Adobe + Entitled users, my frustrations.
Posted by _Aerish_@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 117 comments
Hello Everyone,
So every year we need to renew our licenses.
Last year our prices for the same amount of people doubled since Adobe decided we could not use any educational licenses anymore.
In short we pay now more for a small group of people on Adobe than we do for all the Microsoft services for +200 people (Windows/office/teams, ...) combined.
So our director asked us to come up with alternatives, i did so this year where i proposed several other programs to try.
I even mentioned they could try it indefinately and if needed we could buy an Adobe license later so i could at least lower the intial cost of the total licenses to buy.
As expected noone even wanted to try to see if the other programs would be sufficient.
I knew this would happen as people just do NOT want to alter their way of working.
It's frustrating since we (ICT) will probably be blasted again by our director as if we didn't do enough.
Problem to me is that people will NEVER change unless that message comes from the director itself.
Especially a lot of "management" people feel entitled to not only take Acrobat PRO but the full Cloud.
I am 100% certain that only a few of those would use more than 1 application but they want the full cloud anyway.
It feels more like "i am important, i need it anyway to feel more important".
How did you convince others to at least try an alternative to Adobe ?
Cheers.
daven1985@reddit
I made it an Executive/Busy decision.
Do you want to pay this much or that much? You pick, and we go from there. In one business, they agreed to pay. In the other, they said no.
When people asked for it... "Sorry, I do not have the budget for it. YOu will need to speak to the CFO or CIO about it, as the policy is to use this product."
ICT is not the bad guy then but like them following a policy.
mwinzig@reddit
We just went with Pdf X-change for 100 users. F*ck Adobe.
rotoddlescorr@reddit
We switched from PDF X-Chagne to Foxit. It just works better for us.
Powerful-Ad3374@reddit
Went there a few years ago. Was a pretty good product and everyone got it instead of only selected users on Adobe. We are back on Adobe though because Users š
Less_Ad7772@reddit
Sounds like it's not really your problem. You just facilitate what software employees want and make sure it stays working. Unless you are in a management position of sorts...
_Aerish_@reddit (OP)
They make it our problem since the director feels we should be offering similar free programs but ...
First of all there is NO 1:1 similar program to what Adobe offers and i feel you cannot be expected to write whole documents comparing how you do x or y in an Adobe product and how to do the same (if at all possible) in an alternative program. (We are only a few people, not a university with a huge IT departement)
It's just unrealistic expectations i believe.
But it's mostly the unwillingness of people to even TRY something else for a few months that frustrates me the most and then that several people NEVER use an Adobe product like Adobe PRO and they would have enough with the free version.
But noooo, i NEED the PRO version...
rotoddlescorr@reddit
Think of it this way, if they try something new and it messes up, then they will be blamed.
By sticking to what they know, it's no longer "their problem."
If your director wants them to switch, make it "their problem."
GimmeSomeSugar@reddit
Probably the closest you're gonna get with the main 3 is the Affinity Suite. Which is actually great, it's generally highly rated by most people that use it.
And therein lies the rub. 'People that use it'. This is going to be high friction all the way, and you've already experienced the first part. Next comes user training, which will be a constant challenge. Then comes hiring, with new hires also requiring extra time to ramp up in this new (to them) software they've never seen before. And the third parties. I've worked with print shops (mandated by the client) who refuse certain jobs if you don't supply them an Adobe native file format.
And because it involves software, some of this will blow back on you.
I absolutely fucking hate Adobe, and would love to divorce them. I'm also painfully aware of the fact that doing so is wildly unrealistic in most circumstances.
PM_ME_YOUR_BOOGER@reddit
I am the Adobe user; y'all have to realize that we have literally spent tens of thousands of hours in these tools and switching to a new flavor isn't as easy as swapping one hammer for another.
Seccuu@reddit
I am totally with you on that front. Having spent thousands of hours in a specific application makes you efficient in it at the end of the day.
Sure, you can transfer the skill set and all but what's going to happen is that you are simply a lot slower to finish your work when changing applications.
So it all comes down to management at the end. If they are fine with people taking longer because they have to learn a new application great. If they are still expecting the same efficiency, well then nobody is going to want to change over.
Another thing is the cost factor. I don't see this as IT's problem. Management is responsible for their teams expenses, if they do not enforce or check anything, who is going to, it's their job isn't it.
