Adobe will force customers to pay monthly

[Gene Steinberg]

Worse, since this is a one-way street, you wonder how many users will simply stick with the versions they have (or upgrade to CS6, the last version you can actually buy), and stay with it as long as possible. Budgeting $600 a year (after the initial discount) is not easy, particularly for the independent graphic artist with a small shop.

 

[Ingenious]

I prefer the new monthly system. Given the choice of paying £500+ now for the latest version of Photoshop or £18 a month, I'd take the monthly option. It will take nearly three years to reach the full price of the software anyway, plus I'll always get the latest version. And as others have said, there is no forcing to use the "cloud", you run it locally with a periodic "phone home". Plus, you can install on two computers, ideal for people like me with a desktop and laptop.

It gets better though if, again like me, you also use Premiere Pro. Basically to get the latest versions of Photoshop and Premiere would cost a fortune for a one man business (translation, cannot afford it) but under the Creative Suite the price is capped at £48pm and then you can access ALL of their software - Dreamweaver, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom.

As said above, there are free or cheaper alternatives if that's what you want to do, but for those who do use Adobe products regularly, this seems like a great deal to me, especially over the short term 2 -3 years.

 

[Forsaken]

I prefer the new monthly system. Given the choice of paying £500+ now for the latest version of Photoshop or £18 a month, I'd take the monthly option. It will take nearly three years to reach the full price of the software anyway, plus I'll always get the latest version. And as others have said, there is no forcing to use the "cloud", you run it locally with a periodic "phone home". Plus, you can install on two computers, ideal for people like me with a desktop and laptop.

It gets better though if, again like me, you also use Premiere Pro. Basically to get the latest versions of Photoshop and Premiere would cost a fortune for a one man business (translation, cannot afford it) but under the Creative Suite the price is capped at £48pm and then you can access ALL of their software - Dreamweaver, After Effects, Illustrator, Lightroom.

As said above, there are free or cheaper alternatives if that's what you want to do, but for those who do use Adobe products regularly, this seems like a great deal to me, especially over the short term 2 -3 years.

The installing on multiple computers is truly the kicker for going to this service. Would have been useful when my harddrive crashed a few months ago and I was in the middle of a custom design job .

Had to spend 3 days trying to get Creative Suite to install, and then two days dealing with Adobe before they licensed me an additional key for my laptop (and allowed me to keep my computer license ).

 

[Shelley]

There's pros and cons to this.

If your work becomes more valuable than the software itself this is a good thing. I always loose work (crash) or whatever reason so I can see the benefits of such a new direction. It's all good.

 

[Slavik]

Looks like im going to buy up all the cheap licenses I can get hold of, while still available

 

[=MGN=RedEagle]

This is exactly what I though.

I wish programs like GIMP did sell their product. The reason is, they could then afford to build a better product. I am not as much a fan of "free" as I am cheap.

 

[AndyB]

I'm using Adobe Cloud for Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Illustrator. It's a great value for me at I think it was a very smart move on Adobe's part to this service.

 

[John]

I just purchased CS6 Extended (via a seller on ebay) and got a good price. I still have Creative Suite CS3 along with a license to Acrobat Pro (that gets free updates for life) and various standalone licenses to CS4 Extended and CS3 both for Mac and Windows. I've spent $1000's with Adobe over the years but they won't get another penny from me with this move. I can see CS6 suiting my needs just fine for many years to come (plus I like my paid extensions for it, too, which I doubt you get on the cloud).

 

[Kim]

I just purchased CS6 Extended (via a seller on ebay) and got a good price. I still have Creative Suite CS3 along with a license to Acrobat Pro (that gets free updates for life) and various standalone licenses to CS4 Extended and CS3 both for Mac and Windows. I've spent $1000's with Adobe over the years but they won't get another penny from me with this move. I can see CS6 suiting my needs just fine for many years to come (plus I like my paid extensions for it, too, which I doubt you get on the cloud).

That is likely what I will do too John.

I am still using CS3, didn't feel the need to upgrade until CS6 came along, so I have been using my current version for something like 7 years... makes it very cheap when you amortise it over that time frame!

 

[Shelley]

That is likely what I will do too John.

I am still using CS3, didn't feel the need to upgrade until CS6 came along, so I have been using my current version for something like 7 years... makes it very cheap when you amortise it over that time frame!

