Comments on: Farce: Adobe CEO flatly refuses Australian price questions (video)

By: GimpyGimpGimp

GimpyGimpGimp — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:54:46 +0000

They seem to be blissfully unaware of the rest of the world. Bit like VMWare not noticing that there is at least one commercial Xen version now with good features that doesn’t cost limbs and firstborns.

Gimp works fine now, the only problems it has are with Adobe products and those will be fixed shortly, see what happened with OpenOffice (ie., it Works now).

For movie-making the arena is full of options now, I haven’t even heard someone *use* the term ‘After Effects’ for a long time.

So what does that leave them with?

Flash – dead. Deady dead dead, good riddance. Next.

PDF – a Reader that has a ton of alternatives, a god-awful overcomplicated Writing suite that nobody, NOBODY, uses (when the accountant at a previous job tried to use it for distributed forms she was reprimanded, poor woman but she wasn’t aware of how useless it really was), and at least 2 Converters from other formats that work perfectly. Next.

Photoshop – Adobe’s “Word”. The Cash Cow. Mhmm? Yeah? What else you got Adobe?

Next.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:17:54 +0000

I’ve been a paying customer since CS3. Now I will pirate out of spite. f**k you adobe

By: joe

joe — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:24:52 +0000

Gone are the days when Adobe knew how to innovate, like http://pixlr.com/editor/ does. Adobe lost both connection with & empathy of designers.
This cross-armed barrier to discussion is a clear message to customers. It says “we don’t care what you want to ask, we want you to buy x, not y, and will therefore ignore all your clear questions about y”, regardless of wether you think y is your better option, x is the way forward, according to what our shareholders like.

oh, did I say shareholders? http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/adbe
they’re happy….

By: Esteban

Esteban — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:05:11 +0000

Lets be honest the current suite you have already does the job. Adobe and their suits can go jump in the lake cloud lake. If they are going to treat us like idiots they can stick their proverbial endless useless upgrades and Cloud horse manure where the sun don’t shine!

I am not upgrading my suite anymore. If we all did that it would send the strongest message.

Plus what features do we really need that we are not already using. Software upgrade has become a silly game we all play. CS6 runs worse than CS5 !! – Its time we unhooked from the Matrix – the upgrading slaves we have become.

I am plugging.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:16:39 +0000

I thinik the “Cloud” Narayen refers to is the one where Adobe executives have their heads.

I send clients who need Photoshop to the Pixlr dot com site. It has layers and does a darn good job for most simple graphic applications … for free. Wide berth Adobe where possible. I hope a software development company like Autodesk comes up with a program that eats CS.

It’s about the cloud … the cloud of dust Adobe will see when people rush off to another product.

By: Cam

Cam — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:33:41 +0000

This was mentioned on TWiT Episode 393.

I’m only disappointed that Leo didn’t know who you were.

On a related note, I was looking at the Microsoft Technet subscription prices this morning.

In America it’s US$199, but here it’s AU$337.

Almost spat my coffee at the screen… so much for the strong Aussie dollar.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:18:44 +0000

What is with all this cloud bullshit and having to pay a monthly fee to access this stuff. If I was to cloud all my solutions and pay monthly it would cost me a couple of hundred or more per month to use them, bugger that, sell me a full desktop version only please at a fair and comparable price to the rest of the world including the US prices.

What I got out of this guys replies is that Adobe ‘thinks’ what customers want, however I wonder if they have actually asked what customers want, that would be a first for Adobe.

By: SMEMatt

SMEMatt — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:59:50 +0000

So what Adobe have effectively admitted now is that the price is justifiable because they have a product delivered by the exact same method and i expect using the exact same back end infrastructure, they they charge the same* price for. So the only reason they have left is that they are signaling to the channel that will not compete on price, isn’t this price fixing.

By: NPSF3000

NPSF3000 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:13:01 +0000

Meh, I’m just happy Adobe are finally offering a affordable monthly licensing option. Sure, it comes a few years too late for me [decided to move platforms] but it’s still a decent move.

