it may not be the companys fault, but it's undeniable that they should act responsibly if they get to that status.
What do you mean by "act responsibly"?
the real danger is price fixing and creative stagnation, the first of which we are seeing here.
When you really look into it, the prices are not really that high, you are talking about a suite of profesional applications here. Comparing single products, both the full and upgrade version of InDesign CS3 are $50 cheaper than the full and upgrade versions of QuarkXpress 7.
Previous owners of Studio MX/2004/8
or CS/CS2 can upgrade to CS3 Design premium for a mere $600 or to CS3 Web Premium for $500. That is a very good deal, both upgrades cost less than upgrading other prefesional product suites such as Final Cut Pro Studio, which is $700.
As far as creative stagnation goes, I sure hope Adobe does not becomes a sleeping giant, this current release shows that their are in good track and are still driven by innovation, integration and creativity. Let's hope it stays that way.
without real competition dictating market value, adobe are able to name their price, and who's going to stop them?
And why should they be stopped? It is their product, they expend their time and resources developing it, they are free to put the price they want to it.
they know full well that they control the creative industry almost 100% now.
Well, they earned their position thru hard work and beat their competitors by making better products and implementing good strategies.
If Adobe is not careful competitors can start driving customers away from it's products by making better products. This is what is happening to Microsoft and is what happened(and is still happening) to Quark.
there's only really Apple and Quark on the fringes of their territories that can really offer anything of an alternative, and even then, nothing can do what Photoshop and Illustrator do. there simply aren't any other viable pieces of software anymore for the professional, so it's not as if people can protest by buying in with the competitor...
There is also Corel, which has Corel DRAW, Painter, Paint Shop Pro and Photo Paint, there is open source software like the GIMP and im sure there are others. There are alternatives, that they are bad is a separate thing and one that is not Adobe's problem.
sal