adobe Adobe Officially Unveils CS6 And Its $49/Month All-Inclusive Creative

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Adobe Officially Unveils CS6 And Its $49/Month All-Inclusive Creative Cloud Subscription Service

Today is a big day for Adobe. Not only is the company officially unveiling the next versions of virtually all of the applications in its Creative Suite, but Adobe is also launching its Creative Cloud online offerings. This marks a major change in how Adobe is selling and marketing its flagship product: while the company will continue to offer a shrink-wrapped version of CS6, it?s also introducing a subscription service with this update. For $49/month with an annual subscription or $79/month for month-to-month memberships, users can now get full access to any CS6 tool, including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and AfterEffects. The suite will also include Adobe?s new HTML5 design and development tools Muse and Edge, and will be deeply integrated into the company?s tablet apps. Users will be able to download and install these apps on up to two machines.

Photoshop, the most popular application in the suite, will also be available through a stand-alone subscription for $19.99/month with an annual membership and $29.99 without.

Adobe will also offer a student and teacher edition of Creative Cloud for $29.99/month. Current CS3, CS4 and CS5.5 users will qualify for a special introductory offer of $29.99/month. In the coming months, Adobe will also launch a version of Creative Cloud for teams, though the price for this one hasn?t been determined yet.

Oddly enough, the company hasn?t announced an actual launch date for these updates and new services yet. According to today?s announcement, however, these products ?are scheduled to be available within 30 days.?

The updated Creative Suite apps obviously include a number of major changes, but maybe the most interesting change ? and likely also the controversial one ? is Adobe?s move toward a subscription service for CS6. The company obviously knows that quite a few of its users still want to buy the standard shrink-wrapped versions of its apps and will continue to offers these as well.

As Scott Morris, Adobe?s senior marketing director for the Creative Pro product line, told me last week, though, the company expects that most of its users will slowly migrate to the subscription service over time. In Adobe?s view, this gives users more flexibility to use apps when they need them and put their subscription on hold when they don?t. Adobe also plans to release a steady stream of new tools and updates to subscribers that won?t be available to users of the standard version until the next major update. Lightroom 4, for example, won?t be finished in time for this launch, but Creative Cloud subscribers will get it, as well as the final version of Adobe?s HTML5 development program Edge, the moment it becomes available later this year.

Photoshop, of course, is among the most pirated applications and while Morris stressed that the subscription service shouldn?t be seen solely as a way to combat piracy, he did acknowledge that it has the potential to help Adobe with its piracy problem.

Creative Cloud isn?t just a subscription service to Adobe?s tools, though, it also includes an online storage and sharing component. Adobe itself calls it its ?hub for making, sharing and delivering creative work.? Subscribers will, among other things, be able to sync their files to Adobe?s cloud and then edit them with the company?s mobile tools on the iPad, for example, or just upload their files Dropbox-style to the web and share them with their clients or colleagues. Initially, users will have access to 20GB of online storage, with additional storage purchase options coming soon.

Creative Cloud subscribers will also get access to Adobe?s publishing and web hosting services, which will allow them to easily publish their apps, magazines and catalogs to iOS, Android and the web. Members will also get access to Typekit, which offers web designers access to 700 fonts.

The forthcoming team version of Creative Cloud will give users access to more storage and administrators will be able to allocate disk space depending on individual users? needs. In addition, Adobe will provide these subscribers access to something akin to Apple?s Genius Bar where users can get one-on-one advice and support.

Another aspect of Creative Cloud will be its community site that will include a deviantART-like component for publicly sharing work with others.

As for the individual apps that are getting updates today, there are too many changes to list them all. As Morris told us, the focus here, for the most part, was on making the apps more responsive and smarter. Here are some of the highlights from the individual apps:

Source: TechCrunch

[Boz]

Amazing amazing deal for everyone. Great job Adobe. That's how you do it.

[game_over]

Do they not offer student and teacher discount in UK for this? i was browsing the US site and the option was there i changed region to UK and the teacher/student pricing disappeared?

Its $29.99 in the US so should be around ?20 in the UK, if it can be paid yearly ?120 a year for the whole suite is amazing and i would definitely pay for it.

I'm wondering how this software actually works? i'm guessing apps will connect to the cloud on every load to check for an active sub? What happens if i'm not connected to the internet? What is stopping me downloading it once and never paying again? Not that i would want to do this, the online incentives are enough alone to keep you subbed.

[Boz]

I just ordered. Existing customers get it for $29.99 a month for a year membership. This si such a great deal.

[MS Bob 11]

If only Adobe priced their software at $100-$200 which they price at $5500 they would have become far more profitable. Along the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

[remixedcat]

If only Adobe priced their software at $100-$200 which they price at $5500 they would have become far more profitable. Along the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

It would also decrease piracy. they have a 70% piracy rate I believe.

I wonder if they do that as more of a market saturation control rather though... make it expensive so there's less people doing it and less competition in the design arena.

[episode]

If only Adobe priced their software at $100-$200 which they price at $5500 they would have become far more profitable. Along the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Exaggerate much? I agree with your premise, but its not $5500.

[iwod]

Even if Adobe release a new version every two year the current subscriptions would still means nearly half the price. Not to mention the 20GB storage.

