Adobe Creative Cloud on the Horizon
Adobe, makers of creative software which provides complete marketing and media creation solutions, announced in October its intention to provide subscription services to its creative community beginning sometime in early 2012.
Creative Cloud will have the same tools that are currently found in the CS6 desktop program, but with the addition of Adobe Touch Apps, and a few other services, Adobe is calling this cloud service a "hub" where users can "explore, create, publish, and share" their ideas.
Says Adobe, "[W]e are simplifying our perpetual license offerings for Creative Suite. This change is designed to streamline our offerings while simplifying the choices our customers need to make. Customers may choose to keep their Creative Suite perpetual licenses current in order to receive upgrade pricing when new versions of Creative Suite are released, or move to Adobe Creative Cloud when it becomes available, at an extremely attractive and affordable price."
With this announcement now, and prior to the release of Creative Cloud subscription services, the company is providing a 20% discount to customers when upgrading to a Creative Suite 5.5 product or suite. Adobe claims, that "with the availability of Adobe CS6 solutions in 2012, (we) will no longer offer upgrade pricing to customers who are on older versions of Creative Suite dating more than one version back. Customers on versions of Creative Suite CS4, CS3, CS2, and older will not be eligible for upgrade pricing for CS6 unless they have upgraded to CS5 or CS5.5 before CS6 is released."
The upshot being that customers declining to upgrade within the next 12 months will need to decide to renew licenses upon each point release, or to become a subscriber, and be eligible to participate in all new subscription service upgrades as they are released.
Subscriptions to Creative Cloud will start at $49.99 a month, with a one-year commitment. Described as "Everything you need, Everywhere you work," Adobe promises exclusive access beyond traditional programs, with unique features and services only available to Creative Cloud subscribers.
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