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Adobe's Strange Software Giveaway: Goof, Or Clever Marketing?
dryriver writes "Yesterday, Adobe put up a mysterious webpage from which its now seven-year-old CS2 line of products (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Premiere and others) could be freely downloaded by anyone. The page even included valid serial numbers that will unlock the CS2 apps for anyone who wants to. This strange 'giveaways' page at Adobe.com quickly went viral on the internet after a few tech bloggers reported on it. An Adobe spokesman said initially that the CS2 downloads are for existing owners of Adobe CS2 software only, who may not be able to activate their software anymore, due to the CS2 activation servers having been shut down by Adobe. But the internet at large took this webpage as meaning 'Free Adobe CS2 Software for Everyone,' which was probably not what Adobe had in mind. It seems that at this point, hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded their 'free' CS2 products and installed them, and started using them. So Adobe is in a bit of a PR pinch now because of this — Do you tell all the thousands of people who have downloaded CS2 products in the last 48 hours that 'you cannot use these products without paying us'? Or do you accept that hundreds of thousands of people now have free access to seven year old Adobe CS2 products, and try to encourage some of them to 'upgrade to the new CS6 products'?"
They'll try to turn it into a marketing strategy, with constant reminders to update to a newer version every time you open your "free" version.
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Adobe's creative suite has always had high piracy rates due to their high prices. Like Office, poor version compatibility and deliberately breaking file formats is standard operating procedure; otherwise no one would ever upgrade Illustrator or Photoshop, and the company would be out of business already.
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It's 'free' for people with currently active subscriptions to the product, not every Tom, Dale, and Hates the Gimp, alas.
Millions of people are already illegally using more recent versions of the CS suite.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Adobe has been used practically as a case study of the side-effects of piracy to ensure their lock-in. Students pirate Photoshop/CS because they can't afford it, and when they get into the workforce employers suddenly have legions of employees who know how to use Photoshop/CS, making it an attractive choice for licensing because nobody has to be trained. Thus Photoshop/CS continues its reign as the de facto standard, and Adobe gets to set their rates to target the businesses with money without having to worry about the hobbyist market (which is notoriously fickle on legal purchasing of software anyway).
The higher-ups (or the middle-ups) probably saw that the time was right to spike that userbase a bit, that's all.
The hardware to run XP would cost FAR less then the CS2 software itself. Also, virtual machines.
Good-bye
It's made for PowerPC Macs, so the rest of us using Intel Macs are out of luck. :(
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
+1 VMs. Also, Wine has pretty decent support for Photoshop CS2.
Most people are saying it runs fine on Windows 7 x64. Windows 8 has been used with varying success using compatibility mode.
I don't get it. If the serial numbers unlock the applications what is the relevance of the activation servers being off? When someone downloads this stuff and uses those SN do they get a fully working copy of an obsolete version of Adobe software or not?
Remember CoolEdit 2000 and CoolEdit Pro? Those were way better. Re-release those along with all the plugins and extras and then I'll be happy.
Damn, Framemaker isn't there :(
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Yep win 7 has xp mode you can do this in.
What is this Adobe thing on my computer? I see updates for it more than I use it!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It'll be interesting to see if they've introduced enough new features since cs2 to make people want to upgrade and what those costs will be, an upgrade is A LOT cheaper than a full version, but... they'd be losing money upgrading from free cs2 to upgrade version of cs5.
I'm thinking only advanced users can really benefit from the upgrade as I remember cs2 and it had most of the basic features found in today's cs5.
I have CS2 running on W7 x64. I remember I had a heck of a time installing it because it wanted to install by default into the Program files (x86) folder, and no amount of reselecting the folder would avert that, but I did somehow manage to get it to install (and run) perfectly fine. It's been a while so I can't remember exactly how I did it, but it came up in google searches. I seem to recall it was pretty trivial stuff.
Long signatures suck.
Preempting my install fun when I get home I looked this up. I post here to help the lazy. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/windows-7-is-not-compatible-with-adobe-photoshop/6f1b4955-7166-4b8f-ad9b-5d19150f803f
Adobe has run out of compelling new features to add their main line of products. Sure, there are new bells and whistles in every new release of Photoshop and Illustrator, but the CS2 versions (and even a couple versions back from that) will let you achieve the same results as the CS6 results, just maybe with a little more work. It's not their fault, really; it's the quandary of having a mature set of products. So pretty the main reason anyone upgrades these apps anymore is because they no longer work (or work quite right) on the latest operating systems from Apple and Microsoft (e.g. CS2 for OS X is PPC-only and requires Rosetta, which has been discontinued). That's part of why Adobe (like Microsoft, which is in the same boat with Office) is pushing for a subscription model for their software (rent it by the month) rather than the traditional buy-it-once approach.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Uh, the whole point of the Program Files (x86) folder is precisely for 32bit software. So, why were you trying to coax it into installing outside of that?
