Adobe abandons Creative Suite, goes all cloud

[nsane.forums]

Adobe have scrapped its Creative Suite branding, instead offering new applications through its cloud-based Creative Cloud subscription service. Is this move progressive or alienating to pro users?

Ten years on from launching Creative Suite, its flagship collection of digital editing software, Adobe has decided to abandon it entirely in favour of its online subscription service, Creative Cloud. In the past, the company offered standalone versions of each program, offering incremental upgrades at discounts if users owned previous versions. Now, however, Adobe will force you to subscribe to a $49.99/month service in order to continue receiving major updates.

The Next Web notes the situation is much like Apple encountered when launching Final Cut Pro X, its video editing software aimed at the "prosumer" market. Naturally this approach offers easy-to-use professional features to all, but in the process alienates truly professional users.

Adobe says Creative Suite 6 (the current edition) will continue to be available for online purchase only, as the company halted sales of boxed copies back in March. Whilst the software will continue to receive major features and incremental performance upgrades, it will not appear in the form of Creative Suite 6.5/7. Instead, all apps will be newly branded as "CC" editions. This includes: Photoshop CC, Dreamweaver CC, Illustrator CC, Premiere Pro CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, and so on.

Whilst the new monthly subscription package is likely send many people running a mile, existing Adobe users with CS3 or later will be pleased to hear that their first year with Creative Cloud will come at the discounted cost of $29.99. Single app licenses for new users will come in at $19.99/month or $49.99/month for the full suite. For teams and businesses, Adobe offer a number of comprehensive pricing plans, all of which can be viewed over on the Creative Cloud site.

Existing Adobe CS applications have also received a number of new features in light of the announcements, all of which were announced at Adobe's Max 2013 conference and can be explored in full over on the Creative Cloud site. At the time of this writing, the site appears to be having technical difficulties but should be back online soon.

All existing Creative Cloud apps will be replaced with the newly upgraded iterations after their release on June 17.

View: Original Article

[calguyhunk]

50 bucks a month? :o Well, this is how you push people towards piracy and then cry bloody murder when you get what you deserve. :angry: The only people who are gonna actually pay this rate are the multi-gazillionare Hollywood guys. The rest of 'em will look elsewhere or share a single account between users ;)

[irefay]

This may be a bit more difficult to crack though. The software has to call home every 99 days, or it stops working. Plenty of ways around it, but

The price is absolutely ridiculous. How many non-pro users save for months to be able to afford the software, then use the same version for 7-8 years before upgrading again? Probably a lot.

[oliverjia]

Adobe is doomed in 10 years. Mark my word.

[DKT27]

I've seen studios forced to use the non-pirated version. What happened? They stayed at CS3 for a long long time before switching to a copy-cat, but cheaper softwares available - you can't buy things with such a high prices, nor you are going to pay, atleast not as a non-pro user, for such a high monthly fees.

@irefay & oliverjia: Really want Adobe to fail here. Roll up those people who have managed to activate latest Microsoft products.

[poipoi]

"...existing Adobe users with CS3 or later will be pleased to hear that their first year with Creative Cloud will come at the discounted cost of $29.99."

Uh, that's the first year comes at a discounted price of $29.99 per month.

This is a really dumb move on Adobe's part. Creative people aren't going to want to put their work at risk via the "cloud." There are also lots of occasional users who like to have the software on-hand, but aren't going to want to deal with this on-again off-again subscription stuff. Looks like Adobe's own "let's get rid of the start button" move.

[speedpedal]

You can only shove stuff down customers throats so long until it comes back up and bites you! Corel should take advantage and pump up there product line now.