Last month, Adobe made the decision to make their new Creative Suite subscription only. While initial response was good, those who were simply paying for the program upfront are less than happy.
However, Adobe Systems, Inc. still beat analyst profitability expectations last quarter by three cents a share. Creative Cloud subscribers jumped from 220,000 to over 700,000 in just the one quarter. Regardless of the huge jump and extra profitability, Adobe is still considering an option for those who are not happy with subscription-only services.
Net income for the business last quarter was a smidge over $259 million. While the company’s revenue has decreased around 10% in the last year, shares still jumped 4.5% percent (or $1.98).
While Adobe took plenty of time to make their decision about subscription-only services, the company says they “acknowledge the difficult transition”. Currently, the subscription-based version of Adobe costs $50 a month and requires a full one-year commitment. The Creative Cloud includes Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, and tons of tools for Web publishing that can only be found on the Cloud. In general, people are simply complaining about being unable to work offline and, in addition, being able to split the programs for individual pricing.
“While we will continue to offer CS6 on a perpetual basis, the feedback from our community is important, and we are evaluating additional options that will help them with the transition,” Chief Executive Shanatanu Narayen said. “Our goal is to over-deliver on customer expectations, which we believe will make the entire community ultimately embrace Creative Cloud.”
Hopefully, we’ll see a-la-carte prices, downloadable versions or a reduction in price depending on how long you’ve been a customer. Time will tell what Adobe will decide to do.
Photo Credit: Adobe