Concerned over falling sales and piracy, Adobe is planning to phase out off-the-shelf software products.

The company that makes software products such as Photoshop and Illustrator which is used by photographers, Web designers and others has decided to make it available online through a subscription model.

In line with this, the company has decided to offer Creative Cloud suite of Adobe software for a subscription of Rs 4,040 a month.

Targeting small units

According to Adobe officials, the Creative Cloud is tailored for small and medium businesses which have been loathe to use the company’s products due to its high pricing and higher capital expenditure.

“We are a small 20-member team and to pay Rs 1.75 lakh upfront for using Adobe’s Professional Suite was never under consideration,” said a CEO of a Mumbai-based post production company. He added that with this kind of pricing, he will consider Adobe.

This high pricing of software has increased piracy despite the efforts of industry bodies such as BSA and Nasscom trying to evangelise the use of genuine software. Companies such as Adobe are losing out on revenues and with this business model, it is trying to curb piracy.

Umang Bedi, Managing Director–South Asia, Adobe, told Business Line that ease of availability coupled with attractive price points and value-added services would increase its sales in the Indian market.

According to a BSA study, value of pirated software was estimated at Rs 13,783 crore in 2011.

Cloud platform

While the company does not give out India numbers, both in terms of units or revenues, globally it has around one million users on the creative cloud platform and 30 per cent of them are first time users, according to Adobe officials.

Adobe is not the first to shift to an online model. Microsoft with its Office 365 suite of products decided to offer online subscription for its Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office software last year.

> venkatesh.ganesh@thehindu.co.in

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