LR 1.1 Goodwill lost is hard to regain - What motivates Adobe

Question

Thanks to Adobe for trying to address some of the many criticisms of its LR software. However, the experience of using LR has been an eye opener in regards to what apparently motivates Adobe. Prior to using LR, I viewed Adobe at the high end of corporate America. A company made of hard working software engineers who made programs, though not perfect, that were in most respects solid and dependable for professional photographers and graphic artists. Now after using LR for several months, I see Adobe as a company whose top management is primarily focused on the company short-term profitability and stock price. How else can it be explained, what would allow a program with so many major shortcomings / poorly thought out and executed features to be released with such fanfare and hype? Some one must have been pushing the software developers hard during the development phase to cut corners, save cash, and ultimately get the product in stores so that cash would flow in.
The divergence between the slick advertising and endorsements by industry pundits with the reality of the actual software program was as stark as I have ever seen. We live in a world where spin doctors abound and highly paid advertising departments make everything from a floor mop to a frozen desert seem like a gift from heaven. Its unfortunate to see Adobe on this same level.
Adobe lost a lot of goodwill among loyal customers over the LR fiasco. Coming out relatively quickly with a major upgrade, which begins to address some of the flaws in the original release, is an important step in regaining that goodwill. However, as any good business person knows, once customer goodwill is lost it is difficult to regain. The amount of energy (money) required to delight a customer is paltry in comparison to what is required to regain customer goodwill. If Adobe would have had a long term view of its business and placed absolute priority on customer satisfaction, it would not be in this predicament. Unfortunately, like so many publicly traded companies, the pressure of shareholders has apparently made Adobe subjugate this long term view in favor of short term profitability.

Answer 1

Your post is an excellent example of a broad over-reaching statement
that points fingers yet does not provide any substance to it's
complaints. Lots of big words like divergence and pundits, but no actual
statements of problems.
What are you specifically complaining about? What do you see that makes
you make such a broad statement.
I WAS one of the main detractors of LR 1.0 in this forum. Many people
cursed me out and wished me to go away. Well, for what I have seen so
far, LR1.1 is likely one of the best photo tools that I have ever used,
and the majority of the V1 shortcomings have been addressed. There is
still work to do, and SOME people have experienced transition problems,
but as far as I am concerned, the V1.1 patches work great (although they
took too long to arrive) and the new features are excellent and more
worthy of a V1.5 than a mere V1.1 release.
So what are you specifically whining about?
[email protected] wrote:
> Thanks to Adobe for trying to address some of the many criticisms of its LR software. However, the experience of using LR has been an eye opener in regards to what apparently motivates Adobe. Prior to using LR, I viewed Adobe at the high end of corporate America. A company made of hard working software engineers who made programs, though not perfect, that were in most respects solid and dependable for professional photographers and graphic artists. Now after using LR for several months, I see Adobe as a company whose top management is primarily focused on the company short-term profitability and stock price. How else can it be explained, what would allow a program with so many major shortcomings / poorly thought out and executed features to be released with such fanfare and hype? Some one must have been pushing the software developers hard during the development phase to cut corners, save cash, and ultimately get the product in stores so that cash would flow in.
>
> The divergence between the slick advertising and endorsements by industry pundits with the reality of the actual software program was as stark as I have ever seen. We live in a world where spin doctors abound and highly paid advertising departments make everything from a floor mop to a frozen desert seem like a gift from heaven. Its unfortunate to see Adobe on this same level.
>
> Adobe lost a lot of goodwill among loyal customers over the LR fiasco. Coming out relatively quickly with a major upgrade, which begins to address some of the flaws in the original release, is an important step in regaining that goodwill. However, as any good business person knows, once customer goodwill is lost it is difficult to regain. The amount of energy (money) required to delight a customer is paltry in comparison to what is required to regain customer goodwill. If Adobe would have had a long term view of its business and placed absolute priority on customer satisfaction, it would not be in this predicament. Unfortunately, like so many publicly traded companies, the pressure of shareholders has apparently made Adobe subjugate this long term view in favor of short term profitability.