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The End of Adobe CS. Adobe CC to be monthly subscription.
12 years ago
With the disbanding of Creative Suite, Adobe is moving completely to "Creative Cloud" after CS6. It will simply be called Adobe CC.
No longer will you be able to purchase the software flat-out, but instead you'll HAVE to purchase a MONTHLY subscription if you want to use the software.
But here's my beef: Somehow, Adobe believes that it's client-base are collaborative, large-scale businesses who can simply wrap a $20/month or $240/year per user subscription into their business costs. Now, if you are someone who buys CS Design Standard upgrades once every 2 or 3 years, this is a savings. BUT, if you're someone who only upgrades Photoshop for $400 every 3-5 years, you're gonna get hosed (UNLESS they are still selling individual programs for less, or at a lesser fee.)
((BTW: According to Photoshop's own site, CC is $50/month if you don't have CS3 or newer* [*who purchase directly from Adobe], $30/month if you have CS3 or newer, $20/month if you're a student, and Photoshop is $20/month on its own. http://www.adobe.com/products/creat.....ing-guide.html , http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html ))
BUT, if you are a sit-at-home artist who only uses Photoshop and have been using the same software for 5+ years, then CS6 is your last opportunity for an updated program as nothing after will be updated/supported by Adobe... but at least you won't ever have to pay a subscription fee as long as you use it... hopefully.
Now, I do get why they'd want to move to this model, and I suspect that someone at some point will come up with some hack to bypass the monthly subscription process somehow. I understand that there are plenty of graphics houses and businesses using Adobe's software because it's basically a business Standard. It should cut down on pirating of software, and anyone who upgrades their software every 2 or more years no longer has to "worry" about upgrades. I'm sure that with the fluidity of having everything more one-stop-shop-based, products could overlap more, which could mean even more complications, or ease depending on how they're melded together.
PLUS, I suppose that there could also be plenty of other benefits to being cloud-based as well (though, I'm curious just HOW cloud-based it'll be... will your computer have the full suite installed still, or just enough to "make it go" and you'll need bandwidth to operate it?)
But, for the artists and casual users, this is a TERRIBLE thing. I won't be paying $20/month JUST to use Photoshop (or $30, or $50/month to use the whole suite) and I suspect that neither will a large quantity of users, who will even MORE quickly migrate to the alternative offerings out there for design and photo/image rendering.
What I really wish they would have done is still offered users the software, but made the connectivity/cloud-based options an add-on, or separate package if it was wanted.
There's NO WAY I'm going to pay $600/year. If I was upgrading every 2 years, it would be comparable... but for me it's not, as I MAYBE upgrade every 4, or 5 years.
For now I have CS5. I'll probably continue to use it for a few more years anyways, so it's not something that necessarily affects me just yet. But one day it might. At that point, hopefully either other software will really step up (I'm looking at YOU, Corel) and offer lower-priced alternatives to the people who just can't afford more subscription fees.
An article about it here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/06/rip-cs/
Adobe's page on it: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html
Have you, or anyone you know migrated to CC yet?
What are your thoughts?
No longer will you be able to purchase the software flat-out, but instead you'll HAVE to purchase a MONTHLY subscription if you want to use the software.
But here's my beef: Somehow, Adobe believes that it's client-base are collaborative, large-scale businesses who can simply wrap a $20/month or $240/year per user subscription into their business costs. Now, if you are someone who buys CS Design Standard upgrades once every 2 or 3 years, this is a savings. BUT, if you're someone who only upgrades Photoshop for $400 every 3-5 years, you're gonna get hosed (UNLESS they are still selling individual programs for less, or at a lesser fee.)
((BTW: According to Photoshop's own site, CC is $50/month if you don't have CS3 or newer* [*who purchase directly from Adobe], $30/month if you have CS3 or newer, $20/month if you're a student, and Photoshop is $20/month on its own. http://www.adobe.com/products/creat.....ing-guide.html , http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html ))
BUT, if you are a sit-at-home artist who only uses Photoshop and have been using the same software for 5+ years, then CS6 is your last opportunity for an updated program as nothing after will be updated/supported by Adobe... but at least you won't ever have to pay a subscription fee as long as you use it... hopefully.
Now, I do get why they'd want to move to this model, and I suspect that someone at some point will come up with some hack to bypass the monthly subscription process somehow. I understand that there are plenty of graphics houses and businesses using Adobe's software because it's basically a business Standard. It should cut down on pirating of software, and anyone who upgrades their software every 2 or more years no longer has to "worry" about upgrades. I'm sure that with the fluidity of having everything more one-stop-shop-based, products could overlap more, which could mean even more complications, or ease depending on how they're melded together.
PLUS, I suppose that there could also be plenty of other benefits to being cloud-based as well (though, I'm curious just HOW cloud-based it'll be... will your computer have the full suite installed still, or just enough to "make it go" and you'll need bandwidth to operate it?)
But, for the artists and casual users, this is a TERRIBLE thing. I won't be paying $20/month JUST to use Photoshop (or $30, or $50/month to use the whole suite) and I suspect that neither will a large quantity of users, who will even MORE quickly migrate to the alternative offerings out there for design and photo/image rendering.
What I really wish they would have done is still offered users the software, but made the connectivity/cloud-based options an add-on, or separate package if it was wanted.
There's NO WAY I'm going to pay $600/year. If I was upgrading every 2 years, it would be comparable... but for me it's not, as I MAYBE upgrade every 4, or 5 years.
For now I have CS5. I'll probably continue to use it for a few more years anyways, so it's not something that necessarily affects me just yet. But one day it might. At that point, hopefully either other software will really step up (I'm looking at YOU, Corel) and offer lower-priced alternatives to the people who just can't afford more subscription fees.
An article about it here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/06/rip-cs/
Adobe's page on it: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html
Have you, or anyone you know migrated to CC yet?
What are your thoughts?
Many amateur artists do not need all of the features in the newest versions and will be fine for the time being. Open source options are available for those that only illustrate or edit photos. Everyone else will search for something else to learn/pirate (the latter being Adobe's main motivation, since their cloud is nothing new).