Stop perpetual licenses for Adobe Acrobat: assessments to be made

It will no longer be possible to purchase Adobe Acrobat perpetual licenses. Should you switch to the term version or subscription? What are the evaluations to make.

For years, Adobe Acrobat has been an essential tool for professionals and businesses that want to manage PDF documents efficiently and securely.

The availability of purchasing Adobe Acrobat perpetual licenses (Acrobat Pro 2020 and Acrobat Standard 2020) in the TLC and CLP plans provided organizations - especially smaller entities - the flexibility to purchase Adobe Acrobat licenses based on specific needs and budgetary considerations, without the need to commit to recurring operating costs.

A recent statement from Adobe announces that the last date for making perpetually licensed products of Acrobat in TLP and CLO will be July 15, 2024, with support scheduled to end in June 2025. As of this date there will be two options:

• if you want to make a one-time, nonrecurring purchase there will be the Acrobat Classic option, which is a desktop-only, subscription-free term license that provides up to three years of paid access to the software. This product does not include ongoing feature enhancements or access to Adobe Document Cloud premium services via web browser or mobile devices.
• Alternatively, there are offerings such as Adobe's Creative Cloud that are subscription-based and activated through Adobe VIP, VIP Marketplace and ETLA purchase programs.

In the future, the annual or multi-year subscription-based version will be the only option proposed and desired by AdobeThe decision stems from the vendor's desire to streamline its offerings and offer constant and immediate updates to all new Adobe features such as e-signature, mobile versioning, native integrations with Microsoft, and upcoming AI Assistant features, now only available in beta.

The need to benchmark against hard data

With the discontinuation of the TLP and CLP options and the impending end of support, companies with perpetual Adobe Acrobat licenses will need to conduct their own evaluations before transitioning to new licensing models, whether single-purchase or recurring.

These reasoning applies to new purchases as well, since choosing one model or the other implies a different amortization of costs on the balance sheet (Capex vs Opex).  

In its subscription version, Adobe Acrobat is available both in the Creative Cloud offering as part of an All Apps package in the Pro version (with more features), and as a standalone in multiple versions (Reader which is free, Standard and Pro, with two different pricing levels depending on the features required).

In case of transitions (recommended for those who have perpetual licenses from June 2025 for security reasons) or new purchases, one would have to proceed as follows:

• compliance analysis to understand the as-is situation

The first step is to check the status quo: how many Adobe Acrobat installations do we have in the company? Which versions? Are we using versions that are no longer supported or will soon no longer be supported? Are assignments consistent with what is contracted with the vendor?

Tools SAM such as Snow Software by Flexera which allow direct integration to Adobe's Admin Console and provide visibility into both on-premise and SaaS environments, can give us these analyses in real time.

• utilization analysis.

The reports produced should also contain granular information on employee usage of Adobe applications (so not just Acrobat). If the application is little used, consideration can be given to upgrading to free or less onerous versions as well. If, on the other hand, it is used a lot and perhaps in tandem with other applications in the Creative Cloud offering, bundled purchases may also be considered. 

• prepare a strategy before the vendor comparison

With these analyses, one can begin to prepare a strategy before sitting down at the table with the vendor. There are some thoughts to be made:

• what functionality do my employees need? Do they just need to share PDFs (for this, Reader , which is free and downloadable, is sufficient) or do they need advanced functionality (here is an overview). The Pro version, for example, prepares files for high-level printing or allows the introduction of multimedia elements or Javascript or even allows the removal of sensitive data. Adobe Classic, which is the term license, does not have the Web-based features, such as electronic signature, sharing for review, and AI capabilities. 
• What applications do my employees need? Are there other uses within the Adobe offering?
• Are there any particular needs that need to be amortized in the short term?

There is a need to keep in mind that subscription is the direction in which Adobe is pushing companies:

• subscription has the advantage of offering an up-to-date, secure product, with access to the latest features and no need to deploy security updates
• ci sarà there will be an important discount factor that will certainly be higher on subscriptions than for on term licenses so it might make sense to evaluate subscriptions over longer periods such as a three-year period

At WEGG we are experienced consultants in licensing Adobe so we can support you in analyzing and evaluating the best strategy to operate against Adobe products, especially Acrobat.