Same probably I'll get use out of cs6 for atleast 5-6 years. Up till a year ago I was using cs2 which would still do anything and everything I want to design. That being said, Ebay is great for picking up cheap licenses (as john mentioned) with some real killer bargains to be found.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Same probably I'll get use out of cs6 for atleast 5-6 years. Up till a year ago I was using cs2 which would still do anything and everything I want to design. That being said, Ebay is great for picking up cheap licenses (as john mentioned) with some real killer bargains to be found.

This creates the dilemma customers may confront in moving to this scheme. Are the improvements from recent versions to CC (Creative Cloud) sufficient to agree to pay $600 per year forever? If you buy the regular updates anyway, and have the full Master Suite, the answer is probably yes. Otherwise, the numbers don't seem to make sense.

 

[Reeve of Shinra]

This creates the dilemma customers may confront in moving to this scheme. Are the improvements from recent versions to CC (Creative Cloud) sufficient to agree to pay $600 per year forever? If you buy the regular updates anyway, and have the full Master Suite, the answer is probably yes. Otherwise, the numbers don't seem to make sense.

Its more complex than that .... you have large media companies (magazines, newspapers, and many others) where they also buy INFRASTRUCTURE to support their internal processes as pages move from editor to designer to ad managers, etc. Moving this "into the cloud" offers a lot of additional value as the support costs for maintaining that infrastructure and keeping it updated goes away. The per user licensing model also works out better in the end for large customers.

Small design shops will probably break even at the end day.

The people that may lose out on the deal are freelancers that only do this part time and hobbyists that love the tools but dont make money off the works they create.

 

[Poltergeist]

If all someone wants is Photoshop (or any other single app) and they own a previous version (CS3 and up)the cost per month is $9.99.

 

[Forsaken]

I just purchased CS6 Extended (via a seller on ebay) and got a good price. I still have Creative Suite CS3 along with a license to Acrobat Pro (that gets free updates for life) and various standalone licenses to CS4 Extended and CS3 both for Mac and Windows. I've spent $1000's with Adobe over the years but they won't get another penny from me with this move. I can see CS6 suiting my needs just fine for many years to come (plus I like my paid extensions for it, too, which I doubt you get on the cloud).

Extensions still work with Creative Cloud.

I think people are confused as to what Creative Cloud really is. The applications are the same as usual, however your license is now a subscription and it has the ability to sync over the cloud to your other computers. In functionality it acts the same as before.

Its more complex than that .... you have large media companies (magazines, newspapers, and many others) where they also buy INFRASTRUCTURE to support their internal processes as pages move from editor to designer to ad managers, etc. Moving this "into the cloud" offers a lot of additional value as the support costs for maintaining that infrastructure and keeping it updated goes away. The per user licensing model also works out better in the end for large customers.

Small design shops will probably break even at the end day.

The people that may lose out on the deal are freelancers that only do this part time and hobbyists that love the tools but dont make money off the works they create.

The thing is... Those last two groups are people who aren't often going to upgrade their versions of Creative Suite in the first place so they were never a target.

 

[Shelley]

If all someone wants is Photoshop (or any other single app) and they own a previous version (CS3 and up)the cost per month is $9.99.

Even that is a great deal. less than a 120 dollars annually? Bargain. .

 

[Kim]

If all someone wants is Photoshop (or any other single app) and they own a previous version (CS3 and up)the cost per month is $9.99.

Interesting!

I only use PS, the odd excursion into DW but that's about it.

Mind you I am in Australia, and with the price GOUGING that goes on by Adobe or MS, Apple etc over here I doubt it is only $10 per month.

 

[Kim]

Single app
Full version of one desktop application

• 20 GB of Cloud Storage for file sharing, collaboration
• Limited access to services

A$19.99
per month
GST not payable

 

[Shelley]

Interesting!

I only use PS, the odd excursion into DW but that's about it.

Mind you I am in Australia, and with the price GOUGING that goes on by Adobe or MS, Apple etc over here I doubt it is only $10 per month.

Do you think they'll be some manipulation with that figure and be significantly more per country Kim? I know us Brits have a high tendency of being screwed over with high prices

 

[Kim]

Do you think they'll be some manipulation with that figure and be significantly more per country Kim? I know us Brits have a high tendency of being screwed over with high prices

No doubt Shelley, as you can see from my post above, the price for us in Australia is DOUBLE that of the USA price.

 

[Poltergeist]

Single app
Full version of one desktop application

• 20 GB of Cloud Storage for file sharing, collaboration
• Limited access to services

A$19.99
per month
GST not payable

I'm not sure with being in Australia but on that page did you have a pull down under where it said 20 GB of cloud storage? If so under there you should have Requires CS3+ Purchase. Then it changes to 9.99.