Only if this software were in the "git er done" market, which it most certainly is not. In the trendy "how you do it is all that matters" "theres no other way to measure professionalism than tool one ups man ship" "I am cool solely because I use something cool" this is useless for all but amateurs or maybe beginning students, who they never made any money off anyway.
Aside from freshness issues, giving away last years design wedding cake to the company cafeteria does kinda cannibalize cake sales for the day as you claim, but giving away the same visually obviously slightly out of date wedding cake to a fashion cover photographer at modern bride magazine is likely to result in WTF am I supposed to do with old junk, compost it? its not like I could use it "professionally".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Mod up. Photoshop CS2 is acceptable on Wine the last time I checked (kind of wonky but still usable). However, other CS2 apps like Indesign and Illustrator were unusable for me, maybe other people have had better luck.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
When were these servers shut down? I was still able to activate my CS2 last year. I've been using CS2 all these years and never bothered to upgrade.... CS2 has always done what I needed so why pay more for a new version?
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
End of December 2012, I believe. The download page has been up since then, too. It only went viral a day or two ago.
Because their installer is buggy and wont accept brackets, you need to use 'C:/Program~2/Adobe' so that it can install, and still ends up in 'Program Files (x86)'.
If it was a real problem, they would have at least pulled the download links. However, a day later, you can still download everything. Obviously, not a mistake.
Apple has tried to switch to case-sensitive by default for years, and actively called out Adobe on their developer conference as the big blocker.
I downloaded it, but will not be installing it. Why? I have a legal version of CS3/CS4 and obviously I don't need CS2.
But I downloaded just-in-case Adobe goes "whoops sorry folks this isn't free" and removes the page. I'm more interested in having software that can be installed into a VM without having to do the activate-deactivate hassle for doing video tutorials.
December 13.
I just had Acrobat 8 pro start complaining about activation in the last few weeks; thats why theyre providing the dls and serials.
I just installed acrobat pro from that site on windows 7. It asks you where adobePDF.dll is on the Vista CD....but a quick google search found the solution to that. (Browse, up a level, go into the AMD64 folder, there it is.). Seems to be working fine.
I've been following the events closely and was trying to figure out how this will affect the industry. What has gone down is clearly a goof, not a marketing plan. Some say that it will help sales of CS5/6; others say it will hurt them. My best estimate is that the net effect on CS5/6 sales will be close to zero. However, as parent stated, if Adobe doesn't walk back their "permission" to use CS2, they have effectively killed off Elements. PS has the much higher price tag, but I'm sure that Adobe makes much more money off of Elements due to volume.
Elements: dead
Paint.net: dead
GIMP: dead on Windows
any other photo-editing software already struggling to survive: dead
Aside from PS, the other big release was Acrobat 8 Pro. This is really bad for Adobe, too, as there are no free, _usable_ tools for creating PDFs. Acrobat 8 Pro has everything most people would need to create PDFs, so this particular goof will definitely hurts sales of the modern version.
Adobe is between a rock and a hard spot: kill major sources of revenue or take on a PR nightmare. If I were them, I think I'd take on the PR nightmare instead of losing Elements and Acrobat. Let's see how this plays out.
If you need some legal photo editing software at your company, but it's not justifiable to buy Photoshop, you can now use this old version for free. That kills the competition with cheaper products. And if at some point you need something more powerful than this old version, you're probably going to buy a new version of PhotoShop instead of learning to use a new software.
i just downloaded it for Windows7 64-bit and it's running just fine. didn't have to mess with a single setting.
i could live a little longer in this prison
ciderbrew posted this below. Probably what you did
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/windows-7-is-not-compatible-with-adobe-photoshop/6f1b4955-7166-4b8f-ad9b-5d19150f803f
change the install dir to C:\progra~2\adobe\whateveritalreadyis for anyone that doesn't want to click.
Premiere and Encore were not added to the CS Suite until CS3. Dreamweaver and Acrobat were not added to CS until 2.3. No After Effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_CS#History No 64 bit support or GPU support. So they are pretty much giving away 7 year old versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign? Sounds good to me - create some brand loyalty for your products. I say Adobe's PR department should just let this one slide.
