DISQUS

centernetworks · 7 months ago

isn't it cheaper to buy via amazon?

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

If it's cheaper to buy on Amazon, I haven't checked. I also don't know if Amazon would offer the "instant download" I expect, but I can look. I just don't want to get double charged and add that to the list of issues.

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins · 7 months ago

Isn't it cheaper to pirate the software?

I kid, of course, but I will say this: As someone who wasn't patient enough to wait a day for the free version of Windows today, I didn't have any customer service issues in getting my order resolved when I clicked the torrent link on ThePirateBay.

Fabrice · 7 months ago

Something very similar happend to me with Adobe 6 month ago. I think this has to do with ordering over the weekend... I had to place the order again. The second time worked well tough and I enjoyed the product upgrade within minutes of my order.

somenice · 7 months ago

I seem to be lucky with their products. Never had problems with download orders or Adobe updater. Two common gripes. The download version was confusing though as I was faced with tons of extra content and mac/win versions. The real tough part is waiting for the GB's of data to actually download. I even had a internet outage mid-download and the downloader picked up where it left off.

Andrea · 7 months ago

Louis, it could be your credit card. A lot of credit cards put holds on online orders over $750 or whatever. When I was at Dell I had to deal with so many angry business owners because their cards had been rejected, it was always a matter of the cc fraud throwing up a flag. In any case I would contact your cc company and see if they charged you or authorised your card (both might show up on your online statement looking like a charge but the auth would fall off after a week).

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

It's not the credit card. I just talked to those guys and they said they approved it last night. So we're back at Adobe.

Alan Chamberlain · 7 months ago

Maybe Adobe should read Tara Hunt's "The Whuffie Factor". They can get it online at Amazon. :-)

crisatunity · 7 months ago

Now you know why I stopped purchasing any Adobe products in 1992. Given your rather pedestrian example, it demonstrates that absolutely nothing has changed since then when it comes to Adobe's awful service infrastructure.

funkyboy · 7 months ago

Have you tried posting something about this on twitter? Looks like the only way to get some attention nowadays :)

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

My blog posts go to Twitter. And I did hear from JP at Adobe last night, after finally getting access to the software.

Riaz Kanani · 7 months ago

I have had the same experience multiple times with Adobe's online store so it is no different in the UK :(

Lethality · 7 months ago

Call your bank. Don't be so smug.

Many times there is automatic protection put in place by banks if they detect what could be fraudulent activity. A sudden $1000 online purchase could be just like that if its out of your buying habits, or you've already made a larger spend elsewhere and exceeded a limit.

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

It's not about being smug. Purchases of $1,000+ are not too uncommon, and have never been stopped before. It turned out that Adobe was just confused. The credit card company absolutely approved the order.

Kfir Pravda · 7 months ago

Had exactly the same experience with them. Adobe sucks in this aspect. Shame.

Ed · 7 months ago

That is horrendous. I know that frustration from other companies.
Ridiculous experience for 2009. No excuses.
(Hell it was ridiculous putting folks
through this all along).

At least you have a voice with today's available user media.

Adobe should be listening on Twitter etc

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

I don't know if Adobe is or isn't listening. Truth is, just because some influential folks read my blog doesn't make my order any more important than somebody else's. But this situation was finally resolved late last night.

Ed · 7 months ago

No I don't mean it makes it more important.
When I went dealt with this corporate apathy over the years,
Gateway computer, Microsoft, Dell, there was no social media.

Folks had no voice unless they were lucky enough to have their horror story blogged.

(And in reality Louis, both your knowledge of broadcast platforms,
readers who give the post leverage, and high profile folks in the tech industry,
DO give you much more voice than the average consumer. Glad you used yours!)

CaySedai · 7 months ago

I ordered the educational version (same products, way cheaper) of the CS4 design premium suite. I had a delay of a couple of days while Adobe was accepting my information that I qualified to get the discount. In the meantime, I downloaded the trial version, figuring that I could use the products and reinstall or register with the number from the disks when the disks came.

The disks really don't take up much room - they are all in one case that is not much larger than a regular DVD case. My only complaint is that the case was broken - the hinge for the piece that hold DVD's broke and they kind of slide around.

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

My experience with the disks is that CS and previous PhotoShop versions came in these big boxes with tons of documentation, and I wanted to avoid that. We've also dramatically reduced the CDs and DVDs we do have with the twins around.

The download completed late last night after the second order.

Cathlyn Driscoll · 7 months ago

I had some similar problems- and it did require one or two phone calls to Adobe to straighten it out- the silly "Call your bank or credit card" bit didn't make sense- according to my bank & credit card company- so they should definitely stop saying this. However, I eventually did get a hold of the right person, who seemed to run around in circles for me to help me out. I was under a tight deadline, and needed the product within an hour in order to satisfy my client. (My older computer had crashed and been wiped and I needed the CS4 for my new machine) This one Adobe person really bent over backwards to assist me, and I was able to download the product (which I prefer) and use it and I met my deadline. Yes, they need better customer service at Adobe, but in the end, they delivered for me.

simoncmason · 7 months ago

If you haven't already done so try downloading the free trial - you then have 30 days to resolve the situation before the trial locks (at least this is the case in the UK) - going on past experiece dealing with adobe you will just about get in under the wire! Good luck.

