Adobe Stops CS Standalone Apps - Goes Subscription Only

[flat-planedCrank]

"Adobe has announced that the company is discontinuing its Creative Suite lineup of standalone products and making its new Creative Cloud applications available via subscription only"
- http://www.iclarified.com/29809/adobe-discontinues...



"Adobe kills Creative Suite – all future features online only"
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/06/adobe_kill...

[RobDickinson]

Sucky.

[Stu R]

Bittorrent must be devastated.

I much prefer the 'boxed' solution, but I suppose it could work nicely for them in a PAYG / SAAS sort of way. I only have CS6 for smashing out web images and logos once in a blue moon so it's expensive and overkill given 90% of my photoshop use is PH tomfoolery. A few bucks a month it seems pretty reasonable.

For a pro user though, I can't see it going down well.

[RobDickinson]

I dont think pro's will care, they are on the constant cutting edge upgrade anyhow. Its the people that dont upgrade right away on new releases or the occasional user that will get hit.

[markmullen]

I'm not that keen, due to being commission based I rather pay for things when I've got a lump of money in than each month, so splashing the cash on a boxed copy of CS6 was more attractive than $30 a month.

[Dave 500]

markmullen said:

I'm not that keen, due to being commission based I rather pay for things when I've got a lump of money in than each month, so splashing the cash on a boxed copy of CS6 was more attractive than $30 a month.

I think you can go to a pay monthly option and cancel it when you like.

[markmullen]

Yes, but the point is when I paid for my cs6 it is done and paid for, ad infinitum.

[MysteryLemon]

Just don't upgrade?

Everyone on the net seems to be making out that they are going to be forced into buying this subscription service. Why?

What's so wrong with CS6 that you must have the newer version?

Speaking to a pro photographer friend, it's going to cost him around £40 a month for this service and he absolutely must have it for one single feature he says he has been waiting for for years.

As handy as the feature is (and I admit, it would be), he still outputs stunning work from CS6 so why not just stick with what he knows and save a fortune?

[Mattt]

Will this affect Lightroom 5?

[HorneyMX5]

How's this going to work on a 2meg broadband line? Badly I imagine.

Nick

[LongQ]

RobDickinson said:

I dont think pro's will care, they are on the constant cutting edge upgrade anyhow. Its the people that dont upgrade right away on new releases or the occasional user that will get hit.

This is how I see it too.

One proviso though. No software company I know of is full proof at releasing "upgrades" that are problem free.

The benefit of always having the "latest and greatest" may be offset by introduced problems, revised ways of doing things that must suddenly be learned (perhaps) and random changesabout which one can do nothing and that, just possibly, might have adverse effects on entire back-catalogues if they are true advances.

On the other hand or those who desire to stay at the ragged edge of technology and always have the latest cameras and so on there may be no choice - if one sticks with Adobe.

It would be interesting to see the financial predictions for the change of business model. The potential smoothing effect of regular revenue may seem attractive but I'm not certain it is a great approach in a potentially competitive environment for a 'lifestyle' product where a large number of users are casual consumers using a tiny fraction of the features on offer. My guess would be that the corporate users provide, roughly, the core operating income and the consumers the profit margin. If that also reflects costs (it may or may not - I have no feel for that) then things may get interesting. On the other hand if the corporates are realtively low cost but high income sales and the consumers are low income and high cost per unit, then the trade-off might be global end-user brand awareness and dominance abandoned for the profit chase.

Looks like we will soon find out if it works. Seems like a brave management decision to me.

[probedb]

HorneyMX5 said:

How's this going to work on a 2meg broadband line? Badly I imagine.

Nick

The same as downloading and installing any software I'd imagine. You're not running these apps virtually across the net.

[ajprice]

The CS Suite as it is has different levels and packages, so for basic print publishing there is Standard with InDesign, Photoshop Illustrator and Acrobat, Web has Flash, Fireworks and Dreamweaver added, Production has Premiere and After Effects added etc. With Cloud, you buy everything or you buy single apps. Why can't there be a basic Cloud, Web Cloud, Production Cloud with similar groups of apps for less than the full price cloud? A print designer isn't going to use or need Flash or After Effects, so why pay for them?

[HorneyMX5]

probedb said:

HorneyMX5 said:

How's this going to work on a 2meg broadband line? Badly I imagine.

Nick

The same as downloading and installing any software I'd imagine. You're not running these apps virtually across the net.

Have I missunderstood then? I thought they were moving it all online and you access it all through a browser.

Nick

[Mattt]

HorneyMX5 said:

Have I missunderstood then? I thought they were moving it all online and you access it all through a browser.

Nick

I can't see a hosted solution working, it will probably be downloaded to your PC and will only work if it can connect to the internet each session and check you still pay £X/month to use it.

Still vulnerabilities in that approach...

[CommanderJameson]

HorneyMX5 said:

Have I missunderstood then? I thought they were moving it all online and you access it all through a browser.

Nick

Nah, it's like Office 365.

Pay monthly, software works.

Stop paying monthly, software stops working.

[ajprice]

HorneyMX5 said:

Have I missunderstood then? I thought they were moving it all online and you access it all through a browser.

Nick

It's not using the software through a browser. Instead of buying a box of discs, you buy your subscription to the cloud, then you can download whichever Adobe software you want to run on your own computer. There will be some kind of serial number or code to make sure your running software that checks out with your cloud account.

[HorneyMX5]

ajprice said:

HorneyMX5 said:

Have I missunderstood then? I thought they were moving it all online and you access it all through a browser.

Nick

It's not using the software through a browser. Instead of buying a box of discs, you buy your subscription to the cloud, then you can download whichever Adobe software you want to run on your own computer. There will be some kind of serial number or code to make sure your running software that checks out with your cloud account.

Ah right, so the same as it is now but you pay monthly not a one off cost. Don't see the fuss then. Same product different pricing model. I imagine those that currently don't pay for it will continue to not pay for it and those that do pay for it will continue to pay for it.

[flat-planedCrank]

I'm not a fan of a monthly rental either, prefer to buy it as a lump some with no ongoing costs.



Leaves me with a decision to make actually - I have photoshop CS5 now, do I upgrade to CS6 knowing it won't go anywhere?

Hmm, I'm not sure.

[Crafty_]

Mattt said:

Will this affect Lightroom 5?

Apparently LR5 will be available as it is now and cloud based.