In our business, we depend on other corporate organizations to meet our software needs. For many years, I used Adobe products to assist me in designing marketing material. If you spend any time on YouTube, you’ll find Adobe being criticized over their corporate greed. It has been a long time in coming. Unfortunately for Adobe, there are other comparable products. I stopped using Adobe when they first started their subscription service. I like to be able to buy a product and not have to keep paying ransom to continue using the product.
I recently opened a spreadsheet file and got a notice from Microsoft that my Excel registration was lost. I could probably search for it, but why bother? Microsoft is following in Adobe’s footsteps by demanding that I switch to their ransom (subscription) service. Like Adobe, Microsoft thinks it has the only products out there. I knew this day was coming, so several years ago I bought a license to the bundle offered by WordPerfect. The Excel file opened perfectly in Quattro Pro.
Budgets are tight. If you believe you are being held hostage to your software, start looking for alternatives. You might be shocked to find a number of open-source (free) business software that is available to you. These companies are not holding the gun against your head as they think they are doing. Put them in their place.
I use Corel products for most of my graphic needs. Affinity is the suggested replacement for Adobe Photoshop. Although I have Affinity, I usually turn to Corel’s Painter or Paintshop Pro. I only mention this because I recall that I got the WordPerfect suite through the Corel software. If you decide to switch to WordPerfect, order the upgrade version if you are using another business suite. Most companies recognize that your switch from (say) Word to WordPerfect is considered an upgrade in their eyes and you can get the software at half price, around $150.
Corel has a slick plan in which you have the choice of buying the product or renting it. You can buy Corel Painter for $150 or you can rent it for $100 per year. The notion is that if you always buy the newest version of a product, then renting it is cheaper because the software is usually updated every year. With Corel, I find that buying aound Christmas seems to offer the sweetest deals. But, in my old age, I seem to be fine using a version that is one or two years out of date. And don’t become like me and feel the need of buying every brush that is available. They just take up too much diskspace and slow up the loading of the software. Take if from me, having all of the available brushes will never make you an artist.