NOT price of a license), meaning what it took to develop that software, which has already happened and already been paid so therefore is finite, but the license sales are a variable with which they will make exponential profits based on how many customers they receive. However, that's only theoretical, because we don't know if the user would buy the software without trying it first, or even if they would pay money or the amount of money asked for it in a retail setting.

In fact, the only even vaguely similar analogy to illegally downloading software that I could come up with is the issue of taking photos at a particular theme park. This theme park does not allow your own photos to be taken, because they sell their photos that they take (and will gladly take for you) at a premium. But you are faced with the dilemma of paying licensing fees based on what you take photos including, how much you zoom, how high of quality, how many people can fit in the photo, whether or not you get negatives, if there is a flash included, how many copies you can get, how many unique poses or re-takes you may photograph, etc, OR sneaking your own camera and taking the photos of your kids posing on XYZ mountain ride. Ethical? Questionable. Moral? Depends on your moral stance. It's not necessarily affecting anyone, and the effect on others determines morality.

 

[MacsAttack]

Adobe will "exchange" your Windows license for a Mac license if you contact their customer service department. In my case, they did it for free. However, they may charge a nominal fee. Obviously, you have to give up your license for the initial platform.

This may have changed...

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/design/faq/

Can I switch platforms when I upgrade my software to an Adobe Creative Suite 3 version?

No, you are eligible to upgrade only to a version that runs on the same platform. For example, if you own Adobe Creative Suite 2 for Windows, you are eligible to upgrade only to a Windows version of Adobe Creative Suite 3.

Why not allow a cross-grade as part of the upgrade process?

 

[MacsAttack]

If £1000 - £2100 for a standalone product and £600 odd for an upgrade is your idea of cheap, you haven't lived in the real world.

Yes it is very cheap for any pro who remembers the days before the advent of cheap PCs (both Windows and Macs) put the squeeze on the companies that previosly were charging colser to five figure (or more) licence fees (sometimes per year per seat) for their wares.

The cheque for my last freelance project just came in. It covers my upgrade (which I will do this time so I have UB versions to run on my Mac Pro - bought with some of the money from two previous projects).

However CS4 will have to serve up a very compelling feature set if Adobe expect me to pony up for that one - which I think they know many Mac users aren't going to. They may be padding the costs a little this time around

 

[zioxide]

Well when you have professionals in this very discussion say that that the suite costs too much money, and that they are going to buy the academic version for commercial use, it tends to drive up the price of the academic version.

Exactly.

Doesn't your department have lab machines for this kinda work? If not, I'd wager to guess you don't need After Effects quite yet. I can't see any school requiring a purchase like that in order to do coursework.

The Final Cut purchase makes a lot of sense because you don't want to live in the lab (although the lab experience of editing your project while others are editing theirs, helping each other out and forming friendships is great).

The lab machines we have here are crappy old Dells and there are only six of them. In addition, I don't just work on the projects I'm assigned in class, but I work on other projects with my friends and stuff which use after effects and stuff for more advanced effects. They should do more to make sure that the people who are purchasing academic actually need to purchase academic, and that they're not just professionals who teach a class or take one class at a university or something and are just buying academic because they're cheap.

stealing software is bad. it makes us legitimate users of software pay more. its the reason for the cs3 price hike. if you steal the software, then it clearly isn't worth your money, and you have no business using it.

I agree that stealing software is bad. But some people have no choice but to pirate it when it's so expensive. If Adobe and other companies didn't charge so damn much, more people would buy it instead of downloading it.

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

I just ordered Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium Student Edition
€383.75 =$511.19
Note that the price above is with shipping and absolutely insane Swedish tax (25%) included.

Oddly enough it is cheaper in europe than in US

 

[princealfie]

Is Adobe becoming the next Microsoft?

 

[NuDarwin]

Adobe will "exchange" your Windows license for a Mac license if you contact their customer service department. In my case, they did it for free. However, they may charge a nominal fee. Obviously, you have to give up your license for the initial platform.

eh? when I called adobe yesterday morning, they said that it was locked in and I would have to buy a new copy if I wanted to install it on the mac.

 

[72930]

Is Adobe becoming the next Microsoft?

The difference is that there are improvements in new software from Adobe...

 

[princealfie]

eh? when I called adobe yesterday morning, they said that it was locked in and I would have to buy a new copy if I wanted to install it on the mac.

Can you try it using parallels?

 

[NuDarwin]

I agree that stealing software is bad. But some people have no choice but to pirate it when it's so expensive. If Adobe and other companies didn't charge so damn much, more people would buy it instead of downloading it.

I think that you might be contradicting yourself a little bit. Lets use the example of After Effects. As a standalone product, its $999. I think that all of us could agree that this is a lot of money, but not so much as could be reasonably saved up for in a relatively short amount of time, or charged. And you're saying that given that high price, people are given no other choice but to pirate it. Why must people be forced into such a choice? In what situation would it be absolutely necessary, back against the wall, flat out impossible to find another alternative to have AE but you wouldn't have enough money to pay for it? I challenge you to name me a situation.

 

[zioxide]

I think that you might be contradicting yourself a little bit. Lets use the example of After Effects. As a standalone product, its $999. I think that all of us could agree that this is a lot of money, but not so much as could be reasonably saved up for in a relatively short amount of time, or charged. And you're saying that given that high price, people are given no other choice but to pirate it. Why must people be forced into such a choice? In what situation would it be absolutely necessary, back against the wall, flat out impossible to find another alternative to have AE but you wouldn't have enough money to pay for it? I challenge you to name me a situation.

