AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

As I've often said, what's right for you may not be right for me and vice versa.

But anyone working in a corporate environment is going to have to go with the big software companies, in my opinion. And anyone working interactively with collaborators will also find it difficult to go back and forth between platforms. I've played around with Open Office, which was once the only spreadsheet software I had on my laptop, and it just doesn't work.

Yes, it's a business expense, and I'm not complaining. But you probably don't understand the way these projects work in a non-profit environment. We work on a razor thin margin, and don't collect our developer's fees and overhead until and unless the project is completed, sometimes even a couple of years later. I've worked for ten years on a project, and not collected my cost and overhead until year 12. That's just the business I've chosen, and I'm not complaining. Costs are not deductible for a non-profit, of course, and, as in baseball, if you bat .300 on proposed projects, they put you in the Hall of Fame. So we have to watch our nickels and dimes.

As to continued use of obsolescent or obsolete software, that also depends on the user. We have to keep up with the latest Windoze versions in order to use our proprietary software, and the next version of Windows will not run some of our older programs, or so our tech consultants have told us. It's a vicious cycle of updating OS to run the latest programs and then not being able to run older programs because of the new OS. An individual user may not face it, but many businesses, small to large, face the conflict every day.

My point is that this new model is changing the way most businesses and many consumers buy their software, and will eventually reduce the choices available. Not saying it's good or bad, but it's reality. Excel, for one, has gotten better and better since it became the dominant software, and I don't object to my seven bucks a month out of pocket for the convenience of having it on my laptop. My mantra is always the same - we all have different needs.

Who knows what the future will bring? I'm looking forward to finding out.


Andy

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Exactly. I wonder where it will all end up? We get many benefits from this brave new world, but there's a little bit of worry and risk as well, especially for medium sized businesses who wind up with an all or nothing investment decision.

Thanks for your thoughtful response!

Andy

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

First, on the hardware side, know that Minolta was purchased by Sony, so they didn't really "disappear".

On software, though, there certainly is a trend towards the subscription model, even in the large commercial sector. Witness MS pushing hard to sell their Dynamics 365 (once called AX, and before that Axapta until they bought it out of Europe about 20 years ago) only as a cloud-based subscription model to companies big a small, regardless of user counts.

One huge difference is the DRM side of things - Digital Rights Management - where now (with Adobe for example) you must use the subscription approach - you cannot purchase a CD or DVD with software to take home on your computer and then perhaps sell it at a swap meet, give it to a friend, etc. as you desire. Of course, either way, you are purchasing a license to use the software, but now, somewhere in those thousands of words of license agreement to which we all just click "I accept" they put wording in that allows them to decide to take it back. That is, if you do something Adobe deems improper they can kill the software altogether. A few years ago, when Amazon had some issue with the publisher of Orwell's "1984", one night all the folks who paid for that e-book discovered it had been "disappeared", with a refund and an apology from Amazon. Of course, the folks who paid for hard copies of the same book had no such problems. And Apple put a DRM wrapper on the songs it sold at the iTunes store making them non-playable on any devices other than iPods - no doubt a major reason for the death of the Zune (not that the Zune was al that great).

The point is that copyright holders have grabbed an enormous amount of power from under our noses, and we will be powerless to control our own destinies. For instance, say you don't want to upgrade your PC hardware, such that you can only use an older version of some software (maybe Photoshop). At some point, should the copy you decide never to update get too long in the tooth, Adobe is within its rights to just make it stop working, in their effort to force you to upgrade hardware.

There's some stuff in the world of intellectual property rights that has been happening of late about which most of us are completely clueless. For those who are interested, I can recommend a book called "The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy (The Information Society Series)" by Aaron Perzanowski, Jason Schultz, Laura DeNardis, Michael Zimmer - but maybe you should buy a hard copy version.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks for the reference. This jibes with what I've read as well. What do you think it means for us photo software consumers in the long run? As I said above, my conclusion is better products, but less control of them. We've always been buying licenses only, but this brave new world is making that into a practical reality as well as a theoretical purchase.

Andy

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Andy, it is what it is, no mater WHAT you and I do!
Saddle makers are gone, so are buggy, pine box and bull whip makers!
And by the way, we’re down to TWO, with Sony desperately clawing at the rear!!! LoL
SS

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

That's kind of my point. You seem to get it. I think we're past the point where any consumer behavior can change the trends, The corporate behavior, with its large purchaser base, will determine what options we get and how we pay for them going forward.

Is this the time to say, "I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords"?

Andy