Macromedia sending wrong message?
November 17, 2003
When taking my first web-oriented course this past Spring quarter, Intro: Multimedia & the Web, I purchased Macromedia Studio MX from the college bookstore at an educational discount, just $199. Not bad.
However, today I called the company to inquire how to upgrade to their latest Studio product, MX Studio 2004, and I was told that there are no upgrade paths for educational versions(!) Not believing my ears, I parroted back what I had just heard to make sure that I understood it correctly... yes, indeed I had:
"Students wishing to upgrade to the latest version of Macromedia products must purchase the product at it's full educational price again."So, in other words, I had just purchased the product in March and my $200 is now worth $0 towards the latest version just 6 months later. Needless to say, learning of this wonderful customer relations policy of their's really irks me, not to mention even their educational discount price for Macromedia Director: only $499(!)
Gee, I wonder how many college students turn to the file-sharing networks to get these necessary software applications for free due to Macromedia's exemplary concern for the financially struggling student?
Yeah they never have updates for the educational versions. it sucks.
Even the upgrades from the previous commercial versions suck, and Adobe isn't any better either. Upgrading to the new Studio MX 2004 from the old one requires either $400 or $500 (funny, seems like I just spent that on the original Studio MX and Studio MX Plus upgrade...), and Adobe's new suite upgrades are either $549 or $749, and they requires just a previous version of Photoshop. Thanks Adobe, what about those of us who have previous collections with more than just Photoshop? Sorry, I'm not bending over this time. :-P
Carlo - I just talked to someone recently who expressed similar frustration about Macromedia upgrades. A particular concern of her's was that with the exorbitant cost, some people are very slow to upgrade, if ever, causing a lot of older versions to remain out there requiring support. That forces the developer to take into consideration these older versions when deciding what features to include in their projects. Basically, it stifles creativity and progress as a result.
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