I’m delighted that Bryan Lamkin, the PM of Photoshop back in its early days & later a key executive at Adobe, has returned to the company.
In a wide-ranging blog post he offers his take on the merits of Creative Cloud:
As a former product manager, I remember the team’s frustration when they were forced to hold back features to fit our 18-month Creative Suite product cycle. It was very difficult to deliver new innovations “off-cycle” due to our delivery and accounting model. (Every desktop software company struggles with this same challenge.) Nothing is more satisfying to one of our talented engineers than getting a new product feature into the hands of customers quickly, and now we can.
Creative Cloud… will be the hub for creativity worldwide and enable you to work when and where you want. It will be where creative communities gather to be inspired by each other’s work and collaborate on projects.
Right on. Glad to have you back, Bryan.
I have always been a fan of Bryan – this is great news. Thinks are getting pretty SasSy & Cloudy !
“forced to hold back features to fit our 18-month Creative Suite product cycle” — don’t get me started. how about just making innovative products for people who like to own their software instead of touting how your effed-up cloud is so great. no one *forces* you to do anything. jeezus. i really want to love you again adobe, but you make it so effing hard.
[Federal accounting law is not, you may be surprised to know, not under our control. Bryan isn’t making up what he says. Feel free to Google “revenue recognition” if you feel like bleeding out the eyeballs. –J.]
This may help
Why Creative Cloud Gets Exclusive Features that Adobe CS6 Doesn’t
http://prodesigntools.com/why-creative-cloud-gets-exclusive-features.html
Thanks for posting that. I had never heard of that stuff before. I’m a designer, not a business man or accountant (even though John implies that I should know what “revenue recognition” is).
I’m suspicious when a company (like Adobe) says “it’s great! More releases!” They don’t seem to acknowledge the human/designer part (“What If I can’t pay one month? Am I out?” and “No more upgrade pricing?” and “These incremental features aren’t that fancy anyway”).
Someone has to pay the devs to make this stuff, and I’ve done it for years. Its just too bad that after all these years it’s the accountants who will “save” the company and not the products any more.
Anyway, keep up the great work Adobe Devs! I’ll still send you money one way or another.
scarbom>”i really want to love you again adobe, but you make it so effing hard”
I hear people say this. I read people say this. (I’ve felt it myself.) And always I see Adobe ignore it and move on to whatever their current agenda point is. I guess Adobe must focus on the current market, but when they go the way of Wang and Sun and all the rest, lots of people will be extra sad and extra frustrated.
“Nothing is more satisfying to one of our talented engineers than getting a new product feature into the hands of customers quickly, and now we can.
Creative Cloud… will be the hub for creativity worldwide and enable you to work when and where you want …. ”
I understand the accounting laws, not a good excuse, put someone in Marketing (with long term vision) to work on the problem.
If you do not your competition will “leap-frog” your product/process and catch up is never time or cost efficient.
Sorry John. I still don’t get it John.
Adobe want me to subscribe to the never ending payment conveyor belt and, as Adobe do this so do many other companies and our monthly overheads are creeping up and they become unsupportable to the extent that we view our investment plans very carefully now – and we make our choices. I see that the Cloud thing suits Adobe in so many ways on so many levels but it certainly doesn’t suit my company – and we are Adobe customers. I’ll just repeat that word – customers. I don’t see why not having the Creative Cloud prevents Adobe from releasing upgrades mid-cylce. We, who wish to buy Adobe software in the ‘old fashioned’ way are now being heavily penalised and discriminated against because of our buying preferences. It is a very strange way to treat a customer. I’ll just repeat that word again – customer.
I suspect that the next step will be that the cost of upgrading normally (18 months?) will rise so Adobe customers would be compelled to use the Cloud offering. This would be another nail in the coffin.
I really do urge Adobe to look at it’s financial model (because that is what I see as being wrong) for the Cloud offering and suggest that the men in suits at Adobe be removed from the room for a while whilst the grownups sort this out this interesting, brave but fundamentally flawed Creative Cloud offering.
Can’t but help believe there is no lack of artistic, technical and creative vision behind Creative Cloud but oh my, the business and customer service gurus at Adobe seem to be disconnected from reality (and customers) on this one and they must be truly up a creek now and without a paddle on this one.
Or…..looking at it another way. Adobe just haven’t sold me the Cloud yet. I suspect I’m not alone in my thinking….
Richard (a customer)
Well written Richard, I like you am an original “Customer” spending thousands on the Adobe Suite, to which I am no longer entitled to upgrades and new innovation, whats next we don’t get support. You are defiantly not alone in your comments.
+1
The way Adobe acts (support has gotten really bad) and reacts to these comments (zero reaction) leaves a sour taste….
[Unfortunately I’m not able to reply to some comments, and I can’t say a lot about what might or might not happen in the future (presuming I even know). Please note this follow-on post, however. –J.]
Count me in as an actually VERY unhappy customer (with 6 perpetual Design Suites).