Louis Gray · 7 months ago

Simon, thanks for the tip. I wanted to avoid the trial. The good news is I finally got the software late yesterday after a few more hoops.

simoncmason · 7 months ago

Glad you got it sorted in the end. It's a shame adobe's customer service
doesn't match up to the undoubted quality of its products. My feeling is if
another company came out with a competitive suite of design tools and really
pushed the customer service they could hurt adobe a lot - but for the time
being adobe are so far ahead of the game with their product that they can
get away with abusing their customers. Its always interesting to see how
companies with a virtual monopoly react - must be something to do with human
comfort zone.

Simon
2009/5/5 Disqus <>

geechee_girl · 7 months ago

Ugh. Adobe. Pricing new solo freelancers, small biz entrepreneurs and starving / beginning artists out of their products for, what? 20 years or more now? No installment pricing. No price reductions in response to the plethora of serviceable free alternatives our there. Shoddy customer service (I'm sorry, for over $1000 on more items, you should get US customer service that can actually help you, IMO). Poor product delivery options. The list can drag on for days. Adobe needs to get a grip.

Matt Searles · 7 months ago

I've def had bad luck with adobe customer support to.. and for a company that produces soo much in the way of web design and development tools.. you'd think there site would be better from a usability stand point..

I will say I got in from a somewhat cheap perspective.. I had Macromedia Studio 8, and it was a $500 upgrade to the web premium... which meant upgrades to Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, plus my first time owning photoshop, illustrator, and acrobat..

However, "back in the day" I also owned premier and After Effects.. premier left the Mac.. they recently came back.. and there were no discounts on bundles.. even though I owned those two plus the Macromedia Studio 8 Stuff.. now..

Then they changed the upgrade path when I wasn't looking.. so that I can no longer upgrade my old version of After Effects.. which only runs on OS9.. it is old after all.. but it looked like I'd be able to upgrade it.. and now.. I have to spend 1000 for that upgrade... I haven't upgraded the web premium bundle.. which is like $500 or $600... a kind of pricey upgrade if you ask me.. so I'm going "hmm, maybe I should upgrade to like.. the complete adobe bundle..

The complete bundle is appealing to me as you get the whole meta tag work flow thing.. with Premier, After Effects, and there audio stuff.. which is perfect for the kinds of video projects I have in mind.. I could use some spectral audio editing.. and I'm very much wishing I had InDesign for print work.. but then once you get all that stuff it's $800 to upgrade the whole thing.. plus.. I think I really need Flex.. which really should be a part of there web bundle!

So I'm thinking "well, maybe I'll wait till they put out there next version." My 3D graphics software, C4D, is like $1000 for an upgrade.. so comparatively.. when I think how much is in that complete Adobe bundle.. it actually doesn't seem that unreasonable.. but...

Well if you don't buy stuff in bundles.. and you don't really need all the stuff in the bundles.. or you need stuff that's not all in one bundle.. it's ridiculous.

You look at a program like Dreamweaver and its like.. What exactly is the use of a WYWYG web editor if what comes out the other end isn't standards compliant to begin with? You look at there AJAX framework and its not unobtrusive.. so its like out of the box.. the software does stuff the wrong way!

You look at Flash.. there's a whole lot of advanced stuff that you really need to do if you're going to do Flash right.. as far as usability, SEO, accessibility is concerned.. but it takes most folks at least 6 months to learn the software well.. and learning about that stuff isn't a part of that.. cause the software doesn't address that stuff easily.. and it's stuff that you really do have to have a decent command of AS3 and OOP... and this is the real reason the Flash platform has such a bad reputation.. 90% of reason people say "Flash is Bad" in web design.. is not because it's actually bad.. but because people aren't using it right.. and Adobe, at this point.. is responsible for that! And when you consider what Flash can do with Analytics.. there's an argument that can be made that Flash is probably the better route to take in way more situations then most people really think.

For what I do.. and aspire to do.. I don't really feel like there's reasonable alternatives to the Adobe stuff.. There's alternatives to After Effects, but they are for people with much bigger budgets.. Photoshop for digital illustration, photography, working with 3D, motion graphics.. I don't see there being a realistic alternative.. there doesn't seem to be good stuff out there anymore to compete with Illustrator.. Dreamweaver isn't necessary as it once was.. I like the site management features, and I've just sorta grown used to it.. but.. other then being able to drag stuff around between folders and have all the links updated.. and having a somewhat visually orientated working environment.. I don't really feel like.. I need to be here.. Fireworks is.. well a lot of it's legacy doesn't make sense.. but.. being able to do vector and bit map graphics, in the same app.. is pretty cool.. haven't gotten around to checking out its prototyping features.. or see what its CSS output looks like.. and frankly I probably prefer the hand coding route at this point.. even if I'm not good at it.

Premier's an interesting cat.. Final Cut as rubbish media management.. and Avid has a lot of issues to.. so a lot of people are looking to Premier as a possible alternative.. and when you look at the Adobe Production bundle versus a Final Cut or an Avid system.. it does look rather nice.. back in the day I bought Premier and After Effects.. for the same money as Final Cut.. figuring I was going to primarily be interested in Animation anyway.

My sense is there's lots of alternative graphics programs out there.. particularly on the Mac with its core graphics in the OS.. Arguably the problem with Photoshop is that it tries to be all things to all people.. which is what makes it seem like a bloated beast.. but at this point I kinda feel like I'm trying to do all those jobs..

I think the real problem at this point is that Adobe is basically a monopoly in a lot of areas

Bryce Roney · 7 months ago

Unfortunately, it seems this is all too common at Adobe.

This Consumerist article lists some e-mail addresses for Adobe higher-ups: http://consumerist.com/5019763/adobe-it-would-h...

Money Ideas · 7 months ago

Hmmm...very interesting.