Adobe rebrands Creative Suite (CS) to "Creative Cloud" (CC) with NEW FEATURES

keylight

keylight

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Adobe rebrands Creative Suite (CS) to "Creative Cloud" (CC) with NEW FEATURES

Bye, bye perpetual licensing?

Edit: Yep. No more perpetual licensing. Looks like all yur dollars belong to Abobez.....

In a major shift for its business and its customers, Adobe Systems on Monday announced it no longer will sell its Creative Suite software as it moves instead to the $50-per-month Creative Cloud and other subscription plans.


"We have no current plans to release another perpetual release of the CS tools and suites. Creative Cloud is going to be our sole focus moving forward," said Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing for Creative Cloud.


When Adobe launched its Creative Cloud subscription last year, executives weren't sure how long it would offer it alongside the traditional perpetual-license sales for its software. But customer enthusiasm for the Creative Cloud, combined with the awkwardness of maintaining it alongside the slower-moving CS products, led the company to move aggressively to the subscription plan.


"We expected it to be a couple years before this happened. But we were surprised by how successful Creative Cloud has been," Morris said. "We know that's going to be a difficult transition for some customers, but we think it's going to be the best move in the long haul."


It's not just a big difference for customers. With the change, Adobe moves its business more to a recurring-revenue approach. Instead of revenue surging when upgrades such as CS6 arrive, the company gets a steady stream of money.


"There's a stacking effect. When we bring customers in, they stay in. Then when we bring in new customers, we layer the revenue on top," Morris said. "Recurring revenue is going to help Adobe in the long run. That's one reason Wall Street responded very positively."
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The worst new feature is that the new Adobe is only available via creative cloud subscription. You cannot purchase a boxed retail version or stand-alone license.
 
Incredible disappointment but as others said, not a huge surprise. Very glad I've got CS6 Master Edition.

One of the big consequences of doing this will be, I predict, a dramatic slow down in the development of new features and tools going forward. Sure, there will be minor refinements (like today's announced updates) but they'll have much less incentive to spend on R&D because they don't need to generate enough change to excite customers into buying a $500 upgrade. Now they'll make that $500 (actually $600) every year regardless of whether or not they make improvements.

Oh, and watch for them to cut costs by reducting their labor costs too.

Now that they are essentially the only game in town, and you gotta pay them every month in order to play that game, Adobe has something of a stranglehold on this market, and like Microsoft and IBM before it, Adobe should, and probably will be, investigated before too long.
 
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An appalling development and a decision I hope Adobe will be made to regret with FCPX fresh in their minds.

F***k them!

Keylight. You said it all for me.

Now that they are essentially the only game in town, and you gotta pay them every month in order to play that game, Adobe has something of a stranglehold on this market, and like Microsoft and IBM before it, Adobe should, and probably will be, investigated before too long.
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I disagree. If you buy a perpetual license CS6 full up suite package, it will cost $2600 today. That's 4+ years worth of cloud subscription to all of Adobe's software products, some of which are not included in CS6. If you do annual updates at $500, that's another $2k.
The cloud subscription gives many people who could otherwise not afford it full access, and all updates are included for $49.00/month. Less than most people's cell phone or cable TV bills. It provides more and steadier cash flow to fund the development cycles in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Incremental feature updates to individual programs don't have to wait for the annual package.
You can even run a mix of Mac and PC versions if you want since two licenses are included. This is a great solution for me and Suzy as she runs Mac and I run PC but we mostly use different apps from the suite. We would have to buy two packages under the old system.

Stand alone Premiere Pro costs the same as a 1 year subscription. Essentially you are getting perpetual use of the full package for little more than the cost of annual updates.
Are you realistically going to go 4 years or more with no updates to recoup the investment?
 
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This has been happening in the games industry for a few years now. The move to cloud based services is really driven by piracy. Moving to a subscription based service does a number of things for Adobe:

1) To use the software you have to 'check in' to the Adobe server. Hard to pirate something that isn't a standalone program.
2) Users who would previously have balked at the price tag will now be able to afford a subscription, and less likely to download a cracked copy.
3) Users who only upgraded every second version, or who had slowly evolving workflows (I know a guy who shoots SD who still uses PPro 2) now become a regular part of the revenue stream.
 
Razz16mm said:
I disagree. If you buy a perpetual license CS6 full up suite package, it will cost $2600 today. That's 4+ years worth of cloud subscription to all of Adobe's software products, some of which are not included in CS6. If you do annual updates at $500, that's another $2k.
The cloud subscription gives many people who could otherwise not afford it full access, and all updates are included for $49.00/month. Less than most people's cell phone or cable TV bills. It provides more and steadier cash flow to fund the development cycles in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Incremental feature updates to individual programs don't have to wait for the annual package.
You can even run a mix of Mac and PC versions if you want since two licenses are included. This is a great solution for me and Suzy as she runs Mac and I run PC but we mostly use different apps from the suite. We would have to buy two packages under the old system.

Stand alone Premiere Pro costs the same as a 1 year subscription. Essentially you are getting perpetual use of the full package for little more than the cost of annual updates.
Are you realistically going to go 4 years or more with no updates to recoup the investment?
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I think the 'Creative CLoud' idea is a good one, both for Adobe (who will generate extra revenue) and for users, many of whoom could not afford the $2600 up front cost. However, subscription may not suit everyone, so in my view they should have kept the up front purchase option open too.
 
They signed up over 500,000 premium cloud members the first year. More than $24 million a month in cash flow. That can fund some serious R&D for upgrades. I don't think annual suite sales ever topped 100,000 copies.
 
Personally I'm getting increasingly fond of Lightworks the more I learn to use it. Pro license is only $60/year. We will subscribe to CS Cloud with the next round of computer updates, well worth the money. But my primary NLE will likely be Lightworks going forward.
 
The software has to phone home to use it so if you're on a computer that has no internet access then how the heck do you use it?
 
I dont think this is a bad move, it might actually be beneficial- more upgrades more often, faster feature implementation, no upgrade costs, defeats piracy. The cost for someone starting out is now basically null. (and I say this as someone who has purchased cs6 suite)

I just want this to happen to cameras, always have the latest and greatest camera... $50/month
 
Erik Naso said:
The software has to phone home to use it so if you're on a computer that has no internet access then how the heck do you use it?
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I asked this very question at NAB. It needs to phone home at least once every 30 days. If you're constantly offline (say you're traveling) then you can call them up and they'll give you a key code you can use to unlock it for 30 (or was it 45) days. But then you'll need to get on the net within that period so it can phone home again.
 
What's the mininum subscription period? - do you purchase in yearly blocks, or for an initial year then month by month, or what?
 
I'm kind of skeptical of this new service, what if I'm out on the field and it requires you to check in to Adobe's cloud storage. Would that mean I won't be able to utilize the program until I connect to the internet? Or would it allow me to continue and will follow-up on a check up the next time I start the program?
 
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