PM_ME_YOUR_BOOGER@reddit
IT departments have a very bad habit of policing software on budgetary reasons, in my experience. They're almost always going to go with the absolute cheapest solution possible, and frequently arbitrarily, without even consulting with the creative teams first. They wind up buying shit that doesn't do what they think it does and then we wind up stuck with it. It honestly sucks.
Valdaraak@reddit
IT departments don't. Management typically does. I've never willingly chose the cheaper product. I've often gone with the cheaper one because management told me "we need to find a cheaper option".
fahque@reddit
The average adobe pro user demands it to be able to convert word documents to pdf.
PM_ME_YOUR_BOOGER@reddit
Oh, I can't speak for the non-creative departments other than the creative department wishes they'd make their revisions using the commenting tools acrobat comes with :(
ms6615@reddit
So are you an expert in your field or just a wizard at a specific computer application? Because only one of those really makes you a valuable employee.
PM_ME_YOUR_BOOGER@reddit
A bit of both, design skills being what they are. Why would you impose a 3DSMax on someone who had only used Maya, or vice versa? They need other skills in addition to the software proficiency to be valuable in their roles. There are workflows and techniques that are specific to an application and the nature of creative work in professional spaces means it's not just building the artwork, it's dealing with review/revisions from people in wildly disparate fields who all think that it's "push button, get design".
I've been doing commercial art for over 15 years and am a senior level designer for a F100 company. I can assure you I'm not just "a software wizard". You can be great at photoshop but have garbage typography skills -- this is actually something very common among video people [poor typographical skills].
im-tv@reddit
Double for Affinity.
It is an easy switch, you even can use the same shortcuts, as in Adobe programs.
MeanE@reddit
We have around 50 people and buy one for everyone since our work is veeeeeeeery PDF heavy. Maybe a few people could get away with just reader but we tried that and those people would run into needing it here and there. It was just easier to give it to everyone.
Adobe Pro sucks....but somehow other options also suck even more so. Tried a few other options awhile back and they could not cut it.
I hate the PDF market.
babywhiz@reddit
We were in the same boat. So far, all our users love this one: https://pdf-xchange.eu/pdf-xchange-editor/
NiftyLogic@reddit
First, you're stating that "we should be offering similar free programs" but then you make it sound like they expect you to actually make the users switch.
I would say it's pretty easy to "offer" a list with some bullet points comparing the different apps and a download link. The actual decision with which app to go is not on your hands.
After that, it's no longer your problem. Personally, I think this is a conversation between your director and the directors of your users.
Not your problem ...
badaz06@reddit
I agree here. Make a comparison sheet of a few different products (there are some alternatives when it comes to PDF, not so much when it comes to Creative Cloud), and high-light the differences AND the different requirements and needs...like having 2 portals, man power requirements, etc, and cost. You may want to add in that you have something now that you know works, don't need end user training, blah blah blah.
Then, let the management deal with the end user complaints.
tylrat93@reddit
This is a case of mismanged policies for sure.
You shouldn't have a ton of competing softwares out in the enviroment anyway, since it's hell to support. Imagine an engineering shop where every single person used their preferred version of CAD lol
Definitely not your responsibility to force people to switch products lol. You did more than enough just finding products to offer, managmenet needs to decide if they're going to enforce it or not
At-M@reddit
there actually is none because of a simple reason:
Adobe owns PDF Patents and only provides certain things under a license.
For the main issue though:
show it to your/their manager and talk about saving money
making a point about "saving money because we dont need it" always helps
Taurothar@reddit
Our business manager won't buy subscription model software and Adobe ended perpetual licenses for Acrobat Pro, so I just started demoing Foxit PDF Editor to a few users and they love it. It does 99.99% of what Adobe Acrobat does for half the price and still (though obfuscated) has perpetual licenses.
what-the-puck@reddit
Yes, this is true, but could be more clear.
Adobe has parents for PDF and most of their "advanced" features - but they were basically forced to make the PDF standard open through the 2010s when they had so many vulnerabilities in Reader and Acrobat that companies were getting really sick of it.
Licencing their parents royalty-free and basically limitation-free meant maintaining their use where possible and helping keep competitors from gaining market share.
Ultimately the features of PDF 99.9% of people actually used at the time were ... a write-protected text document where you can embed images. A .doc can do that. Ultimately Adobe opened up to save their product
Sk1rm1sh@reddit
I worked somewhere that gave everyone FOSS from OS to applications unless there was no similar alternative. People who needed paid licenses had to put requests in and get approval by their managers with a business justification.