By: Nathan B

Nathan B — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 01:13:43 +0000

Have you seen his interview at the All Things D 2011 conference? I love how Walt Mossberg owns him with the comment “I have yet to test a single [Androit device] where Flash tests really well”.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/03/adobe-ceo-has-no-beef-with-apple-no-answer-for-poor-flash-perfo/

By: Renai LeMay

Renai LeMay — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:20:38 +0000

I haven’t removed the YouTube comments, but I have switched them off. Some were too vicious to leave up, so I tried to moderate them, but there are bugs in the YouTube moderation system; the comments would reappear after I deleted them. Eventually I gave up and was forced to remove the comments functionality entirely. It’s a shame; I had expected YouTube as a platform to be more stable by now :(

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:17:25 +0000

The YouTube comments for this video were predictably vicious. Did someone from Adobe ask you to remove them?

Did they bribe you, ideally with a “When we think about the future what’s the best offer for customers and we think about the creative cloud we think we have a great offering at a great price” t-shirt?

Or did they just comment on your remarkably healthy yet fragile kneecaps and leave it at that?

By: Spud

Spud — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:59:44 +0000

Arrogant display by Adobe.

Will reconsider any future purchase from them.

By: Stephen H

Stephen H — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:25:52 +0000

Adobe has created some pretty insecure software lately. They either don’t care, or don’t have the skills they need.

By: jingo

jingo — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 05:13:55 +0000

great job Renai, should make this the front page/top story over the weekend

By: Josh Mehlman

Josh Mehlman — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:06:25 +0000

Love your work Renai, though David Stratton would wish you’d brought a tripod. This is something our PR friends should use in media training classes for execs, and also in how-to-shut-down-the-loudmouth-journo classes.

By: SMEMatt

SMEMatt — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 02:37:08 +0000

Apple have a problem with Adobe over Adobe holding them to ransom when they wanted to remove some APIs from Mac OS, Adobe said fine we won’t release Photoshop for the mac if you remove the API; Apple would have been screwed as they didn’t have much going for them at the time (pre iPhone and the iPod really taking off). When it came to iOS apple didn’t want to have a key product like flash or the Adobe development tool to get in a position where they could dictate what API they need to keep. Although the flash thing I think is mostly just spite and money, as the flash run-time for MacOS is developed by Apple the API issue isn’t a problem.

By: Gunfight at the OK Corel

Gunfight at the OK Corel — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 02:12:33 +0000

“Good morning Mr Narayen…..”
“Yes it is but a little cloudy, don’t you think, some clouds are good though like our new Creative Cloud which is best for cust……”
“Ok, thanks, how are you liking Australia?”
“I love Australia, it makes me so much money but this can sometimes cloud the real issues here. Speaking of cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud is the way to go, shatzy, don’t you think? You just log in, pay the subscription and everything is always updat…..”
“Yes, fine; OK Mr Narayen – have you tried our Australian beer?”
“Why yes; I love Cooper’s ‘Cloudy Ale’ the reason is……”
“I thjink we might know the reason Mr Narayen….um…I’m trying to get a profile on Mr Narayen the person here; a human interest story on the CEO of a major software company….what kind of music do you like?”
“Oh I’m sooo glad you asked that. I loooove Joni Mitchell. You know that beautiful song *sings* ‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still I’ve found….”
“If I can just interrupt you there Mr Narayen…”
“Bows and flows of angel hair; Ice-cream castles in the air ” *dances whirlingly*
“Thank you Mr Narayen, I think we’ll leave it there.”
*Narayen changes tempo, snaps fingers, taps foot* :”They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (oooooh bab-dab-da-doo-dah!); With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swingin’ hot – spot…(Yeeeeeaaaaaah!)”

PR Flak: “I’d like to thank you all for your attendance and very informed questions here today, I hope you have enjoyed the Adobe spirit of openness and candour as much as we have.

Senator Conroy: “Are there any free sandwiches after?”
(Background: “And a big yellow taxi took away my old man…oooooooh!”)

Barry O’Farrell: “Like I said last week. Politicians, like some CEOs, are akin to diapers….full of it and in need of regular change…..”

By: DB6

DB6 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:47:52 +0000

For God’s sake…answer the bloody question!!

As a CEO of a multinational company it obvious the man has never taken a course in public relations, or in addressing the media by looking at his body language…101…never fold your arms when answering a question.

Adobe won’t get very far when they front the Senate enquiry in April…Aussie pollies don’t like being answered using their own tactics.

A shameful and contemptuous display by a CEO.

By: Angus McDonald

Angus McDonald — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:39:59 +0000

Nice how the guy in the background smirks the first time the CEO dodges your question. Creative Cloud sounds like the ‘best way to make money’ for Adobe … not best value for customers.