Cloud Software...........

[William Adams]

Adobe Illustrator CS6 is $599 and you own it.

Problem is, it doesn’t seem to be available new. A reseller on Amazon lists it at $1,299.00 (there is a copy of a Flash CS6 at list price from Amazon though — some people like to draw in it)

I’d love to be wrong — we could use another seat at work for an upcoming project.

There are a couple of other vector drawing programs though, for the Mac at least:

- Affinity Designer — https://affinity.serif.com/
- Sketch 3 — bohemiancoding.com

[Bert Kemp]

Adobe Photoshop CS2 free download its old but it works

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

[Michele Welch]

Wow, I'm just trying to figure out why we have 2 pages to even debate this. To each their own and go on to something that will benefit everyone, like actual laser questions and answers. Just my opinion, but dang people.

[Bert Kemp]

DEEP BREATH

Wow, I'm just trying to figure out why we have 2 pages to even debate this. To each their own and go on to something that will benefit everyone, like actual laser questions and answers. Just my opinion, but dang people.

[Jason Hilton]

Why would you pay $599 for obsolete software that may not be supported on new hardware? Eventually you hit a hardware wall. Computer dies and suddenly you have to buy a windows 10 machine that won't run 10 year old software. Or you pay 20$ a month for an always up-to-date app that will still run if your internet goes out.

There's "to each their own" and then there's "your way is kinda dumb, self limiting, and more expensive."

[Julian Ashcroft]

Being a cheapskate, I use Inkscape and and an old version of paint shop pro. I also use Silhouette Studio which came with my vinyl cutter. It works great for designing images, problem is you can't save as as svg or dxf, so I have to screen print and then paste into Inkscape. This actually works better than it sounds.

I use the cloud to store all my work (Dropbox) which means I have access to work on my projects either in my works office, home office or workshop where the laser is.

[Scott Shepherd]

Problem is, it doesn’t seem to be available new. A reseller on Amazon lists it at $1,299.00 (there is a copy of a Flash CS6 at list price from Amazon though — some people like to draw in it)

I’d love to be wrong — we could use another seat at work for an upcoming project.

There are a couple of other vector drawing programs though, for the Mac at least:

- Affinity Designer — https://affinity.serif.com/
- Sketch 3 — bohemiancoding.com

Right on Adobe's own site.....

http://www.adobe.com/products/catalo...?promoid=KFPPW

Click the "Buy" button next to Illustrator, then it'll ask if you want CS6 or the cloud. Pick CS6 and it'll put it in your cart for checkout.

[William Adams]

Thanks. I’ll let my boss know. Odd that when he checked w/ CDW they claimed it was unavailable. Sad that someone is so gouging on Amazon, but that’s typical.

[Doug Griffith]

Why would you pay $599 for obsolete software that may not be supported on new hardware? Eventually you hit a hardware wall. Computer dies and suddenly you have to buy a windows 10 machine that won't run 10 year old software. Or you pay 20$ a month for an always up-to-date app that will still run if your internet goes out.

There's "to each their own" and then there's "your way is kinda dumb, self limiting, and more expensive."

Not dumb at all. Some of us use software to make a living. We learn a version like the back of our hand and don't have the time or need to learn new features when what we have gets the job done. The last thing I want is software that updates without my control. As far as system compatibility goes, there is always a way to get older hardware to run it. I work with some CNCs that run on OS/2, DOS, and Win NT. A few of the proprietary boards require ISA slots. I can still purchase brand new computers that meet my needs. I learn new software in my free time and implement into my workflow when the time is right.

[William A. Foster]

Why would you pay $599 for obsolete software that may not be supported on new hardware? Eventually you hit a hardware wall. Computer dies and suddenly you have to buy a windows 10 machine that won't run 10 year old software. Or you pay 20$ a month for an always up-to-date app that will still run if your internet goes out.

There's "to each their own" and then there's "your way is kinda dumb, self limiting, and more expensive."

You can pick up CorelDraw 5 for under 200 bucks.... and if version 2 works for ya you can get that one free.

[Roy Nielsen]

Why would you pay $599 for obsolete software that may not be supported on new hardware? Eventually you hit a hardware wall. Computer dies and suddenly you have to buy a windows 10 machine that won't run 10 year old software. Or you pay 20$ a month for an always up-to-date app that will still run if your internet goes out.

There's "to each their own" and then there's "your way is kinda dumb, self limiting, and more expensive."