It was kind of ass for new hires because almost everyone needed to use some piece of software that only ran on Windows so in practice, the policy just added a delay and approval requirement before people could really get any work done, but I digress.
Sounds like the team's managers should be justifying their license budget. Accounting can query / allocate the budget. IT just manages licensing & installs.
You could go down the route of providing free alternatives as part of the default install and only pay for licenses with justification and approval if that's something your org agrees to, but that's a policy I'd expect the accounting dept. to manage.
I guess you could suggest a suite of pre-installed free software to your manager if they're asking about this so at least they have the option to present it to their manager.
pdp10@reddit
We have a repo or "app store" of vetted software, with updating functionality. So that little needs to be in the default install, and updating is automated.
Ours actually incudes commercial software as well as open-source apps. Just nothing where our licensing is per-seat. Either site-wide/org-wide licensing or freeware.
pdp10@reddit
It should be obvious to you that every commercial competitor works hard to make sure that they're "unique". It's called "sustainable competitive advantage", or colloquialisms such as a "moat".
The response is to engineer workflows, not to flog software to your end-users. For example, users may want Adobe Acrobat for certain PDF operations. If the workflow is improved to smoothly automate those operations with something like PDFsam, then you've eliminated a time-consuming manual operation as well as eliminated a troublesome software vendor.
Much of the time, software migrations are declared from the top down, with no consideration for best timing, and the end-users feel that they're expected to figure everything out. Instead you want business analysts on the job, supported by engineers.
Less_Ad7772@reddit
Tell the director you are not a professional photo/video expert so cannot really correctly advise professionals in another field how to do their job with a different set of tools.
MooFz@reddit
It's not your job to train people, make it HR's problem.
Drakoolya@reddit
"Problem to me is that people will NEVER change unless that message comes from the director itself."
Yr Director is a clown, your executive decision makers are clowns. It is not your problem.
meanwhenhungry@reddit
Make them edit in word and print/save as pdf.
Word will also convert a pdf to word.
jfernandezr76@reddit
My only rule back in the day about software was that IT would never install unlicensed software. If anybody wanted a specific software, we'll tell him the cost and we would need a written approval of the expense, assigned to its department.
vagueAF_@reddit
this annoys me, management must not understand IT function.
YOU decide what software to use and IT will implement it..
pockypimp@reddit
At my last job IT billed the departments/sites for the Adobe licenses. That helped control the costs as department/site managers got to see what it cost them and made them really think about the actual needs. IT handled the purchasing and deployment because we'd get the pricing for having multiple licenses.
I remember we got one particular Adobe product so people could make training videos or something so Marketing could upload them to the intranet. So Marketing requested something like 20 licenses (for a company of 850'ish users). We purchased and assigned the licenses and deployed the software as requested. Then Marketing got the bill. A year later they got rid of all but 3 of the licenses as nobody actually used them except 3 people.
We also had a manager decide that his admin assistant needed Acrobat Standard instead of Reader. No business justification on what her job duties would entail needing the software but he demanded it. We got an email confirmation of the order in the ticket so we processed the purchase and deployed. He then was upset that his site got charged for the software.
Decker9000@reddit
Have you looked into what Pixar did? https://youtu.be/JeHH8FDaO0Q?si=_iizysGG0EPXdUwL
hlloyge@reddit
It's not IT's job to suggest which software designers will use. They have their boss, he should be the one to do that, and check with IT if the software will work on their computer configurations. This is typical hot potato which no one want so they (the management) dropped it on you. Your director should know that.
ambscout@reddit
PDF Gear is free and good
supercamlabs@reddit
Not really you're problem.
Director is just uneducated and uninformed....nothing you can really do.
And no, no in there right mind is going to dogfood a software alternative unless the C-suite demands it and co-signs it.
StraightAct4448@reddit
Not sure what Adobe tools you're talking about, but if it's Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign, there is, quite simply, no alternative for professional work. None. Not Gimp, not Krita, not Affinity, nothing.
Professionals need professional tools. The end.
I don't know what you're paying for those, but let's say it's like $40/m. Those users probably get paid that for about one hour of work. If switching to a free tool costs them one hour per month (and it's going to be a lot more than that), you are not saving money, you are spending money to switch.
It's a false economy.
Mindestiny@reddit
"we gave users alternatives, the business refused to evaluate them and demanded Adobe licensing"
That's it, you're done, you did what was asked.
