Feedback . . .bloggers ... your say ... complaints . . . corrections

From Steve de Vroom.

If Adobe wish to provide a software verification facility online, to enable companies to do a voluntary self audit, that is fine.

Adobe licensing compliance goes online


But if they think that they have the right to compel, coerce or threaten customers to do this, then I suggest that such behaviour should be treated with the contempt that it deserves.

Too many large corporations these days are looking more and more like dictatorships, making demands of other citizens as if they have some kind of higher authority. Is Adobe prepared to have various members of the graphic arts community demand that they, (Adobe), prove that they haven't stolen anything from those members? How about a group of printing industry members barging in to Adobe premises, rifling through their computer system just to check whether they are holding any information that they are not entitled to? I don't think so!

The formation of the ‘Jack Boot Squad’ some years ago, to perpetrate raids and disrupting private businesses with software audits in order to "protect the interests of their clients", on the basis of rumour or suspicion, is unacceptable in my view. Demanding that anyone should have to prove that they don't have stolen goods on their premises would not be tolerated in any other situation and should not be tolerated in this instance. That is the domain of the police working within the laws of our democracy.

Resorting to such measures by software vendors is an admission of failure to manage their own business challenges. It is the responsibility of the software vendor to provide security for their IP in such a way that doesn't impose on their customers. The use of online registration and licence verification technology is an inconvenience that the customer should not have to put up with.

There is a simple solution to software piracy. Use dongles! Hardware keys, or dongles, do the job perfectly and the smarter software companies have successfully adopted this method for over 20 years. Vendors of software licences save time, effort and cost in not having to police their interests and the customers can manage their software licences as if they were tangible assets. Without hardware key protection, software vendors cannot control the black market sales of copies of their products, no matter what they do. I suggest that this is where the bulk of their revenue losses are, not with the professionals within the graphics arts community.

If the software industry came up with a hardware key standard that allowed a plastic card to be inserted into a multi-slot reader, which connected to a USB port or was built in to the computer, the cost of manufacture of hardware keys would be reduced to a fraction of their present level and the industry would have a ubiquitous, easy to use license management system. It would also open up greater flexibility in targeting a more finely segmented market.

Some of the basic code library used in the software could even reside on the hardware key, making the downloaded program smaller and more secure. Without the key, the software simply wouldn't work. Users of the software could take work home or move to another computer, simply by taking the hardware key with them. Now THAT would be a ‘Positive Experience’, Mr Tegel!

The awkward and non-monitorable compromise that Adobe concedes, by allowing software to be loaded onto two separate computers, on condition that they are not both used simultaneously, would be eliminated. Instead of leaving a "bag of gold" out on the road and then trying to guard it, by adopting hardware protection the money would be in the bank, so to speak.

Adobe have always been one of the better behaved "large corporations", when it comes to customer relations and fair play, particularly when compared to some of the other big names in the computer software industry. Descending into these kind of tactics will not solve the problem for Adobe and will simply lose them good will. If you go around insulting your main client base and creating bad will, something unfortunate will eventually occur, as a former leader in page makeup software is now discovering.

Steven de Vroom