Jason, I find your blindly attacking someone's intellect offensive considering the amount of hard work I've put in to achieve personal, educational, and professional successes in my life and career. Perhaps you may wish to consider the following.

First, let's assess your technology reason. Most modern applications run on top of an operating system's kernel which allows little or no direct communication with the underlying hardware; this means that a well written program will not break due to a new piece of hardware. I think you're trying to imply that new hardware will eventually break the old OS, which is a somewhat valid point due to drivers eventually not being readily available for future hardware. OS makers work very hard to limit breaking of old apps on new OSes. Look at Apple's transition from PowerPC to Intel chips. Apple developed a translation layer that remained for several Mac OSX versions that allowed PPC based apps to continue to run on the Intel processors. Microsoft has done similar to support 16-bit apps on 32-bit OSes, and 32-bit on 64-bit OSes. Do you know that it is even still possible to run some Windows 3.1 apps on Windows 7; possible, although not necessarily easy for everyone.

In the very unlikely event that an old app that runs under Win 7 doesn't under Win 10 (I've tested a few apps that I use under an early public beta of 10, zero problems thus far), a person could run a Win 7 virtual machine on the new hardware and the old app within the virtual machine. A few years ago, for no particular reason, I stood up a Windows 3.1 VM on modern hardware (multi-core CPU, several GBs RAM, etc.), the hardest thing was trying to remember how to get around. Another option would be to run it on Linux under Wine (sounds like Illustrator CS6 runs fairly well and Wine gets better with age). If CPU technology drastically changes, I'd wager that hardware emulators will still exist that would allow running ancient technology.

Second, let's look at your cost argument: After 30 months, assuming Adobe doesn't change the subscription price, a $599 one-time cost becomes less expensive ($20/month x 30 months = $600). Additionally, there may be residual value from that $599 when you no longer need it versus $0 from a subscription plan.

Third, you assume Adobe will continue to provide a locally installable app. Many major app developers are moving the actual computing to the cloud and may not have locally installable versions now or for much longer; look at several of Autodesk's apps. Do you possess inside information to guarantee that Adobe will forever and ever have a locally installable version? While I, personally, appreciate and cloud computing for many purposes, not everyone has access to/needs/wants/can afford quality broadband Internet or may want to trust cloud computing. What would you recommend to people in these aforementioned situations should Adobe go to pure cloud based computing, buy an old version?

That leaves up to date as your only valid argument. Not everyone needs all the latest and greatest features. By your logic, you must be using MS Office 365; which brand new features in it do you require that are not in Office 2013, 2010, 2007, or XP? IT security concerns are also valid, at some future point when Adobe no longer provides maintenance support for the particular version of the app, it would be very wise to either upgrade it or move the hosting OS offline. But, not everyone, especially hobbyists, needs the latest and greatest product. I have a hammer that is over 40 years old and it still drives and pulls nails, even modern nails at that, as well as it did the day my father bought it for me!

I'll even through in another argument for you. A few years ago Adobe shut down the CS2 licensing servers which apparently has made performing fresh legitimate installs difficult. I would expect the same to occur for newer versions.

I'm glad that the subscription model works well for you. I, personally, am still evaluating what will work best for me for Illustrator, it may well be the subscription model, although I may choose an older version or I may determine that I don't need it at all. Due to my professional successes, any of the cost options is not an issue for me at this time, although I don't typically part with my money without considering how all aspects affect my current and foreseeable future situation. Other people's budgets and situations may dictate one path versus another. If I do outright purchase an older version, then I will use business continuity planning methods (even though I'm presently a hobbyist) to limit my risk of not being able to run that version in a secure manner at a future time.

Someone else asked about buying CS6 apps/suites new, it is still available for purchase on Adobe's site just somewhat hidden; Google "Creative Suite 6 products" and it will probably be the first link that takes you directly to the page.

[Bill George]

Maybe Web or Cloud based works for those with fast dependable internet but my trial run of TinkerCAD was a big flop. If I had any more crashes I could sign up for a demolition derby.

I now have downloaded to my computer Autodesk 123D and it would like me to Save to the Cloud sorry, no way. It would be a great problem if the Program fonts were big enough to read.

RhinoCAD has easy to read and see Menus, looks like something to learn 3D on and buy.

