|
Australian PhotoShop users will be guinea pigs in Adobe?s controversial ?product activation? trial, as the software giants tests the technology in an effort to reduce the piracy worldwide.
?We are doing what Microsoft did, only we are doing it differently and better.? That sums up Adobe?s plans for product activation (PA), which is being assessed in a three month Australian trial. If successful, PA is likely to be added to the future versions of all Adobe software.
?Adobe has been working on this for over a year?, said Drew McManus, Adobe director of worldwide anti-piracy, with the companies aim of PA being an ?under one minute user experience?.
The trial will see a special activation code rolled into builds of PhotoShop 7 that will be slipstreamed into the Australian retail channel for three months, starting in late April. This version?s boxes won?t carry any special markings.
Activation methods will be online, through touch tone phone, or in person from 7am to 7pm weekdays. Users enter the product ID and we supplied with a code that allows activation of the product. A grace period will let the software to be loaded and used for 30 days without activation, but at the end of that time the software will lock the user out unless the activation code is entered.
As in the past, Adobe?s PhotoShop licence continues to allow the software to be installed on two PCs, provided they are not used simultaneously.
When asked about the company?s willingness to provide additional unlock codes over the phone, McManus said ?Adobe will proceed on the assumption that the customer is legal?.
When the user activates the software, the code is written to a small file that is stored on an outer track of the hard drive. This code remain, even if users do an uninstall of the software and will even survive a quick format of the hard drive.
Adobe research indicates that users often uninstall and then reinstall software to clean things up, or even reformat their entire system, so users who do either won?t need to reactivate the application as the activation code will still be in the hard drive.
However there will be an option in PhotoShop?s uninstall routine to specifically remove that code nugget, and the file won?t survive a total reformat, so in both those cases reactivation will be needed.
McManus admitted this won?t stop PhotoShop being duplicated en-masse by dedicated pirates, but said that it will cut back on users who share a copy with their friends and co-workers, which is the most common and most preventable form of piracy.
Adobe considered a range of measures from hardware dongles to annual subscription services. ?I think PA is going to become standard in software, it will be an experience that customers will become increasingly familiar with? said McManus.
Microsoft ?Greedy? says OEM Partner
Meanwhile, Microsoft OEM partners were shocked at the extent the company is pushing its own brand of PA. At a Brisbane conference held in March, partners were told that if a motherboard is upgraded for any reason then a new licence for Windows would have to be purchased.
?For example, if your motherboard fails and requires replacing but same model is no longer available and have to buy an upgrade, Microsoft considers that as an upgrade and you must stop using your existing Windows and buy another one?, Trevor Johnson from Everything Computers wrote to APC.
He added: This is no misunderstanding; it was up on the big screen in plain English. Isn?t that the most greedy and monopolistic thing you?ve ever heard??
News Source: Australian Personal Computers
Typed By: ~*McoreD*~
|
h34r:" class="inlineimg" /> 
Linear Mode
