Adobe lays off 900 staff - CS4 slow seller

[gordo]

Adobe lays off 600 workers, CS4 demand weaker than expected | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

"Adobe said demand for Creative Suite 4 was weaker than expected and “the main cause for the shortfall in fourth quarter revenue.” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said the global economic downturn hurt revenue."

best, gordo

[Cory Smith]

The release cycle on the CS suites have been short. I also wonder at what point does the tank run dry in the new features department. Sure there are some great features in CS4 but no "killer" feature IMO.

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

[jlazerus]

I posted this message on the ZDnet comments for this article also:

CS4 demand weaker than [b]Adobe[b/] expected! I do not see ANY
reason for our business to continue to shell out cash for software
products that do not noticeably improve productivity, but rather create
productivity slowdowns due to cumbersome upgrades that seem to fail
more often than they work. In addition, now we have to spend time on
the learning curve for the new product, not to mention undocumented
incompatibilities with the OS and/or existing plugins. THANKS A LOT!

Maybe Adobe should cull some of their product line, now that they've
decided to take over the content creation world. Adobe has so many
products now, it's difficult to determine what they do exactly. Web?
Print? Design? Should everything be a PDF, or what? Adobe started with
the Postscript code, but has gone so far afield of that, one would be
hard pressed to say exactly what it is they do.

600 people losing their jobs is not cool, and I'm sure very few of those
people are in upper management. I agree- stop trying to sell your loyal
customer base useless upgrades every 18 months.

Sincerely,
Regular Guy's experiments in www

[Morning Flight]

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

Cory, while I agree that Adobe's version cycles are too short, your wife may want to keep an eye on upgrade eligibility to avoid having to pay for the full version down the road. I own CS3, so I can afford to sit out the upgrade.

Hal
http://www.printshopmakeover.com/

[Tech]

The release cycle on the CS suites have been short. I also wonder at what point does the tank run dry in the new features department. Sure there are some great features in CS4 but no "killer" feature IMO.

My wife owns a graphic design business and the cost of keeping up with CS is just too much. I think she is still on CS 2, which meets her needs just fine.

I agree, new features in CS4 really are not killers that everyone need and full updates are indeed too fast. I certainly wouldn't push our Creative Dept to upgrade unless our printers stop supporting CS3. CS2-CS3 does everything we need as well.

This is the same problem with Quark, people really don't need 7 or 8 when v6.5 does a fine job as is.

[Brad38CMU]

I 100% agree with all of you. I work in graphics for a large flexo printer and we could get by with CS if our customers would supply us the files. There haven't been any major upgrades that increase our productivity since I began using the products in 2004 (I'm still a newbie).

[Vee]

You'd think if they would lay off the upgrades, and incorporate the "new features" of say two upgrades into one, they would get more interest in a purchase. Keep the folks in suspense instead of cramming upgrades down our throats on the regular.

[prepressguru]

I agree 100% stick with what works. Newer doesn't always mean better. And since when should we purchase a new version just to get bugs fixed.

Good luck

[traceysl]

In a bad economy, people are only buying what they absolutely must and no more. And the other thing about these upgrades: it's never JUST the Adobe stuff; it's all the plug-ins as well. The Creative Suites are great buys for people who don't already have the software, but not for those who've already made their investment.

[SnappySteve]

If it were not for the fact that we are ASN members, we would not have CS4 yet either. Unfortunately, we have some design clients that are upgraded as soon as the dvd's are on the shelf for purchase. We could function fine with 2 or 3, although 4 does have some nice features. Not enough to warrant full ticket for the suite, but nice.