We just moved into Microsoft’s cloud (I am the IT person, and I had a couple of hired guns to help). The real reason for the Cloud is to get rid of IT departments. It is a pretty dumb business model, but many business people prefer to see predictable steady outflows of cash over investing a lot of cash at one time in capital and expensing it out over time. Short event horizons
Might be worth pointing out that the equivalent Adobe Creative Suite products over it’s life cycle from 2003 through 2012 were priced between $1300 and $2600 a seat for each release (depending on the mix of products, six releases in that time period). Even the upgrade price was between 500 and 900 dollars if you upgraded with every version (this is based on the price lists for version 4 and 5, the price might have been less for 1/2/3 and more for 6).
For the “Master Suite” which is equivalent to the current online offering the price looked something like this from 2003 to 2012:
$2600+$900+$900+$900+$900+$900=$7100
The benefit to Adobe wasn’t really in increasing the price to normal corporate users who were already buying licenses and upgrading with every release, the benefit was in reducing piracy. The price is generally stable/lower for the type of users who were upgrading on every release (corporate design users), and the revenue for Adobe has increased by increasing the number of users.
It’s more than software that is for rent to rent as “owners” of certain digitally downloaded media properties have been forced to learn.
iTunes store has removed certain properties from downloading even for clients who have purchased them. If you have an existing intact download your rights are protected (so far). But if your download is lost or damaged too bad. I think Amazon has had some similar incidents, I tend to suspect that the terms change as rights to certain properties change hands over time.
And it’s not like a similar problem doesn’t exist if you have the “physical” media – CDs dating from the 80s and 90s are already becoming unreadable and a lot of DVDs etc will suffer a similar fate.
One of the most insidious aspects of the new media landscape is that ownership has been arrogated to mean whatever the property owners decide it to mean. Coming soon: “Click to accept these license agreements prior to viewing your new movie/tv show/book etc.”
Was it Kindle or Amazon that tried the You don’t own it book approach?
Recently updated my QuickBooks because the mothball it every 3 years if you want to be able to do your payroll. I considered the cloud version but that was going to be $1050/yr to cover my 2 business vs the roughly $600 to buy it with support.
I think that there are some benefits of renting, especially as a small business. To do better, it often means to join competitors and build IT support together. You know, I have to make choices about what is best for me in the short run.
We just moved into Microsoft’s cloud (I am the IT person, and I had a couple of hired guns to help). The real reason for the Cloud is to get rid of IT departments. It is a pretty dumb business model, but many business people prefer to see predictable steady outflows of cash over investing a lot of cash at one time in capital and expensing it out over time. Short event horizons
Might be worth pointing out that the equivalent Adobe Creative Suite products over it’s life cycle from 2003 through 2012 were priced between $1300 and $2600 a seat for each release (depending on the mix of products, six releases in that time period). Even the upgrade price was between 500 and 900 dollars if you upgraded with every version (this is based on the price lists for version 4 and 5, the price might have been less for 1/2/3 and more for 6).
For the “Master Suite” which is equivalent to the current online offering the price looked something like this from 2003 to 2012:
$2600+$900+$900+$900+$900+$900=$7100
The benefit to Adobe wasn’t really in increasing the price to normal corporate users who were already buying licenses and upgrading with every release, the benefit was in reducing piracy. The price is generally stable/lower for the type of users who were upgrading on every release (corporate design users), and the revenue for Adobe has increased by increasing the number of users.
Adobe CS isn’t a cheap product.
It’s more than software that is for rent to rent as “owners” of certain digitally downloaded media properties have been forced to learn.
iTunes store has removed certain properties from downloading even for clients who have purchased them. If you have an existing intact download your rights are protected (so far). But if your download is lost or damaged too bad. I think Amazon has had some similar incidents, I tend to suspect that the terms change as rights to certain properties change hands over time.
And it’s not like a similar problem doesn’t exist if you have the “physical” media – CDs dating from the 80s and 90s are already becoming unreadable and a lot of DVDs etc will suffer a similar fate.
One of the most insidious aspects of the new media landscape is that ownership has been arrogated to mean whatever the property owners decide it to mean. Coming soon: “Click to accept these license agreements prior to viewing your new movie/tv show/book etc.”
Was it Kindle or Amazon that tried the You don’t own it book approach?
Recently updated my QuickBooks because the mothball it every 3 years if you want to be able to do your payroll. I considered the cloud version but that was going to be $1050/yr to cover my 2 business vs the roughly $600 to buy it with support.
I would prefer a cloud, but at additional cost?
I think that there are some benefits of renting, especially as a small business. To do better, it often means to join competitors and build IT support together. You know, I have to make choices about what is best for me in the short run.