∞ Scott Kelby's open letter to Adobe

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As president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) I represent more than 70,000 Photoshop users around the world. However as I’m writing this open letter to you today, I would say that most of our 70,000 members have no idea about the upgrade policy changes you just announced, or about how these changes will affect them.

When someone with Scott’s stature in the creative industry can’t get answers, you know Adobe has some problems.


  • Anonymous

    Complaining is one of the easiest things to do, and to sound very “right” about. Though I have to deal with the cost of Adobe’s upgrades, too, I still make far more from the use of their products than what they cost me.

    I’d like to know more about this new upgrade policy Adobe is supposedly going to institute, so that I can better determine for myself how fair (or not) it may seem to me.

    • http://twitter.com/colinmat Colin Mattson

      There’s nothing more to know about the policy than what Kelby mentions in his letter.

      As Adobe has announced it at this point (they may yet backpedal), it’s simple: If you don’t buy every upgrade, you don’t get to upgrade. Not on CS5, can’t upgrade to CS6. Don’t buy a CS6 upgrade, can’t upgrade to CS7. If you skip one upgrade, you’re starting over from full retail the next time you want a new version.

      Conveniently, anyone who falls off the upgrade treadmill is more than welcome to use the new subscription plans if they find that “more affordable.”

      • Anonymous

        I don’t mind being on the upgrade treadmill and have no desire to fall off of it, as the benefit is/are the ever increasing functionalities and performance of the tools. Mater of fact, I’ve been on that treadmill since 1987 when Adobe Illustrator 1.1 was first introduced. Given a fair dose of competence and Adobe’s tools, one can make a good living and easily afford the cost of that treadmill. Those that can’t have some essential ingredient missing in their business model.

        • http://twitter.com/TARAdactyl Tara Jacobsen

          I pay for software and upgrade it when there are truly features and benefits that make a difference. Having to upgrade to 5 or 5.5 from 4 when there is no benefit to me just to stay on the treadmill doesn’t mean I can’t afford to upgrade, it simply means that I make smart business decisions about where to spend my money.

          • Anonymous

            “Smart” in your case might also be called “penny wise, pound foolish” if you’re disregarding the bigger or longer-range picture, or if you’re deluded enough to attempt to “boycott” Adobe. “Cutting off your nose to spite your face” might be another apt phrase.

          • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

            Are you actually criticizing a user for choosing to not spend unnecessary money on incremental upgrades? Whose “bigger or long-range picture” are you defending here?

          • andrew

            Since Adobe seems to be on the path to releasing new major versions every 2 years (with a .5 version in between), I’m not all that opposed to putting out the cost to upgrade every version.

            However, the timing of this announcement just as CS5.5 is drawing to a close is rather onerous, and causing a great deal of anti-Adobe sentiment.  For anyone who owns CS3 or CS4 and was trusting in Adobe’s “3 versions back” tiered upgrade policy in order to receive a discount, they’re essentially asking that those users now upgrade to CS5.5 immediately in order to be eligible to upgrade to CS6 just a few months down the road.  For me, that would involve upgrading the full master collection from my current CS3 version (a $1400 cost), barely getting a few months use out of that, and then upgrading to CS6 (which I was planning to do on its release date, from CS3) for whatever that ends up costing.

            While the new upgrade model is less than ideal, I could live with it if Adobe weren’t essentially using it to make a quick cash grab here at CS5.5′s end-of-life.

            As Scott Kelby suggests, if this must be done then it should be put off until CS7, so that users know exactly what the situation will be in advance.

    • Naednihcam

      Hmmmm, highly suspicious posting. would be shocked to find out this is not an adobe employee of some sort.

      • http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com/ Shawn King

        Maybe you missed it in your detailed reading of the post but Scott Kelby is *not* an employee of Adobe. Scott has been a magazine publisher for many years. You can read about who Scott is on his aptly named “About Me” page – http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/about . Hope that helps… 

        • http://www.smiley-dread.com kiil

          Shawn, I think Naednichcam is refering to VGISoftware

          • http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com/ Shawn King

            You know what, I bet you are correct. My apologies for my post to Naednihcam. 