I don't know - I suspect anyone likely to actually pay Adobe for Photoshop or other products has likely already done so, they're not cheap. And a lot of bells and whistles (and upgrade encouraging file-format changes) have been added in the four later versions to encourage upgrades by those likely to send money. On the other hand giving away their old software both undermines the market for most of the competing products *including* pirated copies of more recent versions. Consider that a lot of more or less honest people hesitate to spend hundreds of bucks for professional-grade graphics software and turn to piracy since really they're not hurting anyone, right? It's not like they were going to spend the money anyway. Now recognizing that as a reality, Adobe might well feel it's better to encourage such people to honestly use an old version than pirate a new version, for several reasons:
* They're more likely to upgrade to the latest version when they can afford it if they're not already using a pirated copy of it
* Pirated software has a tendency to be infected with malware, whose effects may be a associated with and reflect poorly on Photoshop rather than the hidden payload(s).
Now did they *intend* this as a marketing campaign? I kind of doubt it, I would have expected them to have been a bit more tentative. On the other hand photoshop is probably the only software with any serious pre-existing demand for an experiment, the others are the sort of thing most people wouldn't think to be interested in (but might become interested if they got it for free when they downloaded the CS2 bundle - after all why download just the thing you're sure you want when the full bundle is available for free...). And by holding the official line that it's intended just as a courtesy for existing license-holders they keep businesses, universities, etc (i.e. their real customers) from using it rather than the latest version. How many people will download CS2 mostly to use Photoshop at home, and realize that the other tools would be useful at work, potentially generating new customers? It could be a brilliant advertising move.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Brackets? I don't see any brackets.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Slowly?? I've just tried it, and it doesn't seem to be slow at all under OS X 10.6. I have used Illustrator CS2 since ancient times under VMWare Fusion anyway, so this was just to try out how the more native version works -- seems perfectly usable.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
They'd probably face legal issues if they just removed the ability entirely though, and activation servers are likely already the cheapest way to handle it... so this might actually be the cheapest/easiest way to go about permanently phasing out support. It's not like a few more files on an existing web server costs them anything. As long as they hold the official position that it's for existing licensees only they don't have to worry about cannibalizing the institutional market, and it's hard to see how a free seven-year-old version would notably damage the personal market considering the ready availability of pirated copies of the latest-and-greatest version.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
He probably means parentheses, in the word "(x86)".
As of 2:00pm EST it seems the links are still available. I even downloaded and installed the programs to see if they actually work, and they do (only tested Acrobat Pro). Anyway, I have uninstalled it seeing as how I only use Adobe's products to read PDF files, and there are newer versions with security updates via their free Reader.
Well, no, it couldn't. Some forms of intellectual property have some kind of protect-it-or-lose-it rules (trademarks and patents both have rules that fall under that broad umbrella), but copyright doesn't. Copyright is automatic on creation and for the full duration that applies based on the form of creation, whether or not you actively protect it.
Smart-ass. Parentheses are a type of bracket.
cogito ergo dubito
We're now using parenthetical bracketry.
Providing an activation-free copy, but requiring validation with their key and ID, isn't really activation-free, its just moving the activation to a different medium. Redundancy department of redundancy. The only way to cut out the activation server without requiring another form of authentication was to do what they're doing.
I would disable PDF support in your browsers unless you want a million trojans on a weekly basis and use Foxit.
Adobe does not update products these old and wants you to get hacked so they can sell you $299 version that you do not need instead. That and Java drive me crazy and keep my busy when I work in a corporate clients office. Lots and lots of infections and costs add up more than the cost to upgrade fast but the cost accountants do not see that. Only savings.
http://saveie6.com/
Adobe had priced its tools for professionals only because only a professional could possible afford to spend several thousand dollars for a personal software suite. This is a tremendous boon to Adobe and they'd be insane not to capitalize on it. Tens of thousands of people download OLD software and becoming skilled at its use will hunger for the features of the newer versions. If they would also allow these new owners to become part of the Adobe family for a reasonable upgrade price understanding that they got here by free introduction, Adobe could be looking at a huge explosion of interest in its products and a whole new community of users. At a time when companies like Adobe are getting killed by smaller software developers selling less expensive tools to get the job done, this could be a fantastic way to "Shake off the fleas". Even better, because it was an accident "wink, wink", they can't be poked for noncompetitive practices.
For Adobe who isn't selling CS2 to anyone any more, here's a chance to get great consumer acceptance and press, hook a whole new population of fish, and put the squeeze on their competition all at the same time. If it wasn't done on purpose it was a lucky accident, and if it was done on purpose somebody should be promoted to one of the corner offices... he's a sly dog that should be included in a lot more decision making. Kudos, this is either a very bright move or a fortuitous accident, either way, hang on and enjoy the ride!
Blender has had its UI completely redesigned. I think it's one of the best designed in any kind of 3D software now.
I use sumatra to view pdf's (just wanted to try a different one that foxit and have never been given a reason to try another one). I only need acrobat to make minor changes to pdf's generated internally. And I really don't absolutely need it for that. That was just the one I could justify trying out.