For Companies, not only to they get a team price which is properbly lower, they could also spread out their cost to monthly basis.

[MS Bob 11]

Exaggerate much? I agree with your premise, but its not $5500.

The full retail Master Collection is that much. The "upgrade" version is around $2500-$3000. Assuming you spent $5000 at least once, only then you quality for upgrades.

[M_Lyons10]

Surprisingly cheaper than I would have ever expected from Adobe...

On that note though, what's with Muse and Edge not being in the Web Design package? Does that strike anyone else as odd?

[M_Lyons10]

If only Adobe priced their software at $100-$200 which they price at $5500 they would have become far more profitable. Along the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Agreed. Their pricing model is ridiculous.

[Yuxi]

Agreed. Their pricing model is ridiculous.

Their products are aimed at creative professionals and organizations, not consumers whose needs can be met by Paint.NET, Windows Movie Maker, or one of the many free/low cost alternatives. For people making full use of those products (as opposed to wanting to use something fancy for the sake of it), the price tag is not as "ridiculous" as it seems.

How many of those people who pirate Adobe software would have paid for it if it's $200 instead of $2000? Ten times as many people? I don't think so. Even then it wouldn't be enough to cover the cost of supporting 10x as many customers.

[giantpotato]

If only Adobe priced their software at $100-$200 which they price at $5500 they would have become far more profitable. Along the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

It would also decrease piracy. they have a 70% piracy rate I believe.

I wonder if they do that as more of a market saturation control rather though... make it expensive so there's less people doing it and less competition in the design arena.

Now, let's just go over the math for a second. Selling at $100-$200, Adobe would have to sell 28-55 copies to generate the same revenue as one sale at the current price. Now, let's assume this new price eliminates piracy completely (which it won't). At 70% piracy, for every 1 copy sold today, there will be 3.33 sales. So, for every copy selling today at $5500 Adobe would now sell 3.33 copies at $333 to $666 total.

Please explain to me how this is a good business plan?

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

This is not actually that bad of a deal for the monthly charges, that would help smaller companies that do not want to have to shell out a large sum for the suit.

[M_Lyons10]

Their products are aimed at creative professionals and organizations, not consumers who can just use Paint.NET or Windows Movie Maker. For the people making full use of those products (as opposed to using something fancy for the sake of it), the price tag is not as "ridiculous" as it seems.

How many of those people who pirate Adobe software would have paid for it if it's $200 instead of $2000? Ten times as many people? I don't think so.

I think a lot more people would pay for it, absolutely. Let me make clear that I have never pirated ANY product, and would not condone doing so. However, when you have a piracy issue as bad as Adobe does, I think you need to approach the problem subjectively. I am anti-piracy. I'm a software developer myself. I certainly don't like it. But there's a certain point where you price your product at a price point in which more consumers would find it appropriate. Then they play games like breaking HTML5 web development out into its own program rather than build it into Dreamweaver (Where it should be)... And then not even include this new tool with the Web Design Premium package? You would almost think this was done to irritate customers.

And for this cost, are the improvements version to version worth it? I've been using Adobe products for a long time, and though CS5 I thought had some nice improvements, I am generally underwhelmed version to version. If the price point were more reasonable, these improvements would be acceptable.

[M_Lyons10]

Now, let's just go over the math for a second. Selling at $100-$200, Adobe would have to sell 28-55 copies to generate the same revenue as one sale at the current price. Now, let's assume this new price eliminates piracy completely (which it won't). At 70% piracy, for every 1 copy sold today, there will be 3.33 sales. So, for every copy selling today at $5500 Adobe would now sell 3.33 copies at $333 to $666 total.

Please explain to me how this is a good business plan?

Just out of curiosity, how do you figure there would be 3.33 sales?

[stevember]

Rip off UK ?47 / $75 (usd) per month here.

[giantpotato]

Just out of curiosity, how do you figure there would be 3.33 sales?

Using the numbers posted previously 30% being purchased legitimately, 70% being pirated. Assuming all pirated copies are now purchased: 30% * 3.33 = 100%

[Praetor]

lolwut? how 49$ is equivalent to 47??

Great math, Adobe.

[Yuxi]

Assuming all pirated copies are now purchased

Now that's music/game publisher's wet dream :rofl:

[Boz]

The full retail Master Collection is that much. The "upgrade" version is around $2500-$3000. Assuming you spent $5000 at least once, only then you quality for upgrades.

Um.. upgrade is not $2500-$3000.. where do you people draw these numbers from. Full CS5.5 Master Suite was $2500. Upgrade was $500 if you had the previous version. And it has been that for a while.

[Boz]

So wait, are you people arguing that it's TOO CHEAP to own an Adobe products and you are bitching about it? Not sure I fully understand the deal here

[game_over]

?22.46 for education discount in the UK. That will do me.. all software access, 20gb online backup/sync storage, access to all iPad apps and full access to TypeKit.. it's a bloody amazing deal.

[stevember]

?22.46 for education discount in the UK. That will do me.. all software access, 20gb online backup/sync storage, access to all iPad apps and full access to TypeKit.. it's a bloody amazing deal.

Where did you see that?

[game_over]

Where did you see that?

http://www.adobe.com/uk/education/products/creativecloud.html