Dear VP, Design & Web at Adobe, Paul Gubbay,

Many small and medium business rely on their website to generate enough income to survive the Covid-19 crisis

24 months ago Adobe made the decision to shut down Business Catalyst (the Web Content Management System that Adobe had only acquired several years prior). As you know hundreds of thousands of businesses have suffered the financial ramifications of that decision and many web agencies went out of business as a result.

For the most part the business community accepted your decision. We got on with moving our web infrastructure rather than making a fuss and resisting the change.

Well now things are different. Covid-19 has changed the world and we're pleading to Adobe to have some compassion.

We are asking Adobe to postpone the Business Catalyst End Of Life date for 12 months whilst we recover from the financial effects of Covid-19.

Here's some considerations:

• Many of the websites belong to businesses in the tourism, retail, hospitality sector. We've been decimated.
• Companies that could afford to move their websites did so already. A lot of the websites left on Business Catalyst belong to businesses struggling financially. Times just got worse for us.
• A lot of the websites left in BC and are the complicated/complex websites and require huge time and expense to migrate. It's a 4-6 month project to migrate these websites

I can assure you weWERE preparing to migrate our web infrastructure by the due date. It was planned and costed and/or under way. Then Covid-19 changed things.

We're pleading to you to give us another 12 months.

In this unprecedented time in the history of the world we will look back at the actions we took as people or businesses and judge ourselves on how we responded. There are many businesses doing great things to make a real difference.

Adobe has the opportunity right now, to ease the pressure on thousands of struggling businesses. We urge you to be on the right side of history.

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IF YOU FIND YOURSELF STRUGGLING WITH THE MIGRATION WE'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR STORY IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

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Here's some messages from real people in trouble:

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"Dear Adobe,

In light of the current global pandemic crisis we wanted to discuss our options for the website.

Being in the events industry, we have felt the full the brunt of this crisis and at present our business has had to make significant cost savings and sacrifices in order to survive the next few months.

Building a website is not something we can afford to do at present. We don’t foresee this as being a long term downturn and are confident in a years time we’ll be in a position to commence the migration.

Is there any way we are able to extend the end of life deadline?

We are seeing many companies offering flexibility and support at this time and as long terms users of Adobe BC we would be extremely grateful if they allowed us to do so.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks ADELE

GENERAL MANAGER MARKETING

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"I was just working on a massive migration and it's been halted as their income is now zero. I agree, at least 12 months more, it's going to be a big problem!! have about 50 sites left to do ... about 5 have all just delayed which places me in a bad situation as they are condensing the timeline to something that is impossible."

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"Businesses are cutting back spending and staff are getting cut as a result. Leaving not enough people to complete migrations in time. I'm not going to get my clients sites migrated"

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"YES PLEASE!!! My clients have bigger fish to fry right now than working on their website migration. And no money to do so. I have a lot of restaurants and real estate clients and I am in Ontario Canada. Restaurants have been mandated by our government to close their doors, and Real Estate is hitting a wall. No clients are going to be able to pay for a non-essential service to migrate their website.
I have only complex sites left on BC. I am worried to be honest!

If you can explain to Adobe that these are extenuating circumstances affecting the entire world and we need a bit more time, it would be a sigh of relief in these tough times, though times that are only just beginning!"

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"Lots of my clients are health care businesses. For us it's not so much about the money, and more about human resources. They have simply other things to do now than work with us on their migrations. Adobe should consider an EOL postponement of one extra year and if it's just to follow all the other companies contributing with their resources to keep the situation under control as much as possible,"

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"Have been worrying about this too. Clients already suddenly very quiet.
Had an email from one of my larger clients 2 days ago saying they are too busy to even look at their website which was in migration mode (until last week).
Every delay has a compounding effect on us being able to deliver."

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"I was thinking about this today. I have 20 sites left to migrate. Half of those are very complex and the owners are struggling now. Everything is on pause right now. These sites are not going to get migrated by the due date. I hope Adobe will take this as an opportunity to be kind."

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"The world needs kindness more than ever.
Let’s hear what Adobe has to say."

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"I still have about 25 clients to move. Almost all small business and all unlikely to have any budget now. Business has gone very quiet. No traction on any of the proposals Ive sent out."

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"I would certainly welcome this in view of the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in. Many agencies will go out of business and that would prove even more problematic for clients with no where to turn etc. This needs assessment by Adobe."

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"I have been migrating since the announcement 24 months ago. The remaining ~35 all have enough complexity that their migration will be time-consuming -- time I don't have with the demands of the current situation.

Not only would this help us and many other partners, it would also be a great PR move by Adobe in a time when so many other firms are reducing their services due to the situation."