Savageduck
On 2013-11-15 23:33:21 +0000, Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz>said:

Eric Stevens
A few weeks ago I had an interesting discussion with a guy whose background was in marketing and who had recently retired from an advertising firm.

He pointed out that Adobe have two classes of customers for their graphics products. There are the ordinary mortals like most of us who use Paintshop etc because we want to. Call these group 1. And then there are the people who earn their money in the field and for whom, for various reasons, there is no real alternative. Call them group 2. He said that for practical purposes this second group are locked in.

He then made the point that although if Adobe raised their prices they caused a number of group 1 to drop out, virtually all of group 2 had to stay in. Basically Adobe were happy as long as the gains from group 2 exceeded the losses from group 1.

Savageduck
They already do, and that is globally. There are Creative Cloud graphics & design professionals everywhere and they use all parts of the suite. Photography, both amateur & professional is but a small part of the total Adobe market.

Eric Stevens
Neither of us knew whether or not Adobe had effectively raised their prices but my friend suspects that the prices will be effectively higher once the introductory discount period is over.

Savageduck
The introductory price of $10 US/month is for current owners of CS3-CS6. Newcomers to Photoshop CC (single module) are looking at $20/month right now.

Eric Stevens
Outsiders can't easily tell without knowledge of update and renewal figures but my friends feeling was that Adobe would end up making more money per licensee out of their cloud software.

Savageduck
Yup! because there were/are users of CS3 who had no intention of upgrading to CS4, CS5, or CS6 for $200 a step, now they can jump to PS CC and get LR5 at what amounts to a bargain, and Adobe gets a subscriber who might have vowed never to sent them another cent.

Eric Stevens
He also said he suspected that Adobe prices would tend to squeeze out the amateur photographer (particularly in those parts of the world where Adobe prices are higher than the US). As has already been suggested here, he thought that this would leave room for others to fill the void being left behind by Adobe.

Savageduck
Actually Adobe has made the Photoshop/Lightroom combo more affordable, or attainable for that class of photographer than ever before. Now instead of having to find $600-$900 US for PS & another $150 for LR. all they have to come up with is $20/month or whatever the 1 year ticket costs. If they have already got a DSLR + lenses, or any of the cameras in a similar price range, and the necessary computer, they can easily afford the rent on the Adobe products.

Eric Stevens
Yesterday, when I closed Corel's PhotoPaint Pro I found myself staring at a pop-up telling me that as an existing user I could buy Corel Draw's Home and Student Suite for $69.99 as opposed to the normal price of $99.99 (These may be NZ$ in which case US prices may be even cheaper). Never having heard of Corel Draw's Home and Student Suite I went looking and found:

http://www.corel.com/static/product_content/cdgs/hs2014/CDHS2014_Comparison_Matrix_EN.pdf

Savageduck
Obviously

Eric Stevens
the student's suite is a stripped-down version of the full Graphic Suite but from reviews it would seem that so much has been removed that for experienced users it is only somewhat better than a toy. Pity.

Savageduck
They don't quite explain exactly what those missing "Pro features" are, beyond the reduced content.

Eric Stevens
Nevertheless, Corel seems to be under pricing Adobe and trying to move into the group 1 segment of the market. It is particularly interesting that they are aiming at students: catch and train them young and you have got them for life. :-)

Savageduck
...and yet the CC will remain the standard and all those students using Corel products are going to have to make the change.

Don't forget Adobe also has its student and education packages, also available via the Creative Cloud. So a school set up with a CC account would be giving students access to all the Adobe design tools.

Eric Stevens
I also notice that Corel is developing a range of products for Apple. Nothing much yet but watch that space.

Savageduck
We shall see.