Adobe’s announced that the next versions of its Creative Suite products won’t be suites in the disc sense, but instead subscription-based cloud products.
That isn’t exactly surprising, given that a blind monkey (with suitably photoshopped eyes) could see it coming.
The new cloud-based products will also have new tools including Camera Shake reduction and Smart Sharpening in Photoshop, online storage through Behance for all Creative Cloud applications and, by the look of it, an end to version numbering per se. You’ll just have a Creative Cloud subscription, and that’s it.
Where it gets interesting, of course, is around Australian pricing, and specifically the Australian pricing inquiry spearheaded by Ed Husic. Adobe’s constantly been brought up as the prime example of pricing rorts, given the oft-repeated meme that you can fly there and back and buy boxed copies of Creative Suite cheaper than a shelf copy here. I’ve never tried that, mind you… I wonder if anyone has?
In any case, the shift to a cloud-only product has been a while coming. When heavily (and somewhat humourously) questioned by Australian tech media (I wasn’t there, but plenty were), Adobe’s global CEO Shantanu Narayen span around himself in circles trying to avoid answering questions about boxed software pricing, instead returning to the core theme of Creative Cloud, over and over again.
Then there’s the issue of installations. Creative Suite… isn’t small. Creative Cloud isn’t either, and while there’s some flexibility in being able to take or drop a subscription in price terms, on some Australian broadband connections, it’s feasible you might be waiting most of the month for the Creative Cloud apps to actually download. I strongly suspect I’d be in that camp, given the perilous state of my broadband connection.
At the professional end of town, there’s probably more excitement over new features than the subscription pricing; the $49.99 per month price tag for Photoshop would probably pay for itself within the first few seconds of firing it up for many of those folks. Where it may be more interesting is in the amateur/enthusiast space. Adobe does offer Student/Teacher pricing — currently listed on the Australian site at $14.99 per month — but will the shift to the Cloud mean that competing image manipulation packages start to claw at Photoshop’s lead?
If so, what will we call Photoshopping? I for one, hope that “Gimping” never becomes a verb in that way…
Image: Adobe