Last week Adobe confirmed plans for their revolutionary initiative Creative Cloud. It will see (amongst other things) cloud hosting of some Adobe tools, and subscription to (rather than purchase of) your favorite applications. This could cause quite a shake-up; how will it affect you?
Head in the Clouds
Aside from familiar faces such as Photoshop, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver, you’ll also have access to the new TouchApps which aim to bring the creative workflow to your touch-screen devices.
Currently, purchasing the Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection will set you back the princely sum of $2,599, or an upgrade between $549 and $1,399 depending on your current license. From early 2012 you’ll instead be able to subscribe to the creative cloud for $49.99 per month, though existing customers will see some form of perpetual licensing so as not to upset the boat too much. Saying that, a lot of folk are disgruntled at the new upgrade policy which compels perpetual license users (those who wish to continue licensing their current installation) to upgrade regularly, or face subscribing from scratch.
So.. how do you feel about working in the cloud (ie: have you already shunned your local spreadsheet app for Google Docs?) Does the subscription price tag seem reasonable to you? How do you feel about the new upgrade policy? Are you excited about working on touch-screen devices? Do you feel like you’ve been painted into a corner on this one? Let’s hear it..