Not only that, but for $73 more you get the ABSENCE of printed manuals: they come with standalone products but not with the CS Suite.

What a bargain!

Shipping is free, I just upgraded and I've been a good customer, they have a bunch of my dollars.

There is a very animated discussion going on at the InDesign listserve about this and related topics. I think this is a market driven decision by Adobe, and in the end, we don�t get a better product. It just updates more frequently and we shell out to stay current on ALL the applications instead of the ones we need. I also believe I read that once you �upgrade� to the CS suite, you cannot go back to upgrading individual programs. From what I�ve seen in the online data about Illustrator and InDesign, the upgrades will be worthwhile.

http://www.listsearch.com/InDesignTalk.lasso?tab1=search&tab2=todayposts&-session=listsearch_indesigntalk:F908B3EB745ED0D89BAE670FC051CAA6

Tiffany, I think thats the overall Adobe plan, pretty evil if you don't use all the CS programs. But as for now you can do an upgrade per program and as I pointed out to the Adobe rep its cheaper for me to do so.

Hi Tiffany,

No, that's not what I'm saying. What little I've seen of the upgrades for InDesign and Illustrator has pretty much convinced me that it's a needed upgrade here.

What I question is that if I upgrade to the CS suite, am I going to be stuck in a cycle of marginal upgrades at $600-800 a pop. That worries me.

It's more typical here to buy what's needed as the projects arise where I can utilize the new features. Single product upgrades have gone from �$130 to $170 dollars US. Even so, that's more attractive at the moment, to me, than the whole CS Suite, just because of economics.

Bill I guess what I was aimming at was Adobe was willing to charge $73 more than the upgrade price so people could get the whole suite as a promotion. Why not charge the same amount? They claim its worth over $1000, so if they are so generious why not go the whole way. Just a thought

I would not say Adobe has a monopoly. Each of these products has competitors:

Photoshop: Corel PhotoPAINT, the GIMP, &c
Illustrator: CorelDraw, Freehand, Killustrator, Expression, &c
InDesign: Quark, MS Publisher, Ventura, TeX, &c

The fact that the competitors mostly suck is not Adobe's problem. $169 per product is a damn fine upgrade price considering the advances. Especially Illustrator CS. I haven't switched to Acro 6 yet and don't know if I really need its new capabilities just yet. And I've never tried a commercial HTML editor before, but GoLive looks interesting.

John my problem isn't with competiton and I don't think their products are bad I use them all the time. I just think they should have given the same price for the suite as the upgrade per product. In my case they will have to send me 4 products separately (free shipping) rather than one product one time. I understand it was a promotional price but if its worth over a $1000 and your discounting to $749 why not discount it to $676 the cost of upgrades of the 4 products each?

Award winning brand identity consultancy is seeking a talented Sr. Designer. Candidates should have 5 to 7 years experience.

Proficiency in GIMP, CorelDraw, and MS Publisher a must.

Fluency in Esperanto a plus.

Extra points for skillful use of Comic Sans.

Hmmm. Well, it certainly is getting a lot of attention.

So, does anybody have a problem with the $169 individual application upgrade price? No?

So, what's bugging people is that the all-in-one upgrade to the suite for Photoshop users is a little more expensive than doing individual upgrades, IF you already own all the individual applications? Right?

So, DON'T buy the suite upgrade if you already have all the individual apps! What's the big deal?

Also, remember that not everyone already has all the Adobe apps. For those who use other apps (or no apps) in one or more categories, the suite upgrade from Photoshop looks a lot more attractive.

By the way, there are a couple of things that come in the suite that don't come separately:
- Version Cue
- several weights of Brioso Pro and Warnock Pro
- a Total Training CD (I admit I don't even know what that is!)

However, one certainly should balance that against the lack of printed manuals (which DO come with the individual apps).

It's understandable that people are unhappy with the *relative* prices, but I think it's worth noting that these are pretty reasonable rates in *absolute* terms, or compared to the competition. Look at what Quark does for upgrades....

T

Thomas It just struck me as a strange thing to do. I happen to have all the applications and upgraded individually. The sales guy was very understanding and explained the difference to me but�

"Award winning brand identity consultancy is seeking a talented Sr. Designer. Candidates should have 5 to 7 years experience.

Proficiency in GIMP, CorelDraw, and MS Publisher a must.

Fluency in Esperanto a plus."

Made me laugh!

Photoshop has no competititors, Illustrator has FreeHand (I was a Freehand user until v10 when IMO they messed up and I switched) and InDesign has Xpress (which I use but loathe). Personally I'm impressed by whats going on the Adobe camp and looking forward to getting my mitts on CS. Fair enough it won't be my money that buys the upgrade, but if I was starting from scratch, would I buy Quark 6 for �1K a copy, or PS, IL, ID and AC for the same money? Yes, this may eventually give Adobe a monopoly but they've been in that position with PS for years and done a pretty fine job on the upgrades during that time. Photoshop now is not in the situation that Macromedias Fontographer is/was.

