Sorry to be so late to the game here, but I wanted to share my thoughts.

1) Re price, I think the $200 upgrade price for Flash Pro is more than fair, since the improvements are significant (I’d pay $200 for FileReference.save() alone!) On the other hand, I don’t know that I’d shell out $600 or more to upgrade the entire suite. In all honesty, the improvements to Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. just aren’t that earthshaking to me, certainly in comparison with the groundbreaking CS3. So I will be upgrading to Flash CS4 both at work and at home, but I won’t upgrade the other products.

2) I think you guys have a lot of potential with Captivate. I wouldn’t neglect the e-learning market, particularly at a time when companies are slashing travel costs. My company, for example, is looking to expand its e-learning offerings. However, we don’t have enough Flash developers (uh, that’d be me) to go around and, frankly, dedicated Web-training companies can be pricey. Captivate is the perfect tool for the corporate trainer without programming experience. I think you have a real winner with that tool, particularly if you refine it a bit more and market the heck out of it.

3) Flash media server, etc. — I think, again, that this can be a hot product when companies are cutting back on travel. The challenge is to make these accessible enough for non-programmers to use.

4) iPhone — I don’t think you guys are the hangup on this one. Nonetheless, I really wish Adobe could patch things up with Apple. As a long-time Mac AND Adobe enthusiast, I feel a bit like my parents are going through a messy divorce. I wish that you two companies could work together again…like in the old days of the 90s. I know, I don’t think Adobe is really at fault here, but just wishing.

Thanks for all that you guys on the Flash team do. Your product is terrific — actually, more than terrific. In my opinion, there has never been a Flash upgrade that was not worthwhile, and I have been using your product since Flash 5.

We are facing at the moment one huge global economical crisis, that make people not to invest.

Adobe is facing problems but all the other companies are. The big one’s and the smallest.

2009 and 2010 will be in my opinion the worst years maybe from the last 30-40 years. Economically speaking…

Let’s see what else will happen till the end of the year.

I may be late but I am sorry to hear this. I just got back from the Adobe Refresh event in Brisbane today and, working with Adobe products, I feel more than ever like Adobe and the Flash Platform are and will continue to be the right horse to back. I hope this doesn’t get any worse.

1. The ide should have the ability to import 3d models directly and manipulate them in realtime for animations without having to use papervision or code your own engine. This would have attracted a ton of animators and animation studios. It is hard to justify buying an upgrade when your organization already has workarounds to achieve what you offered.

2. Make Code editing and project organization easy. There are free Code editors like flash develop that outperform Flash own native editor, a part of corporately developed IDE, by Miles; this, should not be the case. And the Gskinner application, although a good start, is a joke in contrast to stage the IDE should be at.

3.(really 3 and 4) Adding custom Html Templates and air customization should be apart of the publish settings dialog. Why can’t I just make my own templates or select all the options that I want, instead of one or the other, for template generation? Why are there no advanced air customizations possible in the publish settings dialog, when that is where everyone is supposed to look for everything from .mov to jpg to projectors? Ease of use and consistency please; I beg it of you.

4. Why can’t you just export a flash animation to divx or multiple video formats, instead of just MOV? Why can’t I publish my animations as an FLV directly?

All of these features would make it easier for studios to justify the cost.

As for some of the CS4 comments, I’ve also not been pleased at Adobe in this regard, but I think it’s just mean spirited to assume and claim that 600 people lost their jobs because Adobe didn’t sell enough copies of their software as a direct result of CS4 pricing. I am sure that enters into the equation, but the economic indicators and stock prices and a ton of other factors are the most likely reason for this decision.

I just wanted to say that feel for you guys in this moment of change. Seeing friends leave is never an easy thing to do, less so for the people who have been given pink slips. May this change bring you even closer to your community of designers and developers that together we may create some truly amazing things in 2009.

- Jobs -
Sure, everyone is firing now, my company too. But I cannot agree with who is certain that it is not to make the shareholders happy. Unfortunately there are share market needs, especially when everything goes down, and short terms gratifications is in general the favourite answer. Be aware of companies in the stock market then ;)