Adobe Creative Suite Gives Way to Creative Cloud
The Suites are Dead, Long Live The Cloud
At Adobe MAX 2013 in Los Angeles on Monday, Adobe let loose with a pretty earth-shattering announcement...
Creative Suite 6 is the last Creative Suite release from Adobe. Though it will continue to be available for sale and supported, Adobe is moving its focus to the Adobe Creative Cloud.
With this shift, the Adobe applications are being rebranded using the Creative Cloud name, becoming the new set of 'CC' desktop applications instead of 'CS'. Presumably, this also resets the version numbers again.
The 'CC' release of Adobe desktop applications includes a host of new collaboration features, extended project space on the Adobe Cloud servers, and features for collaboration with and viewing on mobile devices. It also features integration with the Behance online creative community.
The updated Adobe 'CC' products, Photoshop CC, Indesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, and Premiere Pro CC, will only be available through creative cloud subscriptions. This represents a major shift from Adobe to a software as a service model as opposed to the more traditional Suites packaging. Really, it means there will be no 'packaging' at all, just downloads.
Tue Creative Cloud installers themselves will be slightly revamped to support the installation of either the CS or CC revisions of the applications in order to meet the user needs. No word as to how long the prior version will be left available -- in two years, when CC 2 comes out, will you still be able to install and use CS? Only time will tell.
Plans and Prices
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Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions come with a variety of plans. There is a 'single application' plan, for $19.99 a month that allows you to download and install one application- they even figure most people will use it for Photoshop. The normal Creative Cloud membership is $49.99 per month with a one-year contract, and allows you to install all of Adobe's major applications, giving you the equivalent of the Adobe Master Collection, which retails for $2599 for a full copy and $1049 as an upgrade, for $599.88 a year. People who own CS 3 to CS 5.5 can get their Creative Cloud membership for $29.99 per month for the first year. Teachers and students can get the membership for $19.99 per month. There is also promotional pricing (at a rate not mentioned) for CS6 users.
Above the individual memberships is the team version, which improves on the individual membership by giving 100GB of storage instead of 20 GB, and centralized administration abilities. Team membership to the Creative Cloud costs $69.99 per seat, with a reduced rate of $39.99 per seat for users of CS3 or later. There are also more specific plans aimed at enterprise and educational customers.
Adobe expects the new Creative Cloud and new CC versions of their applications to be available June 17.
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Raid3r Always trying to "fix" what's not broken to keep the wallet as phat as possible. Have fun with that crooks.Reply -
Fill F Doing the math, it seems like a pretty good deal. Makes me wonder if the pirates are the ones having the most problem with this... just say'n.Reply -
razor512 seems crappy. How often does adobe release new software and how often is it worth upgrading. it will likely cost you more in the long run to pay a monthly fee to use their software than to just buy a full license which will last a few years, especially since all of their software is not updated every year and depending on your industry, most of the updates (if not all) will not benefit you each year.Reply -
Fill F @razor512 Master Suite CS6 costs $2,500. At $50 per month it takes over 4 years to break even with the subscription vs. the 'boxed'/one-time purchase of CS. At the end of the period you still have the most current software. To answer your question about how often they release new software, they have historically released a new CS a little under 2 years.Reply -
JackFrost860 yes true, but after 4 years you only pay for an upgrade; so renting will cost more for the 4+ time frame. I guess thats why Adobe and Microsoft are moving to the subscription model.Reply -
hetneo @JackFrost860, razor512Reply
People I know of are pretty much split 50/50 between adopting every edition and adopting every other. -
Someone Somewhere Main thing I'd like to know is whether I can use it as entirely local (aside from validation etc)?Reply
Will they try to force you to upload your work, or store/render on their servers etc?
My internet bandwidth wants to know. -
morstern I like to own my software. That said I bought the Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection. At 2600 and full version update costs of 1049 (every two years) it would take 20 years for me to pay more with the subscription. (Note: using simple math no inflation costs) For me the price is not a problem. For all other users it takes from 3 to 7 years depending on version and single app vrs suite.Reply
I found this useful http://terrywhite.com/5-myths-about-adobe-creative-cloud/
Still mixed on this... but hoping with a solid revenue stream they can innovate even more, update more often and otherwise just serve up even better products. -
Ragnar-Kon Considering Adobe's software is some of the most-pirate software online today, it only makes sense why they did this.Reply
I'm not a fan of cloud-based / cloud-DRM software anymore than the other person, but I truly believe they did this because of the amount of piracy in their software. Hate to blame the pirates, because honestly I was one of them in my college years. But... now that I work for a software company I can see how damaging piracy can be to the bottom line.
Anyway, I have educational license of CS6 left over from college. Wonder if I can take part in the new CS6 subscription licensing or if I'll have to start from scratch. I'm guessing probably the latter.