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Business Strategy and Overcoming the Hegemony of Adobe


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I would like to begin by praising Serif for striking a blow, on behalf of designers everywhere, against the hegemonic Adobe and their abusive subscription-only toolset licensing policy, an onerous policy made possible by Adobe's virtually worldwide monopoly and status as "industry standard" that entraps it's users, forcing them to pay monthly fees to rent their own digital tools, and threatening to render their own work product inaccessible should they ever cease paying monthly subscription fees to Adobe.

  • The Affinity Suite of creative apps is an outstanding accomplishment. Truly a world-class set of tools that rivals or surpasses the comparable set from Adobe.
  • The pricing and licensing agreement (a perpetual license for an affordable one-time payment) is most welcome.

With those two significant chunks of the Affinity value proposition, Serif is in a position to set the creative industry free from Adobe's abusive rule. And yet, it's probably not enough.

Adobe still enjoys the monopolistic benefits of incumbency and "the network effect" in the market place. Independent creatives and small studios who are involved in collaborative workflows are expected to receive and deliver work in proprietary, Adobe file formats. Many designers would love to abandon Adobe and their subscription fees, and the threatened loss of control over their own work product, but are held hostage by industry norms that dictate an Adobe workflow.

Short of the miracle of Serif cracking the Adobe file format, making it possible for the Affinity Suite to read and write native .AI, .PSD, and .INDD files with perfect fidelity, I'm not sure how we get over this hurdle together.

Are there business case studies that show how a challenger can overturn a dominant market incumbent who enjoys the reinforcing lock-in of the network effect?

Without necessarily divulging business strategy and tactics, can someone from Serif at least declare that they are aware of the business problem, that they have studied the relevant case studies, and that there is a workable strategy for breaking down the hegemony of Adobe?

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I can think of just one strategic opportunity for Serif to break the stranglehold that Adobe has over the industry: taking advantage of the potentially disruptive force of Apple's iPad Pro and iPad OS.

If the iPad Pro and it's iPad OS were to become a dominant or significant new hardware platform within the creative industry, where Serif could claim a first mover advantage over Adobe, beating Adobe to the iPad platform with it's Affinity Suite, Adobe could be overthrown in a short period of time.

This depends entirely on what Apple does with the iPad Pro as a new platform for professional work, on whether or not it becomes a significant new hardware platform for the creative industry, and on Adobe falling asleep at the switch, failing to deliver full-featured apps for the iPad Pro platform.

 

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  • 3 years later...

Things might/will possibly change over time ...

... the above referenced editorial in English (EN) here, via Google translate ...

Quote

Adobes midlife crisis

In the greatest acquisition in its company history, Adobe took over the screendesign service Figma. He is popular and a sharp competitor of Adobe XD. Figma makes little money. The award for the takeover was announced on September 15: $ 20 billion, 50 times the targeted annual turnover. In two days, the Adobe share price fell by 100 euros to less than 300 euros. Apparently, Adobe wants to clear competitors at all costs - it costs what they want.

Adobe continues to earn a lot of money, in the third quarter of 2022 a record sales of $ 4.43 billion. However, the times of the quasi-monopoly position are over, which the software manufacturer held for many years after taking over Macromedia (happened in 2005 for $ 3.4 billion).

More and more young, fresh competitors like Figma are entering the stage. The British software manufacturer Serif sells very successfully Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher. For 65 euros each as a one -off payment, he attacks three core competencies from Adobe: image processing, vector graphics and briefs. Therefor you get the creative cloud for just a month. Several RAW developers such as DXO Photolab and video editors such as Davinci Resolve are now doing better work in the eyes of many users than the Adobe software. For the abomodell, Adobe still gets thrashing from the community, ten years after the changeover.

Professional graphic designers continue to subscribe to Adobe for over 60 euros a month. The biggest argument for this is the largely uncomplicated exchange about the format standards defined by Adobe. However, private and semi -professional users are increasingly relying on Affinity. The products are not only much cheaper, they also eat less memory than the bloated dinosaurs from Mountain View.

Adobe once stood unchallenged on the Olympus of creative software. Now younger competitors are running the former top dog Lightroom, Photoshop or Premiere Pro. And Adobe can't buy them all.

André Kramer

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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10 hours ago, v_kyr said:

they also eat less memory than the bloated dinosaurs from Mountain View.

Wow 🙂 

Unfortunately we all know that this is not true, but more generally, I think that the article is based on wishful thinking. Adobe not only purchases competition "away" but integrates it to become stronger. The writer of the article did not even mention (partially free) Adobe Express or Android (much neglected creative) platform and d/l figures and competition there... I think the life has become significantly more difficult for the competition during the last three years or so, and the recent developments are something that are especially targeted for private and hobbyist -- and young -- users. I agree that monopoly is a totally bad thing, but sadly it does not appear that the giant is suffering of any kind of midlife crisis or loss of vision... 

 

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2 minutes ago, lacerto said:

Unfortunately we all know that this is not true, but more generally, I think that the article is based on wishful thinking. Adobe not only purchases competition "away" but integrates it to become stronger. ...

For sure the editor is slightly biased here and so doesn't reflect all sides of Adobes (marketing) intentions. - But much of what was said there is in line with the general opinion of mere mortals, aka plain users.

Quote

...they also eat less memory than the bloated dinosaurs from Mountain View...

I stumbled across that too and thought to myself, well he can't really mean the Affinity Apps here, since we have often proved the difference here in certain forum topics. - Well, maybe the author isn't an Affinity power user and thus more of a casual user or the like.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

But much of what was said there is in line with the general opinion of mere mortals, aka plain users.

It is complex. On a personal level (or as a family company) we have saved roughly EUR 15,000 during a decade or so staying (mostly) out of the subscription model but have now had the EUR10 per month basic Photograph plan -- which I think is a bargain considering what is included -- active for a couple of years. This has also required sticking to legacy software in addition to spending something on supporting and "plan-b" tools.

But now Adobe has made a swift move (or relatively so, considering the size of the company and how strong they have been on desktops), and seemingly disruptive one, to web-based creation, which they seem to be on a way to integrate with their costly pro (still mostly desktop) tools and workflows, while at the same time offering a strong "freemium" plan. Oh yes, a plan it is, and it is clear that anyone stepping on this path will be tempted or forced to pay "a bit more" in the long run.

For old school like me this means new school, but I mostly welcome the change, knowing well that this is not something that is going to make old workflows useless or requiring us to subscribe to full plan. So we are trying to keep "our plan". I can fully understand the original post and users trying to completely avoid Adobe. But it is good to stay awake and open to changes -- if price is the only consideration, there might be temptation for many to go back on the "dark side". I sincerely hope that alternative paths continue to exist also in the new brave world of graphic design.

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1 hour ago, lacerto said:

... I can fully understand the original post and users trying to completely avoid Adobe. But it is good to stay awake and open to changes ...

Well, I would say it always depends on the overall respective individual cost/benefit ratio here. For those who are forced to use the Adobe tools for business reasons (to run their day-to-day business and earn their income from it), there may not be that many alternatives. In contrast to that others who are not compelled to use the Adobe tools for business reasons may find cheaper alternatives here (...as far as various possible Adobe file format incompatibilities are negligible for this group of users then).

However the graphics software segment is also always on the move (in transition) be it with web & cloud-based tools ...etc., or in relation to the various subscription and price models outlined. - Here you always have to evaluate and check & find the best cost-benefit ratio for your individual work processes.

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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