back to article Adobe Cloud offers leg up over Creative Suite's price wall

Adobe has launched its mighty Creative Suite in to the cloud, potentially giving designers and illustrators a slightly more affordable way to access its reassuringly expensive tools. On Monday the company unveiled Creative Suite 6, which is available for the first time on a subscription basis from the Creative Cloud, also …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Tom Chiverton 1
    Facepalm

    You might want to quote the same prices in good old fashion UK pounds from Adobe's UK site.

    Then convert those to dollars.

    Then write up a piece about the rip off of charging more to send the bytes a little further...

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Tom Chiverton 1

      Blast - that was on the list of things to-do. Now added.

      C.

    2. big_D Silver badge
      FAIL

      73%

      You should look at the European prices, the UK gets away relatively lightly. We have to pay an additional 73.5% more than the Americans about 32% more than the UK! (Based on the UK, US and German Adobe websites).

      The UK version of the Master Suite is over 334 quid cheaper than the German version (based on Amazon prices).

  2. Arrrggghh-otron

    Still to expensive...

    Where is the home use/non commercial version of CS Suite? If you want more people to use your software then you need to make it more readily available to more people.

    I'll gladly pay £100 for a non commercial license for CS. I already use a fully licensed CS3 Suite at work. But for personal stuff or invites for friends parties, I don't make any money, I'm not going to pay £1500 for the suite... but... the more I use your software, the more likely I am to want to use it in a commercial setting where you can charge whatever you like as it will be the company paying...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Still to expensive...

      Isn't that what Elements versions are for - i.e. non commercial use ?

      1. Jim McCafferty

        Re: Still to expensive...

        Elements is cynically aimed at the home users market - which just enough functionality to satisfy the casual hobbyists manage their photo collection - and at the price it's still not cheap.

        Most major software development companies now offer free basic editions or reasonable monthly subscription rates for on demand. Even with the exchange rate - the Adobe collection is not cheap.

    2. jubtastic1

      Re: Still too expensive...

      Pixelmator is a good alt for the Mac, does most of the stuff you need from Photoshop for a fraction of the price, $30, free trial.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Still too expensive...

        Pixelmator may be nearly as good, but most of the tutorials in photo magazines are going to show you how to do things assuming you have Photoshop.

        However, for $30 it's worth a go (assuming it's much better than iPhoto)

    3. phuzz Silver badge
      Go

      Re: Still too expensive...

      I always assumed that the home version was fulfilled by the pirate versions of Adobe software. I know plenty of graphic designers (etc.) who started off at home with their pirated version, then went to work for a large company, who had to buy a fully legal version from Adobe, because that was the tool that pretty much all graphic designers know and use.

      Basically, piracy is Adobe's demo version and home/non-comercial version rolled into one, and they don't even have to distribute it themselves.

      1. Arrrggghh-otron

        Re: Still too expensive...

        Yeah, pirating it seems to be the only option (other than not using the software and getting left behind in terms of your skills) if you don't have £1500 kicking around. But I want to pay Adobe... and I can't... I have even looked at becoming a student officially to get the educational licence, but, frankly that was a ridiculous idea given the cost of courses and even then CS suite is still £300 odd...

        And no, Elements is not CS Suite by any stretch of the imagination.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Still too expensive...

          Adobe's prices are always on the highish side. Actually, scratch that. They slide over to the 'that price has to be a joke, right?' end of the high price range on pretty much everything except their free stuff. The free stuff, in turn, is only free because no one in their right mind would buy their overpriced tools otherwise.

          So here's my deal with Adobe: until and unless they apply some sanity to their pricing they'll never have me as a customer. There are plenty of alternatives to their products out there that are either free or sanely priced and can do just as much. In fact I was much disgusted with Photoshop when I was forced to use it recently and discovered that it lacks many of the filters I've come to rely upon in Gimp. There's no excuse for missing such basic filters as lighting sources in a product that expensive.

          I really don't get it. Why would anyone use ColdFusion for $1200 when you can get Railo for free? Surely the few features Adobe's version has aren't that good. Or Photoshop, which actually does LESS than the free alternative Gimp (I speak from experience here). Dreamweaver I can kind of understand. The other WYSIWYG webpage editors out there are pretty lousy by comparison, but given that I usually work in the code view anyway, why would I use it?

