Does Adobe gamble on cloud computing, burning bridges or overheating?

Adobe has recently decided to turn to the Creative Suite cloud service, abandoning 4.1 billion of dollars in software revenue per year, a move that Microsoft has denounced as "radical", but the fact that there may not be a few news stories seems so exciting.

Yesterday, Adobe announced a total waiver of the creative Suite (CS) series, no longer continues to develop products such as Photoshop CS, focus on Creative Cloud (CC) cloud services, through online subscriptions to provide users with product services, including Photoshop CC, InDesign cc, Illustrator cc, Dreamweaver cc, Premiere Pro cc, etc.

Precious Clouds

According to TNW, Adobe released the Creative Suite in 2003, just 10 years after Adobe decided to turn around at this time, completely abandoning CS and focusing on creative Cloud cloud services. Adobe changed the name of all products to the CC brand, including: Photoshop cc, InDesign cc, Illustrator cc, Dreamweaver cc, Premiere Pro cc, etc. The above products will be officially released June 17 this year.

But in fact, Adobe's "cloud Strategy" is not as thorough as people think, and users still need to download and install large client software (Editor's note: This is almost inevitable for big desktop design software), which is very different from pure SaaS cloud application services such as Salesforce.

It is reported that Adobe's main attraction for users to the cloud subscription service is to stop upgrading the boxed software, although Adobe says it will continue to provide support for creative Suite6, but future major application upgrades and updates will be diverted to cloud subscription services. This means that no one will "own" the latest creative suite software in the future, and that users will need to continue to use the creative Cloud cloud services as they pay for a fee.

According to the market research company Sanford Bernstein Analysis:

Of the world's approximately 12.8 million creative suite users, 6.2 million are using the older version of Creative Suite software, only 4.1 million users use the latest creative 6, and only less than 500,000 users use Adobe push creative Cloud cloud services.

Obviously, Creative Cloud is not favored by Adobe users, for the simple reason that crative Cloud's cloud services are expensive. The official guidance for the current version of Creative Suite 6 is 2500 dollars, but if upgraded from an old one, "just" 600 dollars. The price of Creative Cloud is $50 a month for each user, and almost 600 dollars a year. Overall shift to cloud services while it will greatly improve the revenue curve for Adobe, it is basically a rejection for those who have a slower internet connection and a more flat wallet.

The broken wrist of a mighty warrior

In the past decade, Adobe has been a ill-fated company, and the rising Apple has abandoned its heyday of flash, cutting the adobe's mobile computing strategic arteries down the block. And Adobe's expensive high-end desktop design software has been hit hard by marketing companies and media companies cutting spending. At the same time, the rise of Open-source software and SaaS Services is also a threat to Adobe's future, facing internal, long-run worries, Eadobe no time for a smooth transition like Microsoft's "Boxed + cloud Services", which must evolve in a radical way, and creative Cloud is the death and the offspring of the desperate.

Mark Moerdler, an investment firm Sanford Bernstein analyst Mark Modler, said Adobe was confident that the number of users creative cloud in 2015 would grow to 4 million.

Adobe's management is confident about the appeal of Creative Cloud, because CC has four main selling points: Regular updates, low price thresholds, cloud storage and community. In addition Creative Cloud's own community attributes also have the ability to spread the virus.

But Adobe's ally, Microsoft, does not agree with Adobe's "Broken wrist" cloud strategy, and Microsoft thinks it is too radical for Adobe to give up CS immediately. Microsoft itself has launched the cloud subscription version of Office:office 365, but has not discontinued the traditional Office 2013 software.

Microsoft pointed out that currently, the cloud subscription model does not apply to all consumers, should also provide stand-alone installation version and the cloud subscription version of the product. "Unlike Adobe, we think it will take a long time for users to move from packaged software to subscription services." "We think that everyone will eventually choose to subscribe to the model because its merits are undeniable, but at present we are more willing to provide consumers with a variety of options: packaged software primarily to online subscriptions as a supplement." ”

Microsoft's reluctance to suspend the sale of boxed software is because the Office suite remains Microsoft's cash cow, and Adobe on the boxed software will have a strong broken wrist short-term financial performance has a greater impact, after all, from the Boxed software license Sales Model suddenly switch to the long cloud subscription service will produce a powerful "Duncuo sense".

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)