Hi Adobe,
first of all I would like to mention, that I worked since April 2009 with lcds 3 day and night. I was really excited about the product.
We planned to set up a start up compay using lcds 3.
When the final version came out, I was completey shocked about the pricing policy:
The first CPU is no longer free, the 100 concurrent version is gone as well and the full licence at 18.500€ per CPU =(x1,5108=27.950 US $)!
As the data within our is very confidential, we have to set up a seperate server for a group, with for example 50 users.
That makes 27.950$/50=559$ per user. That is more then we planned to take for our complete product!
A cheaper hosting solution would not help, as there are very strict regulations in Europe especially for financial data where the server has to be located and who has access to it.
The whole situation remindes me at the 1980ties when Apple showed their first computers. What a wunderfull product! But the price in Europe was about 500-700% more expensive then a normal PC. With a bleeding heart I bought a PC with Microsoft on it. And guess what, about 12 computers and 25 years later I am still using Windows!
I think its not enough to have a very good product to win the crowd. You have to understand the situation of your customers what is possible and what not. Ok Adobe, go with a startup company to a bank and ask for a loan for a single server with 4CPU=74.000€ =111.900$. Only for a licence for one server for the backend! The server is not paid with it.
The funny thing is, even if Adobe changes back the policy, I lost my confidence. I fear that Adobe would raise the price in the future.
I will give Adobe not a second chance to hit me like that, to take me out of the market before I even started!
ByBy Adobe LiveCyle Data Services!
A former customer