Sure, some people can save up or charge it. But take myself for an example, I want to be able to use After Effects for my school projects to make them better. But paying $7,000 a semester for tuition and fees, $700 per semester for books, and other spending money, I can't really afford to be spending $700 on Production Studio.

Luckily my uncle runs his own film business, so if I need to use anything that I don't have, I can just go over there to use it.

 

[jaw04005]

eh? when I called adobe yesterday morning, they said that it was locked in and I would have to buy a new copy if I wanted to install it on the mac.

Unfortunately, it appears that Adobe has changed their policy as posted above. Adobe for some time maintained a cross-platform upgrade policy and a platform transfer policy.

My experience was with Creative Suite 1.0.

 

[popelife]

Deeply unhappy here too. I'm in the UK. I own CS1 Premium AND Macromedia Studio MX. Saw no point upgrading to CS2 since getting an Intel Mac.

So finally I can get Intel native versions. I'm after CS3 Design Premium - owning both GoLive AND Dreamweaver (and Flash MX) it's the nearest fit for me. I'm happy to sacrifice Flash and Fireworks.

In the US CS3 Design Premium would cost me $599 (=£298)

What do you reckon in the UK? £350? £400?

Nope. In the UK it costs £704.

After the amount of cash I've thrown Adobe and Macromedia's way, that's the best I can do?

(Not sure buying the US version will work as they state you must have the same language version as the upgrade)

I think I'll be doing absolutely nothing for a while. Screw 'em.

 

[mark88]

Us UK users need to club together or something.

I know we all expected UK prices to be higher but it's very rare that the UKP price is higher numbers than the USD price which is the case here....

Lets petition on the PMs website !!!!

 

[deeml]

Petition for fair prices from Adobe

I was so happy when Adobe announced the launch of their new CS3 line of products!

With new products comes new pricing... fair enough. However, prices for the same product (i.e. the mac design upgrade from CS2) go from 599$ for an upgrade in the US to 880$ in Switzerland, the worse being 1'380 $ for the UK or France... not fair enough!

Prices in Europe have always been a little higher, but 230% is pushing it!

I have started a petition to ask for fair pricing. Once I have gathered enough signatures, I will communicate this petition to Adobe and to the European/Swiss commissions of competition.

For a comparison, please checkout this website: http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html

In the meantime, if you can, don't purchase the upgrade, it's the best pressure we can have...

Thanks for helping us get heard!

 

[sarge]

Upgrade From CS educational Premium to CS3 Web Premium

I called adobe to place a pre-order for upgrade and I was told CS 1 Premium was not eligible for the Web Premium upgrade and that I would have to buy the Design Premium instead.

Am I reading that upgrade chart correctly or are the Adobe salespeople confused by the complexity of their own upgrade policy?

 

[mkwilson68]

Sign the petition

I was so happy when Adobe announced the launch of their new CS3 line of products!

With new products comes new pricing... fair enough. However, prices for the same product (i.e. the mac design upgrade from CS2) go from 599$ for an upgrade in the US to 880$ in Switzerland, the worse being 1'380 $ for the UK or France... not fair enough!

Prices in Europe have always been a little higher, but 230% is pushing it!

I have started a petition to ask for fair pricing. Once I have gathered enough signatures, I will communicate this petition to Adobe and to the European/Swiss commissions of competition.

For a comparison, please checkout this website: http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html

In the meantime, if you can, don't purchase the upgrade, it's the best pressure we can have...

Thanks for helping us get heard!

I just signed. I'm also asking Which? to investigate this in the UK as the pricing disparity borders on criminal in my view. The price is not the issue - it is the price DIFFERENCE that is the issue. We can afford the tools, but why should we pay a 100% premium over competitors in the USA. That, my friends, is straight forward, ol' fashioned price fixing.

Adobe - all our fears from you absorbing MM just came true. Show some respect to your customers outside the USA and bring your prices in line. I guarantee you that if you don't you will make far less money in the end: just take a look at all the ways people will avoid paying the full price. I have never pirated software, but this type of behaviour makes it very, very tempting - just to make a mockery of your exploitative business practices.

Take the hint - this is pissing off loyal customers: even you must realise that this ain't good for business.

 

[popelife]

This is off the top of my head, and I could be wrong, but isn't there a trade law somewhere that states that you must not prevent your customers from purchasing your products in another country if they so wish?

It happened with cars in the UK about ten years ago, when they were priced 50% higher in the UK than they were in Europe. Sensible buyers would fly to Germany, buy a completely UK-spec BMW, drive it back to the UK (and have a nice little holiday along the way if they wanted) and still save £5,000 - £10,000 over buying the same car in the UK.

The UK motor industry did whatever they could to discourage this (e.g. suggesting that they would refuse to service a car purchased in another country). In the end, pressure from consumer groups forced them to reduce their new vehicle prices to bring them more into line with the rest of Europe.

Similarly, you're not allowed to prevent people in the UK buying and importing US DVDs. It's only illegal to sell them in the UK (because they haven't been thru the UK censorship system), but you're perfectly entitled to buy DVDs from the US and watch them.

So is it acceptable for Adobe to prevent people buying upgrades from the US? (especially when there is basically no difference between the US version and the UK version).

Perhaps when you're "licensing" software to your customers, you can dictate any conditions you damn well like.

But it's not as if the upgrade is particularly "optional". If you want to be able to use your Intel Mac properly, you have no choice.

Out of principle, I'm not paying a ridiculous premium just because I live in the UK. I had some cash set aside for this upgrade... but I hadn't set aside £700! Especially when I'm getting no concession for my long-term ownership of Freehand, GoLive, and Fireworks. (the first two of which are effectively dead, and the last I don't get in my upgrade).

Have signed the petition.