Adobe "entitlement" is definitely a real thing that we all deal with, but it's also a best in class creative suite with legitimate reasons why it's better than the competition.Ā If their workflow involves this tool and the tool is made available, that's that.Ā It's your directors problem to explain why costs are up and communicate that the rest of the business refused to solution a cost cutting alternativeĀ
pdp10@reddit
We prefer best-of-breed tools. Besides, there are barely any other "creative suites". Anyone who buys the marketing that they need a "creative suite" has just reduced their options to two or perhaps three, with another one being the three-application Affinity suite.
StraightAct4448@reddit
It's not about the fact that it's sold as a suite. It's the fact that there is simply no professional alternative to AI/PS/InDesign. That's the Adobe "core suite", and you need one or more of those if you're doing that kind of work.
Mindestiny@reddit
Yep, I'll never understand the penny pinching surrounding creative software and PDF software.Ā Like you seriously are going to try to save an extra $5 a user or whatever to use kludgy alternative software instead of the industry standard company that coined the file formats?
It's the definition of penny wise, pound foolish.Ā Users will waste more time with unfamiliar workflows and formatting/compatibility issues than you saved on the contract.Ā Address the user entitlement culture but otherwise this one is a no brainer.
pdp10@reddit
We prefer best-of-breed tools, not bundles that contain one outstanding spreadsheet and some other undifferentiated software to seem like a good value.
Adobe invented PostScript, and the PostScript/EPS-derived PDF, and DNG. Adobe didn't invent GIF, PNG, JPEG,
.mov, ProRes, h.264, AV1,.srt,.SVG, etc.Mindestiny@reddit
I mean... good for you? If you want to split everything up into individual tools with individual licensing schemes and have a bunch of users who don't know how to work in random alternative tools so you can save a few dollars, you do you.
This question comes up all the time, and it's right up there with "How do we avoid microsoft office licensing by going with Libre Office because someone wants to try to save $15/mo???" And the answer is always "you're wasting your time, losing what you're saving in productivity costs, and making things harder for yourself and everyone else in your org." And for what? Because someone's got a bee in their bonnet over Adobe as a company? There's way more important things to spend time and money on.
Rocknbob69@reddit
I got everyone off of Adobe Acrobat years ago moving to Kofax. There were a few squeaky wheels, but most people like it better.
Obvious-Water569@reddit
There are no true alternatives to Adobe's suite of apps. You might be able to replicate your specific use cases with a grab bag of other apps but there will almost certainly not be a one size fits all solution.
But the issue isn't finding alternatives. The issue is user adoption. Trust me, I've seen it happen.
Adobe's suite is the industry standard for what those apps do. People have built careers on being proficient in those apps and they do their best work with them. If you suddenly pull the rug out from under your design team and say "now you use app X, Y and Z" some of them will leave the business - probably your best ones. The ones who stay will need to learn the new applications from scratch. All of that will be a massive impact to productivity that I can almost guarantee will be more expensive than just paying for the damn Adobe licenses.
On top of that, your job will become far harder because you'll be expected to support the users in the switch. Do you know how to use those alternatives to a professional level? Seasoned Adobe users know the applications inside and out so can solve 99% of their own queries.
TLDR: Don't do it. It's not worth it. Not by a long shot.
pdp10@reddit
Basically propaganda. From experience in professional video, the organization had three different NLE software stacks at any given time, on at least two platforms. One of them came from Adobe and the other two didn't.
andrewhotlab@reddit
Can you name these two alternative platforms? I'm really interested in good Adobe's alternative, because, besides the high licensing costs, their software architecture is getting less and less supportable at each release (you know what I mean if you run InDesign/Illustrator/Photoshop on macOS saving on SMB shares!). Thanks!
StraightAct4448@reddit
For editing, Avid is the industry standard, and Resolve is pretty good for being free.
For PS/ID/AI, no, there is no alternative.
StraightAct4448@reddit
That's true for Premiere, where Avid is the industry standard for pro work, but not true at all for PS/AI/InDesign.
vulcansheart@reddit
I feel for you. But whatever you do, don't drink the Foxit juice.
cellnucleous@reddit
Did this a couple years ago - massive push back, IT cost cutting was supported by management - position was; "Sorry, business can't afford Adobe - switch and train yourself to use PDF alternative or justify cost in report to management." - result was many staff trained themselves, IT supported "more effective" staff who helped train other staff. A number of people with projects that have budgets bought their own Adobe subscriptions and passed the cost on to their clients, resulting in silo'd IT and "What subscription?" problems when there's staff churn.
nighthawke75@reddit
You mentioned you could no longer receive the education discount. Could you elaborate and expand on why Adobe got stupid on that matter?
