Adobe’s biz model change leaves partners confused

Adobe India's decision to stop offering Creative Suite 6(CS6) commercial licenses under cumulative and transactional license program has attracted mixed reaction from its partners.

In a letter to its partners titled ‘Changes to CS 6 in India' Adobe mentioned that since its launch of creative cloud apps the company has ‘witnessed a large majority of the customers (both new and existing) in India are adopting Create Cloud membership over the earlier Creative Suite licenses.'

Setting this as a pretext, Adobe announced that beginning December2, 2013 it will no longer offer CS6 perpetual licenses in India and move to creative cloud. However, it also mentioned that the there has been no change to Adobe Acrobat and PPBU software under the TLP or CLP program. 

One of the platinum partners of Adobe, who wished not to be named, said that moving the business to cloud is not a wrong business model and is sustainable. He says that people who are working on short term projects are the clear beneficiary, as now they use pay-per-use model. But, he emphasized, people who eat and live on Adobe-media and advertising industry-have to end up paying more on the face value.

But, he mentions even in the perpetual licenses, one ends up paying for upgrades and subsequently the cost increases. However, he mentioned that the official announcement was abrupt. He added, "There were rumors but no clarity as to when they would do this. This sudden announcement has taken some partners aback."

On the flipside of this announcement, he mentioned, " It becomes little difficult to convince enterprise customers-who have already approved the licensing model-to move into cloud, as the process has to be again followed. But adobe is not shying away and has assured to work in unison with the customers."

Another partner, who transacts a relatively small size of Adobe India's business, has shared his unhappiness on this announcement and even he did not wished to be named. He indicted the company for not following the rules of the game.
He said, "The company has fired the gun from our shoulders. The company should have announced this at least a month before. The prices have increased and I am unsure how I am going to convince the dealers. It is an irresponsible act."
Another platinum partner, Sudhir Kothari of Embee Software, Kolkata shared his unhappiness. He said, "The Company should not have forced its customers to move onto cloud."

But, CEO of Value Point TechSol, Ashok Prabhu liked to differ. He said that the decision has not been abrupt as the plan to move onto the creative cloud part has been there in the market from many days.
He added, "The message was communicated to customers that perpetual licenses were to be taken off as the Adobe stopped upgrade on CS6 perpetual license model." 

He mentioned that moving onto cloud is not expensive as in case of perpetual licenses, the cost of upgrades should not be forgotten, which ultimately increases the cost of acquisition.

On whether it was forced to consumers, he adds, "Let the customers decide."  
DQ Channel spoke to Vineet Sood, director, channel sales & slliances (South Asia) at Adobe Systems and he mentioned the company's decision has not been abrupt as it was slowly built up and was gradual. He asks, "We have devised a partner program to suit the change, how can it be abrupt?"

He adds, "Adobe's decision to stop offering CS6 perpetual license has been made very clear over a period of long time

"He also emphasized that everything is moving onto cloud and so is the large population. He adds, "Therefore, it made sense for us to move onto the cloud."