This may be off-topic but: how bad must things be for Quark when their user base actually actively dislikes them?

Interesting articles on the Adobe CS front. It seems Photographer gets alot more goodies, but what I really like they are making the type and color engines alike, also InDesign supports spot colors, and what I'm happiest about is they cut the fat in Illustrator so it runs twice as fast. Yippee

Reviews of the Adobe Creative Suite applications can be found at: http://www.macuser.co.uk

Also, it seems that not just a few selected fonts, but the complete Warnock Pro and Brioso Pro families (including optical size variants) are a bonus for getting the full Creative Suite. That's 74 fonts, retailing for $648.

T

Also CreativePro.com has an article by some very impressive people today. Also go to Photoshopuser.com they have a bunch of good articles and quicktime movies. Good point Thomas, but I still love that Illustrator works twice as fast. Love the low rez screen redraw idea.

Yeah, that enhanced speed in Illustrator is really impressive. In fact, it actually gave me trouble in my demo at ATypI, because the scrolling would be so fast that I would sometimes overshoot what I was aiming for. You can get used to it, but your reflexes need to be retrained - it's like going from an Oldsmobile to a Ferrari.

T

> 212 total fonts.

But isn't that getting into "font abuse" territory? Not surprising, considering type is
a secondary consideration at Adobe (I mean compared to "dedicated" font houses).

hhp

I mean like the kind of stuff that makes people think fonts aren't worth much.
You're getting stuff that's supposedly worth $648 casually bundled with the app.

hhp

But nothing is free. The value you add to the bundle is value you're detracting from the fonts. Sure, this is great for Adobe and its users - but it's bad for type designers. Kinda like Nick said recently.

hhp

HHP Adobe is pushing the Open Type Format so they want you to fall so much in love that format, that you'll want to toss all your old fonts and replace them with Open Type versions.

The gist of the articles I'm reading people love the upgrades but have strong reservations about the marketing.

> I thought any time anyone legally obtains (i.e. purchases) a typeface it is good for the type designer.

Better than not paying at all, sure! But anyway I'm talking about more than just a given royalty payment, I'm talking about the "value image" of fonts. Didn't Corel get flack for bundling buckets of fonts with Draw? Is Adobe like Corel now?

Nick's stuff: check out the first three results when you enter "dumping" in the Typophile search box.

hhp

"HHP Adobe is pushing the Open Type Format so they want you to fall so much in love that format, that you'll want to toss all your old fonts and replace them with Open Type versions."

The software industry seems to be based around licences these days rather than 'you own the box/cd/whatever, you own the product'. In my opinion foundries should offer free Euro font updates and only charge just an upgrade fee for OpenType fonts with extra features. One licence for cross platform & pay only for major updates (eg. additional OpenType features). Just need to get round to implementing it myself now, what a hypocrite eh?

Yes, in many ways Adobe IS like Corel now, only with better software. Frankly, it isn't clever to sell a layout software without some typefaces to �play� with. What Adobe need to communicate --as well as most type foundries -- is that there are standard typefaces, and imo those should not too expensive, so as to allow the layman a good range of solid classic typefaces instead of working with shareware, and new high-profile typefaces that could be more expensive in order to allow a more individual branding (and of course, custom font for even more exclusive typography). Giving a person who buys, say, Indesign, a solid handful of well-chosen typefaces, some classics, some fancy playful stuff, is way more sensible than not giving them anything at all. It DOES indeed add to the notion that fonts aren't worth much, but I think we have that problem anyway... and it should be worth considering to make some fonts more easily accessible in packages such as CD and some others more exclusive. Some folks will be happy to get, say, a Franklin Gothic on their hands, other already have that and still will shell out money to get the latest DTL fonts :-D. Typefaces are NOT a mass-market and will never be.

Oh, and that said... yeah, I was angry when they bundled Garamond OTF with InDesign... because I bought it at full price some months before :-D.

Craig: The software industry has always been based around licenses. They're just doing a better job of educating consumers about it.

I agree that in general font bundling depresses the demand for fonts. There's no question about that. There's a reasonable argument to be made that it either directly or indirectly depresses the customers' valuation of fonts.

On the other hand, I'll also note that the general trend for Adobe has been to bundle fewer and fewer fonts. Back when I started at Adobe there were individual products that bundled 220-350 fonts EACH. So the current system where you can buy ALL the individual products and only end up with 138 bundled fonts, or 212 if you buy the suite, is a significant improvement.

Cheers,

T

Thomas to demostrate Open Types Capability I feel they only had to bundle 1 or 2 fonts at the most. One serif and one sans serif, but thats my opinion. When I first used the open type version of Adobe Caslon in InDesign it was lights out better and I only use it if I'm in InDesign.