SecurityHamster@reddit
We had same problem. Foxit has been working for the vast majority of our users. We still have a handful on the adobe suite but thatās all
asedlfkh20h38fhl2k3f@reddit
If I start a business - there's ZERO chance I will ever implement Adobe into my environment - ever. There's absolutely no reason to let Adobe rape you in the ass with their fees. Check out PDF Exchange Editor, it's cheaper than Adobe and you can do everything with it you'd want.
OR
Don't be editing/creating PDFs with any PDF editor at all. Use whatever you already have like Word or Docs, manually build your desired document, make it as janky as you wish, and export as PDF if the receiving entity really requires it to be a PDF.
Enterprise needs a massive makeover. Stop using Adobe products for enterprise, stop using Microsoft products for enterprise - these types of big tech slave owners are crippling enterprise. It's time to move over to Linux based ecosystems and web-based mail. No more licensed office apps that never work properly anyway. It's old, it's antiquated, it has to go.
ultradip@reddit
The obvious thing to do is shift that cost to their budget and not yours since you don't use it yourselves.
That'll give them some incentive to look at alternatives.
segagamer@reddit
I've found that whenever it's time to renew my Adobe CC licence, I just need to reach out to their support and say that I need to reduce the number of seats we have.
This year I managed to know off our Adobe CC licences by 48%!
music2myear@reddit
Teams pay for their own licenses out of their own budgets. When cost cutting comes around, they'll have to leave the licenses or lose people.
RobMitte@reddit
This is clearly a financial matter and not a technical matter. (I am not saying you should not have posted the question.)
Humans in general do not like change. At my place we tell the users that they have X amount of days to respond to the email with a business case as to why they still need to use the application or it gets taken off them and they can cry to a wall. The business cases get given to management to decide and we get back to doing tech work.
pdp10@reddit
You might consider the velvet glove instead of the iron fist. The latter can tend to result in more resistance thn the former.
RobMitte@reddit
Don't need to at my place which is in the public sector. Our duty is to spend tax payers money wisely, if an end user doesn't like it then they can go cry to a wall or go find another job. Those who submit a sound business case get listened to and if a service that is cheaper serves those needs then it gets implemented after trial, etc.
Lukage@reddit
Offer alternatives. If people refuse, document it for feedback. Bring it to your management and let them decide what to do.
If they say to implement something else, work on the rollout and documentation, remind users that management directed the change and that you're just there to implement it.
Pretty normal user experiences. Its not your fault. But always remember that they're obligated to be professional. They can complain, but they need to be respectful to you. Don't take abuse.
BumHound@reddit
Has everyone bypassed over OPās org lying to Microsoft and Adobe for cheap licenses? I love the move, but what type of shady business are you guys running?
What are you guys paying for on acrobat pro? Weāre charged $177 per user annually. Finance bills each department and ITās only role is the SSO connection.
pdp10@reddit
Did OP edit the post? I only see a mention that Adobe decided they were ineligible for educational discounts any longer.
AppIdentityGuy@reddit
What is the reason for pro?
ArchusKanzaki@reddit
From my experience, just buying Acrobat Pro licenses is not that different from buying entire Cloud licenses. Its their main draw and that's how they get you to pay for everything. Because its like 20$ for Acrobat-only, but 30$ for everything including Acrobat. They also provide bigger discounts if you buy tons of licenses at once like 10k or so. That's how I know their normal consumer pricing is super over-inflated, since they definitely are able to offer you those for cheaper.
And yes, I do feel your frustrations. Adobe knows they have the advantages and they know that its harder for us to teach them the alternatives compared to just buying Adobe licenses. Like, do you seriously consider teaching all the HR about how to combine and edit PDF in other software?
Unfortunately, if you are not the decision-maker, you probably can't do much at this point. This is more or less business decision and if the accounting or the boss does not like the price, they can either talk to Adobe themselves, or just do not proceed to buy it.
pdp10@reddit
Why not? Back in the day, our enterprise would schedule an outside trainer periodically to come in and teach relevant computing subjects to end-users.
"Relevant" ended up being amusingly biased toward what leadership thought was important, like using the specific collaboration software that leadership used. But it worked pretty well and it was cost-efficient for our scale.