I'm still using Photoshop CS3 (version 10), which I only upgraded because Photoshop 7 was so seriously out of date that it would not work on my new computer. I did download Photoshop CS6 when it was in Beta and I do like many of the capabilities of it, but nothing there was make or break for me.
I am using Dreamweaver CS 5.5 because it actually does more. I can see how web pages will look on iOS as well as Android smartphones. I also can work much more easily with HTML5 and CSS3. It also does a lot better work checking my php and JavaScript. So that upgrade was actually useful. I am very pleased with the fact that I have not paid every one to two years for the upgrades, which would have cost a lot more than simply buying new versions as I really needed to upgrade.
Adobe's upgrade policy, until December, was that if anyone still owned CS3 applications they would have to pay full price and get new software. They have since modified that stance because someone who is really smart must have told them that the upgrade path is an actual incentive.
Adobe's correct stance should be crystal clear: They ought to offer an upgrade path from the CS2 applications that is time-limited. There are always people who are going to buy gray-market or "used" software who will never pay what Adobe wants and never properly register their software. But there are people who may well be very attracted by an upgrade path.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
For example Serif gives away software that is a couple versions old here http://www.serif.com/FreeDownloads/
I think they also have a discount on buying older versions too. I even purchased a copy of drawplus a couple years ago because I liked some of its functionality and it was just a few $.
Well you are smarter than 90% of the people who run old Adobe in corps. I wish their IT departments would see that if they are cheap and refuse to upgrade. I heard good things with Sumatra but like you I see no reason to change as well. :-)
As long as they are secure.
http://saveie6.com/
I think you mean PROGRA~2 not PROGRAM~2 (8.3 filenames are 6 characters followed by ~ then one digit)
The whole path is C:\PROGRA~2\Adobe
Well I just downloaded and installed PS, its running fine on my Win7 system. Only tested it by creating a file and saving it but it worked just fine. Disabled the updates when it popped up since there won't be any.
I would say this is a great move by Adobe, mistake or deliberate. It costs them essentially nothing, they get massive publicity, they no longer need to support this old software, and by giving it away they ensure more people will play with it than would if it was illegal to use. The end result is going to be people who *want* updated versions of the software with all the latest features. Now, its true that only corporations and the 1% can actually afford Adobe products, but I don't see a downside.
Its like Microsoft allowing Windows to spread all over the world by ignoring the piracy for so many years. Windows would not be as ubiquitous as it is worldwide if millions of copies hadn't been pirated in its early years.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
My PS7 from 2002 must be SOOOO dead. Except for RAW development it does the rest for me. I tired GIMP on Linux but for the last 11 years I'm so used to the old PS7 UI I can't get over it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Even better, usage differs between the UK and the US. This leads to not a little confusion when I'm dictating code to American colleagues.
No, it does not, otherwise you could log in with someone else's creative cloud account, download the software, and then try to claim that you now own a license as you obtained the software from Adobe.
An unauthorized download is an unauthorized download, whether or not it was password protected.
Using UK law from a layman's perspective, accessing the secured area of Adobe's site using someone else's credentials technically contravenes the Computer Misuse Act.
Downloading software which includes an EULA granting a licence from the author's publically accessible site does not. It's legal and repudiation of that licence may or may not be possible.
Exactly. Open / Close brackets. I can interpret and understand 'parenthesis' but I say 'brackets' and everyone in the UK understands me.
See also:
- Square Brackets
- Curly Brackets
- Braces
Consult the hacker dictionary for further terms and international inconsistencies. And no, I can't believe I'm having to actually state that on Slashdot.
Sadly the Adobe product is a default install on the work PCs, and it took me ages to sabotage the Adobe Pro installation to stop that breaking things even more.
At home I use LibreOffice to create PDFs and Sumatra to view them. At home and work I disable PDF viewing within the browser, because.. it's just not needed.
Trying to parse the triple-negative reply.
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/01/update-on-cs2-and-acrobat-7-activation-servers.html
"Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products and Acrobat 7 because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers. While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers."
It's rather fascinating and somewhat indicative of a completely dysfunctional company. It reads almost like the head of support wrote an apologetic explanation that tried to downplay the issue a bit to the rest of the execs who then didn't quite understand the issue itself or the gravity of it. The solution, obviously, was to then just forward it directly to PR who then faithfully published it letter for letter. Wow.
Am I the only one that is bothered when a URL contains index.html (or equivilent) at the end? Remove it and the link still works; so why include it?
Thanks for the link. I have some really ancient versions of these apps that I bought before electricity (literally, I think they run in DOS)... will be interesting to check out newer versions.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Once all those "free" copies are downloaded Adobe can not only make money by offering upgrade pricing... but can write off the fair market value of each and every registered copy as "advertising cost"
Someone could get a big bonus this year if they spin it right!