Long term thinking
Maybe the most common response to yesterday’s announcement of Lightroom Mobile has been annoyance at it being tied to a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. I won’t defend that other than by saying that it was pretty inevitable given Adobe’s sudden switch to subscription sales and also results from the nature of the service. But I did think it worth pointing you to some recent commentary on Adobe’s finances and in particular Forbes magazine’s response to an Economist puff piece about how the drop in Adobe’s profits since CC’s launch had been accompanied by a rise in its stock price. Steve Denning writes:
“Wall Street isn’t entirely stupid,” Roger Martin commented to me. “If a cogent argument is made for a different business model, then it will listen. Most such company arguments lack cogency and that’s why they fall on entirely deaf ears. This is particularly interesting because it has long been thought that a traditional license-selling software company can’t cross the chasm into a Software as a Service (SAAS) model because the transitional hit on revenues is just too brutal. Once you get to the other side, it is great and arguably a superior model with a recurring revenue base. But it is brutal to build up that base. It’s important for Adobe to succeed because it will help Wall Street understand that it is doable. Others will then follow.”
While it’s heartening to see Wall Street for once not totally obsessed by the short-term, one can also ask: is this a bold, creative customer-friendly management decision, as The Economist suggests? Or could it be a desperation move in the form of a financial gadget that is aimed at covering up a lack of innovation?
I think it’s worth making a couple of other points. Notice the word “desperation”, which is quite similar to my view last year – Adobe may feel they have no alternative to going down the subscription route. Secondly, as a former corporate financial planning cubicle worker, innovation is just one approach to pressures on profitability – cost-cutting is another.
With LR, i use today the “Search Replace Transfer ” plugin. Very convenient to manipulate IPTC. It save my life when I discovered I was confused between “titre”, “titre”, “libellé” of the french version of LF
Does that mean all these plugins could not be used anymore on SAAS?
The plugins will be fine!
SAAS, if I have well understood, means that the application software is no longer located on the user platform but only on the server of the company.
Apart the fact the price is extremely high for simple user (twice the price of an upgrade), this mean that you absolutely need to be permanently connected. Since you cannot buy the full licence for LR but only upgrade, this clearly means LR5 is probably the last produit on licence basis.
Wait and see the result : either Photo from Apple will not follow SAAS or other developer will offer licence alternatives to LR.
As an exemple, Photoshop is too expensive for my own usage and I use a lighter alternative Pixemator. Hope I will find the same for LR.
I think you have to consider SAAS as a business model – subscriptions rather than sale – and not confuse it with where the software is located. It can be configured in different ways, entirely on the server, entirely on the user platform but with monthly confirmation of the licence, or in a combination of the application being on the user platform but with services which depend on being online. That last option is how Adobe have gone, while Apple will probably charge for online storage if you want to use Photos online feature for large numbers of pictures.
Permanent connection is therefore less of a problem, but it’s not clear how much we will begin to depend on the online services. What if you can’t get online when you’re creating a book which depends on online fonts (eg Adobe Typekit) or if Photos can’t access the changes you made on your iPad?
“Since you cannot buy the full licence for LR but only upgrade, this clearly means LR5 is probably the last produit on licence basis.”
Well, that’s not correct. You can still buy a full LR licence, and Adobe have said this will be “indefinite”. Secondly, if Adobe intended to make LR subscription-only, you have to ask why they didn’t do it last year? Adobe have a number of business models, and you could envisage LR continuing as it is, with encouragements to subscribe.
Hopefully we’re not sleepwalking to disaster.