More recently, we've seen systematic internal education attached to KPIs, where the instructors were members of staff who were also fulfilling KPIs. Instead of pretending that everyone knows Git from birth, we had a couple of classes on Git.
rentfulpariduste@reddit
Does Adobe provide usage information to show which users used which of the licensed apps in the last year?
pdp10@reddit
A good traditional method is to add a script wrapper for each application, where the wrapper logs various telemetry at app-open and app-close.
App-open frequency, open-time, username are obvious metrics, but you can go much deeper. Number of file-handles opened, number of bytes moved, amount of memory allocated, if you really want. Which separate executables are invoked. Which file-types are used, if you really care.
_Aerish_@reddit (OP)
Not that i know of unless it's buried somewhere in the administration interface ?
Quake9797@reddit
I havenāt found it either. Why would they want to make it easy to remove licenses? š
FalconDriver85@reddit
Maybe itās a stupid advice, but Iāll create a powershell script (or bash if on a Mac) that runs like every 15 minutes on the computers with the Adobe suite installed and silently forward to someone (you or someone else) the list of processes running, filtered for the adobe ones and most importantly anonymized (I donāt know where you are, but here itās illegal to monitor an employee activity if not for security concerns).
You can then build a report with the usage of every single Adobe product being used in that group of computers and provide evidence that, for instance, itās useless to subscribe to the entire Adobe Suite if the only used software are, for instance, Acrobat and Illustrator.
liftoff_oversteer@reddit
"Problem to me is that people will NEVER change unless that message comes from the director itself."
Exactly. This ia a management problem, for officers, not foot soldiers.
Dwonathon@reddit
The newest version of Adobe Acrobat that anyone has our company is from 2010. Plenty of people still prefer that over the more current versions of Foxit or PDF XChange lol.
Pelatov@reddit
Itās a business problem. Plus IT shouldnāt be paying for the licenses, the departments should. IT should be the go between for compliance reasons, but if a department wants adobe, they should pay for it. Then their director can determine whatās worth the cost or not
notHooptieJ@reddit
no.
while there are alternatives, they're all just as nightmarish for support.
But instead of a onestop shop where you can be mad at adobe, you get to spend hours troubleshooting odd intended behavior because "Knock-OFF-PDF" decides use outlook to print every time, or doesnt support secured PDFs, or makes a scary green icon appear on the taskbar
or the 1000s of other calls that come in when PDFs arent handled by adobe.
Nah fam, do not fuck with alternative PDF editors, they're Cheaper, but you should already know how much frustration thats gonna cost you.
bjc1960@reddit
We get Adobe Standard. Everyone was "pro" but no one in our org needs "pro." Standard is a sku that is hidden away. Compare to everyone wanting a Yukon Denali but a Yukon SLT is pretty-damn nice too.
I went the Foxit route but price increases did not keep it low enough. After walking with the COO, we decided the extra Adobe tax was offset but less drama
lrph00@reddit
Your boss needs to have your back on the decision. Rather when your boss goes to those director meetings it needs to be brought up with the other directors. Secondly, when users are presented with the more shiny option they will always opt for the more shiny option. Iām guessing when you let staff know you were switching you tried a soft approach and let them know that if they āneededā the pro license it could be bought for them.
pdp10@reddit
This is an interesting idea. Many in the thread express that end-users will always select the thing most familiar to them, but your statement suggests they'd quickly choose something less-familiar if they perceived it to be better. Like picking the Macbook over a Thinkpad, or the prettier GUI over the familiar one.
UklartVann@reddit
Don't know for smaller companies, but in corp world they do fake internal cost placements. IT "Invoices" dept to visualize cost, so that it's placed on the head of the dept, not on IT. Licence is part of corporate processes, not IT.
pdp10@reddit
A term for this is "showbacks", neologised from "chargebacks". Instead of actually invoicing the departments, you show them how much they're using compared to everyone else.
I used to be fond of chargebacks and showbacks, but then experienced how they can misincentivize to a degree truly alarming.
_Koalafier@reddit
We actually charge their departments budget for any software licensing. The department foots the bill for all hardware and software costs that their employees directly use. So when a request for a software license or new hardware is sent up, their senior manager has to approve it.
S3xyflanders@reddit
You did what you were asked not your problem anymore. Your director needs to go to the leadership and fight from that perspective.
It seems like IT covers the costs so of course people are going to ask for everything and they got it.
_Aerish_@reddit (OP)
That's unfortunately what happens, it should be billed on the different departements but in practice our accountant just puts it on IT.
We tried to fight it several times but .... yeah no change.
arwinda@reddit
That is a management and HR problem and you need to make it crystal clear to your own manager that he is the one managing his budget, and not you.
