Adobe Creative Cloud licensing - EEA ending, ETLA not available?

[LRSFC_DanJ]

Hello everyone, I'm trying to find out more with regard to Adobe Creative Cloud education licensing.

 

Currently we're on an EEA agreement, which ends in August. Adobe have told us that this type of agreement is no longer available, so at the moment when we renew we are looking at a drastically massive scaling-back of our use of Adobe software to just 420 devices (300 Macs, 120 PCs).

 

Since we can't reduce the availability of the software in teaching/classroom areas, at the moment it looks like what it means is that open access areas such as the LRC will have to take a hit and have only a few computers with the software installed instead of all of them, limiting the ability of students on courses that use it to be able to do independent learning outside of the classroom.

 

When we were renewing last year, there was an Eduserv ETLA agreement available as well as the EEA, but we chose the EEA because the ETLA was more expensive and provided features that we had no need for. Now that the EEA is being pulled out from under us, we can't get onto the Eduserv ETLA because it's a fixed term 3 year agreement which is now closed.

 

We scheduled a meeting with Adobe representatives at BETT 2017 this year, at which we expressed our case quite firmly, but there was little to no movement in Adobe's position.

 

My question is this: is there another, non-Eduserv ETLA consolidated purchasing provider whom we could use to get onto ETLA, which according to this page is licensed by FTE count?

 

Failing that, what alternatives to Adobe software do other organisations use? In particular we use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC quite widely across the college for PDF editing, what other PDF editor could we purchase instead?

 

EDIT: to clarify, we're interested in the software only, not the cloud services. Home Use Rights would be a nice-to-have but are not essential. Our FTE number is somewhere between 140 and 180 depending on how it is calculated. Under the proposed new per-device licensing scheme that we're currently looking at having to use, 420 devices is the maximum we can afford. We're a sixth form college located in Cambridge, England, with around 2200 students and around 1200 computers total.

Edited February 3, 2017 by LRSFC_DanJ

[nadeem]

I think you'd find that any future Adobe Education plans would be subject to an NDA at the moment.

 

I chose the 3 year ETLA agreement last year partly to get the certainty for the the 3 years as it was evident that EEA was no longer going to be available, and for me at least was much cheaper.

 

For the alternatives, I wonder if its worth working out that the "editing" use actually is - most of our (non domain/home use licensed) users are perfectly happy with alternatives to PDF creation (e.g. Word - Save As PDF) or occasionally CutePDF

[Arthur]

Adobe CC prices are increasing significantly next month...

 

www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/03/never_knowlingly_undersold_adobe_joins_brexploitation_gang/

 

As if they weren't expensive enough already!

[john]

Editing PDFs is possible in the newest versions of MS Office, nearly all of our requests for Adobe Acrobat to edit PDFs are solved by showing File > Open and then find the PDF via Word and its conversion is pretty good.

[LRSFC_DanJ]

For the alternatives, I wonder if its worth working out that the "editing" use actually is - most of our (non domain/home use licensed) users are perfectly happy with alternatives to PDF creation (e.g. Word - Save As PDF) or occasionally CutePDF

Editing PDFs is possible in the newest versions of MS Office, nearly all of our requests for Adobe Acrobat to edit PDFs are solved by showing File > Open and then find the PDF via Word and its conversion is pretty good.

Well okay, so that may solve one part of the problem, since we're planning to move to Office 2016.

 

But it still leaves us in the position of not being able to offer Adobe software in open access areas for independent learning except for a small number of computers.

 

Surely Eduserv can't be the only purchasing consortium in the UK offering access to the ETLA?

[nadeem]

Surely Eduserv can't be the only purchasing consortium in the UK offering access to the ETLA?

 

I believe it was an exclusive deal - the deal involved some pretty stringent payment terms.

 

It does say here Adobe 2015 ETLA that there will be an final opportunity to join the agreement in summer 2017

[LRSFC_DanJ]

It does say here Adobe 2015 ETLA that there will be an final opportunity to join the agreement in summer 2017

 

Excellent, that's really helpful! I've notified my manager, hopefully we are not too late and haven't gone ahead with the 420 device plan yet!

 

Thanks,

Dan Jackson (Lead ITServices Technician)

Long Road Sixth Form College

Cambridge, UK.

[nadeem]

@LRSFC_DanJ

 

The ETLA agreement is now open for new signups Adobe 2015 ETLA for one year only

[JordanT91]

I recently purchased a site license for my school, 30 device licenses for approximately £20 each (for one year). I'm no sure what programme this was under, but how does that compare to the programmes mentioned in this thread?