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Topic: Dearer product = increased uptake ?!?!
Conf: (P-PDF) Acrobat 6.0, Msg: 85706
From: jann
Date: 4/8/2003 06:00 AM

Adobe say they want to dramatically increase uptake of PDF, but from the information so far I don't see how it will happen (apart from a few happy architects and engineers).

As I read it we have
- Acrobat 6 Pro costing US$449 (that's $228 more than Acro 5 (at CDW.com). Admittedly, street pricing may be lower.
- Acro 6 Std costing $299 ($71 more than Acro 5)
- Acro 6 Elements costing only$28 - but only available to companies with more than 1000 seats...

Acro 6 Std - the nearest price equivalent of Acro 5 - no longer allows the user to create forms, and the Search facility is only listed on the Pro spec. I dread to think what else may have been left out as an incentive to pay +$228 for the Pro version.

Early days I know, and I have to say that Acrobat upgrades are usually well-thought out and a pleasant surprise - but it does look like there's some exploitation of prospective new users going on (to Adobe's credit, they've continued their reasonable priced upgrade policy)

I fully agree with segmentation, but why not the following structure, say: Pro = Acro5 +10-20%; Standard = Acro5 -30-40%; Elements = $30, but with min entry level of 100 seats??

Or even better, bring out a Business Tools product again. The problem - as has been repeated ad infinitum here and elsewhere - is that users would love to have PDF commenting throughout the organisation, but can't justify rolling out a $200+ product to more than a handful of users. Large organisations may be prepared to invest in the Adobe Forms Enabler or whatever it is called, but small / medium companies are back where they started.

Without seeing the final product specs, it is difficult to give a definite verdict - but something doesn't add up here.
I've never stepped foot inside Adobe HQ, but something tells me that there is some guy or gal there who has very limited understanding of volume marketing. Probably the same person who kept saying 'No' to the genius who finally managed to push through the -90% reduction in Acrobat Exchange pricing a few years ago.

It's no good how many new features are in Acrobat 6 if the pricing structure isn't equally attractive.