[Jason Hilton]

Roy,

I'm not impinging anyones intellect. As for the rest of your points, they are definitely valid, but eventually applications stop working on old machines, no matter what. Additionally, starting out, is it smarter to spend 20$ for 30 months or 599$ up front (assuming you only ever need one app - Said no one ever)? Eventually you'll find you need photoshop as well, and then is it to be another $599 or another 20$ a month? Or do you say no to the job? How many do you say no to? Old software comes with risk, so what is that risk worth? To use your own example, if you've paid $599 to use an old version that requires cloud licensing and then those cloud servers go down, you're tanked. Work stops. How much money are you willing to lose to spend more money to alleviate your fears of the big scary "cloud"? And sure, after 30 months you'll have spend the same as a full version, but by then maybe there's a useful feature you want and you need to upgrade. So then you're paying the 399$ upgrade for another stand-alone version that you would have gotten for free with the subscription. When Adobe first announced the creative cloud there were countless cost analysis against purchasing and maintaining current software under both models, and subscriptions came in cheaper in every case.

You might agree with Doug above that you learn a single version and don't have time to learn something new, but I would counter that a new and improved tool saves you time in the long run. As an example, illustrator recently added the ability to set corner rounding on any shape. That used to require a 3 step process by running a filter, expanding the shape, and ungrouping. If you later wanted to adjust it you had to go back and start again. That simple feature upgrade saves me hours a week some weeks. I also use (and design and built) software for a living. Being willing and able to adapt and take advantage of new features is essential to delivering work efficiently.

With regards to adobe not allowing offline in the future, that's a long way off if if at all, and not a good reason to spend more money for obsolete software now because 10 years from now Adobe "might" go full cloud-based. It's like saying you might have a car accident in the future and so deciding to never drive.

[William Adams]

One problem for me w/ cloud software is it feels like extortion — “That’s a mighty nice graphic design suite you have there, all nice and paid up and activated. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it, a real shame.”

I also find it offensive that rather than compete w/ other companies on their merits, they've bought up a bunch of programs which I used to use and depend upon and have buried them, most notably Macromedia Freehand (just over a decade after the FTC told them that they had to way for 10 years before buying up any competitors). Really miss Touchtype.app, Ares Fontminder and Chameleon, &c. as well.

It’s also pretty obvious that they consciously deferred a number of program features until after they’d moved to the cloud pricing model.

It’s one thing having a monthly bill w/ a company which is local, and which has a local physical presence, thus enforcing standing at the same bar as any local attorney — trying to bring action against a company which is far distant, and whose user agreement specifies standing in some distant courthouse is a much higher bar to deal with.

I’m sure Adobe will keep the program operational enough that people continue to allow the monthly billing since it allows them a reasonable profit, but at some point, other competitors will catch up, and there will be a strategic advantage in not having that monthly (or yearly — if you’re doing this as a business you should probably consider annual payment since it’s less subject to disruption, there have been some real horror stories about applications being deactivated when people were on a tight deadline) bill.

[Jason Hilton]

What you're describing is free-market economics. Companies buy competitors all the time. Adobe acquired Macromedia and continued much of their product line (dreamweaver replaced adobe's web development offering, Flash continued for 10 years) and integrated their best features into their existing products. They're in it to make money.

With regards to the conspiracy theory of deferring product features until the cloud release, well, even if they did it wouldn't matter. If they had done a version release instead you'd still have to pay for it, that's the business model. Add features = make more money on upgrades. Standard practice. Being cloud based means you get those features a lot cheaper.

One problem for me w/ cloud software is it feels like extortion — “That’s a mighty nice graphic design suite you have there, all nice and paid up and activated. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it, a real shame.”

I also find it offensive that rather than compete w/ other companies on their merits, they've bought up a bunch of programs which I used to use and depend upon and have buried them, most notably Macromedia Freehand (just over a decade after the FTC told them that they had to way for 10 years before buying up any competitors). Really miss Touchtype.app, Ares Fontminder and Chameleon, &c. as well.

It’s also pretty obvious that they consciously deferred a number of program features until after they’d moved to the cloud pricing model.

It’s one thing having a monthly bill w/ a company which is local, and which has a local physical presence, thus enforcing standing at the same bar as any local attorney — trying to bring action against a company which is far distant, and whose user agreement specifies standing in some distant courthouse is a much higher bar to deal with.

I’m sure Adobe will keep the program operational enough that people continue to allow the monthly billing since it allows them a reasonable profit, but at some point, other competitors will catch up, and there will be a strategic advantage in not having that monthly (or yearly — if you’re doing this as a business you should probably consider annual payment since it’s less subject to disruption, there have been some real horror stories about applications being deactivated when people were on a tight deadline) bill.