          • Naednihcam

            :-)

          • http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com/ Shawn King

            Look, there’s no need to gloat…I apologized! 
            :)

          • Naednihcam

            :-(

  • Anonymous

    I didn’t know that Adobe was into supporting piracy, because if they continue on this route, that is what a lot of people are going to resort to in order to use the tools. People are use to the idea of just taking stuff thanks to the Music industry overpricing of music. I at least can get my Company to purchase the software for the latest stuff, but with the way the economy is, it is going to be harder to talk them into making a purchase at higher prices ( we usually skip every other release ). 

    All I can say is Adobe, remember the Quark!

    • Anonymous

      You’re right. I’ve been a decade out of college but many, if not most, college students steal Adobe products because they’re too expensive. Even with the college discount. It’s only going to get worse.

      Many of these kids are working just to pay tuition, which has dramatically increased, much less pay for CS.

  • Anonymous

    I’m not a expert Photoshop user but I always use Kelby’s podcasts as education but I’m a business guy. 

    The truth is Adobe’s CEO needs to go. He is incompetent. There is no way that a software company, this talented and designed for professionals, should be firing anyone in this era.

    I don’t care about Flash. Adobe should’ve been preparing proper tools for HTML5 since the iPhone intro, which was 6 months before it was even released. Instead they pretended that a plugin was more important than a OS. It is hubris on their part.

    As an aside, there was a friend of mine named Steven when I was a kid in NY. He got better grades than anyone but he couldn’t apply what he learned into the real world. He’s now a postman in Pennsylvania.

    This is the flaw when I run into many CEO’s. They have the stats but don’t have the creative thinking to back it up. Everybody wants to be a Ballmer because it’s safe but the only way to be as great as Jobs is take risks. If Bartz is reading this I’m sure she’s cursing me out now.

  • jb

    Adobe is becoming more like Micro$oft when it tries to hold its customers hostage to upgrade cycles rather than innovating with new products and new ways of doing things (like Apple).  By milking their customers with outrageous upgrade pricing, this will only serve to encourage their customers to search for alternatives and spur new software developers to start new products to compete with Adobe.  I hope some of the innovative plug-in software companies will decide to develop full-fledged Photoshop competitors.  I would like to see someone with deep pockets and vision take a product like Pixelmator and develop it into a modern fully functional photo editing program.  Also, hopefully Apple will continue to advance Aperture ($80) and add more functionality to it.

    I may end up doing the current discounted upgrade (CS4 to CS5.5) and then work hard to avoid any future entrapment by Adobe into further upgrades or an outrageously expensive monthly subscription.  Adobe, your end is near if all you have going is trying to dictate to your customers how they spend their money rather than offer them quality products they want to buy. 

    • Anonymous

      I’m not bothered by the notion of forcing us to upgrade. It’s the pricing that bothers me. I still feel that Adobe is pricing things far too high. They could still make a small fortune if they cut the entry price of each app down to more like $400-500 and the upgrades at $200 tops. And if they haven’t already they need to cut this nonsense of discounting stuff down to $100-200 for students and teachers but issuing them a serial that can’t be upgraded. You get a college student that gets out of school, can’t buy yet another retail box for the latest version on his discount and is looking at $800-900 for an app that he needs to actually do his job. Ouch

  • http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com/ Shawn King

    BTW, when Kelby writes things like, “It’s my understanding…”, I guarantee you he knows the *exact* details of what Adobe is planning…Scott is very well liked at Adobe and has some very high up sources. I’d bet my laptop the details in his post are *very* accurate.

  • Liz

    @VGISoftware – you might not mind being on the upgrade treadmill, and good for you. It doesn’t meant that those of us who do mind are incompetent – we’re not all in full-time business. I’ve used Illustrator mainly for personal projects since the 90s, more recently Photoshop too, and have upgraded every other version. I personally, am fuming. It’s great to see someone of the stature of Scott Kelby making a statement against this policy.