Adobe Creative Cloud, in lieu of Adobe Creative Suite 7, has some great new features but also some hotly contested issues including the loss of disc support and move to a monthly payment feature for all future software. Mike Kelley, Rebecca Britt and I (Jaron Schneider) discuss what this means for creatives and why it may not be the big deal some are trying to make it out to be.
Mike, Rebecca and I all seem to be on board with where Adobe is going, but not everyone on the Fstoppers Staff is. We're hearing mixed sentiments. Some don't like the idea of "renting" software, while others love the convenience and the forward thinking Adobe is pushing.
It's an interesting debate, and one we likely won't hear the end of any time soon. What are your thoughts?
Everyone is negatively impacted by this for the simple fact that you no longer own the software, you rent it. Over the lifetime of the software you're going to end up paying 3-4x as much as you would for the stand alone product and you have absolutely nothing to show for it. That is scary because you are completely at adobes mercy. Why should adobe innovate anymore when they have a guaranteed $50 per month from everyone that is renting their software? Whats stoping them form raising the price to $100? $200? $500 a month? This hurts everyone and unfortunately by the time people realize this it will already be too late. Guess Im sticking with CS5 for the long haul.
Something thats is mostly overlooked in recent discussions about Adobe's Creative cloud is the new business model of Adobe.
Where as in the past Adobe had to innovate their software in order to sell new versions of their Creative suites, nowadays, with the creative cloud concept, the need to innovate has vastly decreased because of the fact that they will get their money anyway. The CC subscribers can't go anywhere without forfeiting the ability to open and edit their work.
The cloud concept will bring Adobe a huge profit on many levels, they have regular income, they can reduce research and development costs, no more dvd production costs, etc..
So the expectation of many CC subscribers to annually get new features could well turn out to be a big disappointment.