What would you think it would cost per year? What $ amount?
What would be the break down?
Legacy software, security and the constant upgrades, a manager, HR, customer support. Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to.
* security and the constant upgrades - unsupported, $0
* a manager - unsupported, $0
* HR - unsupported, $0
* customer support - unsupported, $0
* Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to - unsupported, $0
all non-issues. Adobe is intentionally breaking the software.
Those arguments are like saying an Apple ][ shouldn't be able to run "The Print Shop" anymore because someone might haul their IIe and an ImageWriter into the Genius Bar.
People know it's unsupported but they still want to use it for whatever reason.
It has zilch to do with the reasons you listed. Adobe is making being a legitimate customer needlessly difficult by hustling their customers to pay for the software again. They will learn the same lesson the RIAA and the MPAA did.
Early on (15-25 years ago) they didn't really have streaming or digitally deliverable product (pre itunes) and instead hauled people off to court for consuming music in any way that wasn't a pile of $20 plastic discs bought at the local megamall.
Instead of reasonable digital streaming solutions groups like the MPAA made things like the DIVX format which were disposable discs that expired. The commercial DVDs had long unskippable copyright warnings and unskippable ads, an inability to play the content on linux or other open source players, etc.
Then there was the DeCSS fiasco; there was a master encryption key that they called their private IP and used legislation called the DMCA to enforce it. 2600 magazine, a monthly alternative culture computing magazine, published the key and were sued by universal studios, paramount pictures, metro-goldwyn-mayer, tristar pictures, columbia pictures, time warner entertainment company, disney enterprises, and twentieth century fox, for printing a number (https://www.theregister.com/2002/07/04/2600_withdraws_suprem...)
These organizations eventually learned the lessons and won, so you are correct. but it was years of bogus outlandish lawsuits (suing old ladies for millions, sometimes because neighbors used their unprotected WiFi - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_...), technology fiascoes and incredulous legislation that made them the laughing stock of the world before they got their act together.
There was a time in the mid 2000s when ignoring copyright was the sensible and reasonable moral action given the outrageous "sue everybody without regrets" strategy of the RIAA.
Lessons
1. Offer products to your customers in ways they want to consume them.
2. Don't criminalize your customers for your lack of doing #1
The real cost is the people who don't go and subscribe to Adobe CC because they still have a totally functional release of CS3. Once their old machines die, they'll be forced to become a renter.
Someone hacks your server and gets into Adobe with ransomware because it's not managed properly, next week you'd be complaining about how stupid Adobe is.
What would be the break down?
Legacy software, security and the constant upgrades, a manager, HR, customer support. Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to.