If he wants change, he has to work towards it.
Helpjuice@reddit
The company is just going to need to eat this as a cost of doing business or push alternatives from the top down from the C-Suite.
pdp10@reddit
Beware the self-fulfilling prophecy.
It's trivial to find posts all over Reddit where end-users argue that any spending item is tiny compared to the overall costs of an FTE. End-users want choice without negative consequence for themselves, and the firm buying them all kinds of software they don't use is just a pedestrian manifestation of that.
SkullRunner@reddit
Because the other options are not sufficient.
There are workflows, file interchange and decades of used/precedence of the Adobe products much like there are the Microsoft ones in the office.
The issue you're having is not a Sysadmin one, it's a business ROI one.
They have more people, software, etc. than they have profit coming in if they are looking at these cost cutting measures. Because the alternative is loss of time due to working around limitations and differences in the non adobe solutions.
You can give a pro that knows how to use Adobe creative cloud etc. a task and they can bang it out quickly... or you can give them a suite of mis matched cheaper alternatives and have them struggle to cobble a solution together.
The time loss on the second option always justifies the software license for Adobe.
If it's does not justify the software license for Adobe, then you have a business model problem, not a software license problem. Means your standing on a sinking ship.
i8noodles@reddit
get the IT director to enforce it. problem solved. if they have problems, bring it up with director.
the other department can do whatever they want, if they want to pay for cloud form there own budget then let them do that. u will find they will very quickly adopt your solution the moment money flows from them and not from IT
sssRealm@reddit
We have the same pattern in my employer too. Management wants IT to save the company money, but they don't want to be the bad guys. We have to enforce a strict new phone policy. Anyone with any influence goes whining to management to make an exception for them.
rumforbreakfast@reddit
Speak to finance about allocating those costs to the users business units, as they arenāt costs the IT are in control of.
The problem tends to fix itself pretty quickly after that.
chartupdate@reddit
In my experience this can backfire as spineless managers in business units just go "oh ok then" and eat the cost to give in to people demanding something they don't understand. Middle office managers make poor IT choices.
_Durs@reddit
Again though, it shouldnāt fall to IT to handle another departmentās budget. Finance get involved if a departmentās IT spending is too high, IT sit in the room and explain.
the_star_lord@reddit
Offer cheaper alternatives.
Have documentation and clear features matrix that your users can see so they can compare
Have an approval process put in place where requests can be approved or rejected. No software until approved.
Recharge the departments for their licences.
If you do the above then the users line management will see the cost, and ICT will recoup the cost by charging the other departments.
saturatie@reddit
Give the manager an excel sheet or even a physical paper with a list of people that currently have access. Also add the cost of each license. Then it's up to them to decide who gets to keep the license and who doesnt.
Ideally each department would cover the licensing costs from their own budget. The issue of overlicensing is quick to disappear when you have to cover it yourself rather than it coming from IT.
whatacharacter@reddit
This is how it's worked everywhere I've been.Ā Base charges (OS licensing, E5, security software) are billed to IT.Ā Anything a particular department "needs" is billed to them.Ā They get to state their own requirements, IT has some input for device/network safety, and then the purchase gets billed to the manager of that specialty group.Ā Even if it fulfills all their requirements, trying to talk people into what they perceive as "lesser" software is a job for accounting, not IT.
_Aerish_@reddit (OP)
That's exactly what i did.
saturatie@reddit
Then you can distance yourself from it. Sometimes you can't fix bad management and it's not really your duty to do that either.
Vulperffs@reddit
Thatās up to the CFO to handle this.
If I was CFO Iād put it simple: you can either keep using Adobe Cloud or you can find a free alternative and get 100$ raise or whatever the cost of the license is.
Believe me they will look for alternatives.
But if your company is only looking for cutting costs and not giving raises then they are shit out of luck.
_Aerish_@reddit (OP)
Understandable but as a governemental organization we cannot add/change salaries.
Vulperffs@reddit
Then itās not your problem.
ryalln@reddit
Agreed with the handball. Tell cfo you have an option and need him to delegate a team who will do it first. Or flip it and tell him which team you want to trial and get his responce in writing and do it.
arttechadventure@reddit
I headed up this same project for Acrobat Pro at my company. We rolled out PDFgear as a cost saving measure and knowing full well it is sufficient for most basic PDF editing.
When I installed the app, I explained that any problem they have with it must be demonstrated to me and acted as a source of authority despite just being a lowly desktop support tech.