Software with fonts included generally don't help to built the right perception that fonts are generally not a free stuff. "why I need to buy any fonts when I can get them 'free' with my applications? hein"

But, in same time, I agree that its good to bundle a couple of OT fonts to let users see what they can do with them.

I still dream a way to bundle try out versions of fonts rather than the fonts itself, as Adobe do with others software who are at 99% Try out version sonly. Its an clear indication of how Adobe consider fonts versus their applications.

Does a try-out for fonts work technically?

This technology don't exist today. Sound difficult to implement, as Fonts work for others and can't work alone. A software who stop to work is not a problem for others, but a font yes, as it can influcence the rest of the machine...

So, the package has more fonts (nice) but no manuals (bad). Is it possible to purchase the manuals? If so, how much?

Ben they don't want to waste paper on mostly print applications, funny huh

Yves, I think a Trial-Software would be good. I'm, however, completely opposed to anything even closely resembling copy-control-technology (like Fontwise) or Activations-stuff, anything that pre-criminalizes the User and makes Font-Usage complicated. Let's not repeat the error of the music-industry. The best way to sell fonts is to make the public aware of nice typefaces and their importance, to make buying them as eay as possible, and to make friends out of customers. I'd never ever steal a font from, say, Luc(as), because I know that this is at least )in my case, a small) part of what he lives from. You don't steal from folks you like.

BEn, I think dismissing the printed manuals is a BRILLIANT idea, ecologically speaking. I've been throwing away this s*** for years, never ever needed them. The help function and a PDF are absolutely enough. and even more practical. Let's keep more trees alive...

"Award winning brand identity consultancy is seeking a talented Sr. Designer. Candidates should have 5 to 7 years experience.

Proficiency in GIMP, CorelDraw, and MS Publisher a must.

Craig, when I called these applications competitors, I wasn't implying that they were successful or formidable. Merely that they are going after the same group of users that Adobe has. Their success or failure is not really Adobe's problem. It's interesting how the dominant players in just about any market are increasingly seen as having an ill-gotten advantage (Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, &c.)

> It's interesting how the dominant players in just about any market
> are increasingly seen as having an ill-gotten advantage

Naaah, it's not their fault, they're just playing within the decrepit, disgusting System...

hhp

[double post]

I wasn't suggesting that Adobe is in anyway at fault, John, just pointing out that wittingly or not they do have market dominance. Monopoly may be too strong a word.

I don't think Adobe's edge is ill-gotten, quite the contrary. They make a superior product (except for AI 10 which absolutely blows!)

Those products are competitors but most aren't in the same league as their Adobe counterparts. A Trabant and a Ferrari are both cars and will get you from A to B, but they offer a very different driving experience (not that I would know first hand of course). I don't see what all the anti-Adobe fuss is all about, I certainly don't see them in the same light as Microsoft. CS may well turn out to give Adobe a virtual monopoly but look at Photoshop as a product: I find it hard to find fault.

Okay, scratch �virtual monopoly� and read �market dominance�. Not a bad thing IMO: I�d drop Quark right now if I could.

In my opinion, Adobe, so far, has handled things pretty well for a market-leader, compared to Microsoft or even -- in their niche -- Quark. They provide an okay service, at least via the forums (alas not via phone, but no company really does these days), they manage to actually still improve their products with most updates (Photoshop 7 and InDesign 2 being great examples), they still come up with revolutionary new techniques like OTF...

It's just that CS is a very sure sign that Adobe is adopting some bad marketing policies. The suite itself is a solid idea, but the pricing and the activation are quite problematic, I think.

> I�d drop Quark right now if I could.

You can. We did.

> You can. We did.

We will. In time.

> I certainly don't see [Adobe] in the same light as Microsoft.

Not because they're not trying! :-/
A publicly held company is a publicly held company. The public doesn't care about type.

hhp

Thomas, any plans for a free Adobe CS with purchase of Font Folio?

Nick:

Heh. We've talked about things like that, but I can't comment on unannounced bundles. Sorry.

T

Tiffany, my description of "dumping" is straight out of the dictionary. I know it has slightIy offensive connotations, but it is the correct term for an ages-old business practice. I certainly don't mean low quality!

In Adobe's case (and my original introduction of the term dumping was in a thread on the inexpensive Adobe Classics package for schools) yes, they can afford to do it, because being a foundry is not their major source of income, and also yes, cheap in relation to the price of sofware and fonts in the marketplace, and yes, cheap in relation to the investment of time taken to create a high quality original typeface design.

Thomas when I ordered my ugrades to CS I asked about my pet but barely out of beta LiveMotion, the sales guy thought they were going to roll it into one of the existing products. I can believe that because its not part of the CS. Can you hint, I know Adobe policy is not to speculate.