Buyers of new Leica cameras in the UK are no longer entitled to the Leica Passport which offered accidental damage cover during the first year of ownership. The Passport, which was exclusive to Britain, was withdrawn with effect from April 1.
The free Lightroom download facility, also previously available to new buyers globally, has also been withdrawn. Instead, customers will be entitled to a 90-day licence for Adobe Create Cloud, equivalent to a 25% discount on the first year’s subscription.
Although these freebies were probably not a dealbreaker for Leica customers, they did help sugar the pill at the time of purchase. Their absence, particularly that of the Passport, will reduce the perceived added value in the minds of buyers. Leica compacts, which can be compared directly on price with similar models from Panasonic, will therefore be less attractive than they were. However, I do not believe the changes will do much to harm sales of the other models in the range, from the X and T through to the M and SL.
What are you talking about? Passport has not been exclusive to the UK.
That’s what I was told by Leica UK and it has been mentioned in the past. Where did you find it operating? I will check with them.
To the best of our information, the Leica Passport was available only in the UK in the past year or so. Previously it had been offered in the USA and some other countries. Anyway, it’s now dead globally.
I agree with your thoughts on the impact on Leica sales Mike…
But for me, as I have mentioned before I am really pleased to see the downgrade in support from Adobe… The most corporate of corporates.
Hopefully this will encourage developers to aim at what is now a more competitive market, and users will be more likely to perhaps try something else before they settle on the Lightroom leviathan.
I say leviathan, because not only does this product throw its weight around like the fabled whale, is made by the biggest company of its kind, and is also one of the most cludgy and mahoosif lumps of code this side of Windows. This package puts/hides folders and files all over your system, just like a virus and the best way to not become infected is to avoid contact.
It is perfectly possible to use a product like IridientDeveloper http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/ which uses no more than 12mb of your system (Lightroom 800mb), written in assembler code, then use MacOS built in products (Preview or Photos) to view and catalogue, or publish to the web if one is that way inclined.
Ooh er… My apologies, I have just noticed that this was written by Jason Murray, not our illustrious host Mike Evans…
Yes, Jason has contributed the occasional article in the past but has offered to handle some of the more routine news stuff to give me a bit of a breather. He’s an Olympus fan so I am trying to encourage him to write about MFT. We need a good camera/lens reviewer, though, to ease the strain a bit.