Just like at your company, plenty of people didn't want to make the change and acted entitled. Plenty of people claimed they had problems with it. And I sat through plenty of meetings with people "demonstrating" problems that did not exist.
It was an uphill battle, but we placed the onus of putting down in writing the business case for using Acrobat over PDFgear on the end user. When they couldn't make a sufficient argument, we pulled their license. Saved a bunch of money.
Since there are no viable replacements for the creative suite apps, you should virtualize the apps and give the end users a way to remote into it for "when they need it." You can roll back those several individual licenses to just a few seat licenses...and then even fewer seat licenses once you have the metrics to prove those people who were requesting access never remoted into the VM.
RandomLolHuman@reddit
Present this list : https://get.alternative.to/adobe-photoshop
Make the applications available, and now it's up to the managers to get the users to switch.
Let management manage
welcome2devnull@reddit
PDF XChange Pro - much faster than Adobe Acrobat and by far cheaper (ask for an offer, they sometimes offer discount on top).
Just because of the much better performance non of our Users looked back to Adobe Acrobat and didn't miss any feature so far.
GamerLymx@reddit
this year i have been getting several requests for adobe suite. we have an classes design classes so it makes sense to have the software available, but because most students bring their own device the only viable option would be user licenses.
however i don't have number on how many licenses are needed and they are too steep, around 500ā¬ per person/year for education. thats a third the yearly fee students pay, and we dont get enough funding for that. compared to other educantion licenses it's highway robbery.
fnordhole@reddit
None of that is IT's function.
Just because it is on a computer doesn't mean it is IT's function or shoukd be in IT's budget.
The licensing should be charged to the business units with the users.
Evangelizing users to choose software alternatives?Ā Not an IT function, by nature.
Quake9797@reddit
We went all in on Acrobat last year with a good discount from Adobe for a three year agreement. Weāre fully expecting them to jack the prices up at renewal, so weāre planning a PDF bake off sometime in late 2025 or early 2026. Thatās going to be so much fun.
lufkin1601@reddit
Do you not use a reseller? We only pay $6 per licence for a full cloud suite
Reverent@reddit
First off, remember that people are expensive. Like, really expensive.
Second off, remember that people will never opt in to disruptions to their workflow. Ever. Ever.
Third off, see the second point. Ever.
So, that in mind, is disrupting their workflows worth the savings in comparison to their cost? Then take that same question, shove it upwards, and forget about it because it's not your call to make.
schmerold@reddit
Next you are going to want to take away their MacBooks. How can you sleep with yourself?
KingStannisForever@reddit
I did tryied Affinity stuff, but you won't teach old dog new tricks. I talked to friend about this and she too would not bother with it, since Adobe CC suite is so good. It just doesn't click. Cause people are just used to how Adobe Photoshop, illustrator, Premiere, Aftereffect, Acrobat...etc... works. The way the shortcuts do, what ALT, CTRL, SHIFT doest in each.
That managment needs a whole CC is a bit weired though :D WTF they doing with it?
I still think Adobe are fucking Primordial Darknes of corpos, and ancient evil that invented this subscription model bullshit and exploits it to no end. The other *evils* just wants to be as good at it as Adobe is.
They even got sued now over it, I think.
Komputers_Are_Life@reddit
You can do some shitty sysadmin stuff and setup adobe apps to be hosted as RDP apps on a windows terminal server. You can use just one license for unlimited users since to Adobe CC servers it looks like everyone is using the same computer.
This works really well for Acrobat but more PIA for photoshop need to add some kind of GPU to the sever but it can be done :)
rfc968@reddit
Weāre rather happy with PowerPDF Advanced.
As for getting our users to move over and be happy? A custom ribbon, combining the daily needed functions from 4 different other standard ribbons. Undocumented for sure, just a simple adjustment of the UI XMLs.
This happened a few years back, and coincided with a change in how functions and āribbonsā were moved or rather re-moved in Acrobat.
Getting āAmbassadorsā from the users on board helped. They got special training, with a focus on improvements over the old software. In our case: faster load times and the daily functions in one place. Make sure they or at least some of them get a few other programs shown, maybe on older systems, just to show which alternatives were looked at, but eliminated.
And yes, the move from Acrobat was a question of price. We would have needed the PRO as well, just for the proper redaction features.
J-Dawgzz@reddit
Try Nitro Pro, our users prefer it to Adobe and I'm sure it's a heck of a lot cheaper.