Adobe Creative Suite Going Subscription-Only

First time accepted submitter JDG1980 writes "According to CNET and various other sources, CS6 will be the last version of Adobe's Creative Suite that will be sold in the traditional manner. All future versions will be available by subscription only, through Adobe's so-called 'Creative Cloud' service. This means that before too long, anyone who wants an up-to-date version of Photoshop won't be able to buy it – they will have to pay $50 per month (minimum subscription term: one year). Can Adobe complete the switch to subscription-only, or will the backlash be too great? Will this finally spur the creation of a real competitor to Photoshop?"

Comments

Corporate suicide Microsoft style

[sinij]

Corporate suicide Microsoft style, only they are not nearly as entrenched.

Re:I love it...

[cdrnet]

They are doing this already, e.g. Office 365 for $9.99 per month (includes licenses for up to 5 PCs)

Re:Already there

[JDG1980]

The main one From Apple itself is Aperture. It's not really a photoshop competitor exactly, but where it does become one is the range of plugins that support it now - pretty much most of the powerful image editing tools have Aperture plugins, so I can do fairly advanced editing in Aperture without ever touching Photoshop.

Aperture is competitive with Adobe's Lightroom, not Photoshop. Neither program supports even basic features like layers, which are necessary for many types of graphical manipulation work. Instead, they're meant as the first step of the workflow for raw image files that have just been taken off the camera.

Pricing

[proxima]

This means that before too long, anyone who wants an up-to-date version of Photoshop won't be able to buy it – they will have to pay $50 per month (minimum subscription term: one year).

This pricing seemed off. Sure enough, TFA:

For those who don't want the entire suite, Adobe offers subscriptions to individual programs. And now they're cheaper, down from $20 a month to $10 a month, Morris said.

So if you want Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. etc., the suite will be $50/mo. If you only want Photoshop, it's $10/mo. Furthermore, if you really only need software for a month, you can rent the suite for $75.

I can't say I'm a big fan of subscription only (even MS is keeping some purchase options for Office), but pricing like this does create some winners (besides Adobe). Short term projects, for example, may benefit from being able to purchase what was a $2500 package for only a month or two at $75/month. The losers, of course, are those that purchase upgrades infrequently and use their software for years.

Frankly, I'm tempted by $10/mo for Illustrator. The retail box of CS6 is $540, and I have no product from which to upgrade. So for the cost of the boxed version (with its potential resale or upgrade value factored in), I get 4 1/2 years of use of the latest version. One key difference is I can easily drop it after 1 year (and $120), if I don't need it any more. Still, I understand how abandoning box sales will make some people unhappy.

Re:I love it...

[MoGrapher]

It seems you don't understand how this model works. I have been operating with Creative Cloud for over a year now and it's nothing like you've described.

I don't want to have my UI move around arbitrarily.

Don't click the update button then... no one is forcing you to take the updates, you're just a luddite if you don't.

I don't want to work more in the cloud. I have invested a considerable amount of money in building a high performance system here, with robust storage, networking, back-ups etc. And my system and devices don't trust anyone outside my company with access to material I'm working on for clients.

I still burden my "high performance system" every day, and even expanded my system to take advantage of the new RayTracing features in After Effects with great results. The software runs locally it's just licensed in the cloud.

Oh theres another huge benefit... the license is platform agnostic. So for the artist who has Windows and Apple they don't have to get screwed by buying two completely different software packages that never stay in sync.

If you can predict anything with 100% confidence it is that you don't know as much as you think you know.

$50 per month for the Master Collection

[rayharris]

It seems there's a lot of confusion as to what the Adobe Creative Cloud is. I currently subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud at the $50 per month rate. Here's what I get...

Adobe CS6 Master Collection
-- Everything, not just Photoshop
-- Usually around $2600 when purchased as a standalone program
      -- At $50 per month, I could only upgrade every 4 1/3 years
      -- But I get continuous updates
-- I can install ACC on two computers
      -- One can be OSX and the other Windows
      -- You can't do this with purchased apps
-- Apps are installed locally
      -- Don't have to be online to use apps
      -- Unless you're past the current expiration of your subscription
-- Data files are stored locally
      -- Don't have to use cloud storage

Subscription options:
-- $20/month - One Application, No Commitment
-- $20/month - All Applications, Annual Commitment, Students and Teachers (K-12 and College)
-- $50/month - All Applications, Annual Commitment (What I have)
-- $75/month - All Applications, No Commitment

So, while you may still have some qualms about a subscription model, remember not to spread FUD or inaccurate information.