Adobe CS2 Woes
April 8, 2005
I recently purchased the entire Adobe Creative Suite about two months ago, patting myself on the back for investing in software which helps aide in my creativity. A few weeks later, as probably everyone is aware, Adobe announced a new update — available in May — to the Creative Suite, dubbing it CS2 (or appropriately Creative Suite 2).
One of the coolest features included in the update is the Vanishing Point, a tool which allows you to digitally “clone, brush, and paste elements that automatically match the perspective of any image area.” Since I had purchased it in February I figured I’d qualify for the free upgrade which Adobe calls the “Post Announcement Upgrade”.
Apparently the only people who qualify for the upgrade are those who’ve purchased CS 1.3 between April 1st and July 31st, 2005. What confuses me is the fact that noone would purchase the original CS when they could have the Creative Suite 2 for the same price, so I propose that Adobe revise their free upgrade policy, allowing those who’ve purchased previous versions of their software within 90 days before the announcement to qualify, not the other way around. According to one of the salespeople I spoke with at Adobe their policy can account for a certain amount of time before the announcement date, but they aren’t allowed to disclose that information.
Adobe, I love your software but your upgrade policy needs some tweaking.
14 comments
If our father taught us anything, it’s fight back when things looked screwed up. If I were you, I would mail em a letter, email their tech support, call in their front office receptionist, try to get the upgrade. I mean, seriously, what do you have to lose. You just invested a good chunk of change you coulda used on something else and PIRATED the software. I did this with some movie tickets that I couldnt get refunded for that lousy movie “Cursed”. Two months later I got the tickets AND 4 free movie tickets for my problems.
Go get em erik. Or give me your info and I’ll get the upgrade. Lol.. Reminds me of the time when you’d send me to get fries/ice cream etc because you were to shy.. Good times.
by Matt (brother) on April 8, 2005 at 11:49 am. #
Adobe has really disappointed me ever since CS came out. There were some massive issues(one involving resizing) in CS(1) and these were never patched.
I was not aware of their small time frame that you have mentioned, but it is starting to sound like a trend.
by Mark Michon on April 9, 2005 at 12:16 am. #
A sad trend at that.
At times I’m almost hesistent to invest in software, like CS for instance, because it seems that product updates are just around the corner. I’m not sure this upgrade in particular warrants a $4–600.00 upgrade tag seeing as though only a sprinkling of features were added to this release.
by kartooner on April 9, 2005 at 4:15 pm. #
Like they say in New York.….“hey, forget about it”
by dad on April 10, 2005 at 9:12 pm. #
I only update every couple releases or so because I can’t keep up financially with their upgrades usually.
I’d take your brother’s advice — when pressed, companies can do the right thing. Apple, for instance, has gone out of their way to correct some major errors with their hardware/software for friends I know. They bitched and Apple made it right for them. Give it a whirl!
by Max on April 11, 2005 at 3:02 pm. #
Max: I tried convincing Adobe to see it my way, but they weren’t willing to see “eye to eye”. As I mentioned, their “Post Announcement Upgrade” policy is that the individual is only eligible for an upgrade if they purchased CS1 between April 1st and June 31st, 2005. It just seems absurd that anyone in their right mind would purchase the older version of Creative Suite when the upgrade is available.
If Adobe has a “Post Announcement Upgrade” then surely they should consider a “Pre-announcement Upgrade” for those who purchased an older version. I think 90 days would be fair enough.
by kartooner on April 12, 2005 at 9:20 am. #
Ha ha, you paid for photoshop…
Man, I hope nobody from Adobe reads your site…
by Scott on April 13, 2005 at 1:51 pm. #
Well this is the way it is, I with a team of Adobe techs they are not Adobe employees but an outsourced company(No names because of non-disclosure agreement) both tech and customer service support team is only allowed to repeat what Adobe tells them to say so if you really want to get your problem resolved and actually speak to people who can fix it just call 206.675.7000(corporate office) and say that you are not getting it done calling sales support and want to talk to somebody about the upgrade policy because you are thinking about never buying the S/W again
my 2 cents Zyphon
by BRA on April 14, 2005 at 12:23 am. #
I just had a call from Adobe responding to my letter to the ceo complaining about the upgrade policy (I bought CS 2 months ago as well). The caller didn’t seem to think that I understood the policy and explained yet again about the post April 1 thing, so I don’t think I’ll waste any more time on this (it’s like arguing with a cat). But the future doesn’t look to good as these boys now more or less have a monopoly in the graphics software area
by Tony on May 4, 2005 at 4:46 am. #
I also purchased CS Premium in early February only to discover this major new version was available less than 90 days afterward. Adobe has not budged on the upgrade price; I will have to pay another $500 for the privilege of using this new version.
I’m honestly considering ending my 17-year relationship with Adobe over this. (The last time I was in this mood was when they killed Type-on-Call support without letting me know; I nearly lost thousands of dollar in fonts purchases. And did they offer an upgrade path to the OpenType Library when it was released? Nooo.) I don’t think this upgrade policy is fair treatment. Furthermore their response to it has been condescending and unmoving. This is not the Adobe I fell in love with. In fact, I’m nearly furious.
The only additional point of leverage I can think of is to contact the Justice department to file anti-trust complaints over the impending merger of Macromedia and Adobe. If they are acting this way when they have some modicum of competition, how will they act when they have the desktop graphics market sown up? And do you think Microsoft could get away with something like this if they had a similar policy for Office upgrades?
by Bill on May 10, 2005 at 10:00 am. #
UPDATE: I received a call from an Adobe representative this afternoon. They are going to give me a free upgrade to CS2 after all. Yippee!
by Bill on May 12, 2005 at 3:45 pm. #
Great to hear that Bill. On my end of things, despite numerous calls to their Customer Service department, they don’t seem willing to budge or see it my way.
I wonder what could be done to persuade them otherwise.
by kartooner on May 13, 2005 at 1:19 am. #
In my case, I called the customer service group/ When I got stonewalled by the front-line rep, I asked to speak with a supervisor. When the supervisor stonewalled, I asked to speak with his supervisor. My name, phone number, and serial number was taken down and I was promised a callback. It was “Howard” who called me back, apologized for the earlier responses, and took the order for my free upgrade.
If you can’t get the same result, it seems to me a complaint regarding the anti-trust issue would be the ultimate recourse. Adobe CS is the equivalent of “Microsoft Office” for design professionals, and I couldn’t imagine Microsoft getting away with this sort of policy.
by Bill on May 13, 2005 at 5:37 pm. #
[…] I can’t wait to check this out, but Erik and I are bummed as we had both recently bought Adobe CS… just not recently enough to qualify for Adobe’s stingy Adobe CS 2 upgrade policy.
[…]
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