          And before anyone goes calling me a clueless hobbiest, I am a professional web developer. I depend on the tools I use to feed my family and keep a roof over our heads and I make a pretty good living doing it. Good enough that my wife doesn't have to work anyway. All this without giving up most of a month's income to Adobe or using illegally obtained software.

          1. Ilgaz

            Same mistake

            There aren't any alternatives to their suite for professional use.

            Once everyone admits this fact, things will get resolved faster.

            1. sisk

              Re: Same mistake

              "There aren't any alternatives to their suite for professional use."

              Maybe not as a bundle, but there are alternatives. As a disclaimer, I have and use CS5. I just don't feel like I have to.

              Photoshop - Gimp. It can do anything Photoshop can. There's a bit of a learning curve, but it can get the job done. In fact, I spent years using Gimp exclusively and actually prefer it to Photoshop.

              Acrobat Pro - Foxit Pro if you REALLY need the kind of features it offers, but honestly in my experience most PDFs could be done with Office and a PDF printer or LibreOffice by itself.

              Flash Pro & Flash Builder - Silverlight...or just learn HTML5 and do away with plugins entirely. That's probably the better option anyway, given the number of iPads out there.

              InDesign - MS Publisher comes to mind, but I'm certain there are others. Desktop publishing isn't my thing.

              Fireworks - To be honest I've never actually used Fireworks. I just don't see the need for this application, even as a web professional.

              Audition - I don't know what the alternatives are, but none of the musicians I know use Audition. Granted these aren't people you've ever heard of, but one of them actually pays his bills (barely) off his music gigs and selling CDs that he makes in the studio in his basement.

              Media Encoder - There are only about a zillion encoder apps out there. Given that they all do about the same thing and half of them are free, pick one.

              Dreamweaver - You could use KompoZer or Sharepoint Designer, but personally I'd rather use Dreamweaver.

              The rest are tools I've never used and thus can't comment on. I will say this though: to say there's no professional grade alternatives to pretty much anything is to be just plain lazy (or a shill, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). There are ALWAYS alternatives, even if you limit yourself to professional grade software. You just have to put out a little effort to find them.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Still too expensive...

            I downloaded the Gimp. It may be powerful but boy it could do with a re-design of user interface. Easy to use it is not. There are a few books on Amazon on how to use it at least.

            http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Gimp&x=0&y=0

  3. Lallabalalla
    Trollface

    At those prices

    they may as well just go right ahead and charge £5,000,000 a time - they'd only have to sell one. Somebody would buy it, surely?

  4. karakalWitchOfTheWest
    Go

    I think this is nice...

    I just preordered Creative Cloud because I think it is great value for money. If I take the price of the Master Suite (2599), I would need >50 months. This is more than 4 years and I bet in this time there will be another update, which I will get for free in Creative Cloud.

    And if you are a student, you can have a 50% discount...

    I think this is great...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think this is nice...

      >And if you are a student, you can have a 50% discount...

      Adobe should take a leaf out of MS books and provide free copies to students, not 50% of hugely overpriced!

      See https://www.dreamspark.com/ - probably Microsoft's least publicised site though...

  5. localzuk Silver badge

    Not too bad

    That isn't a bad price really, for the market it is aimed at. If I were a freelancer, I'd be snapping this up.

  6. Silverburn
    Facepalm

    Too much

    Alternatively Adobe, just reduce the price of CS to sensible money. It's a price which says "yeah, we own this whole market segment, so f* you, we'll charge what we want".

    Oh wait, this is Adobe. Sorry.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too much

      erm, surely the goal of any good business is to 'own' the sector your in, and hence charge the most you can get away with.

      You may not like it, but it's good business.

      1. Cliff

        Re: Too much

        It's good business to a point. Worked great for Microsoft (Windows and Office) for a while, but it makes one heck of a target for open-sourcers. Now Linux and Libre Office have genuinely eroded MS's core sectors that they really did 'own' for years.

        The GIMP does much of what people want from Photoshop - it's not as slick, but it's pretty potent. Adobe Premiere is laughable compared with lightworks (now open-sourced, simplified versions to follow), After Effects is still holding reasonably well with some cheap alternatives suiting many users (eg hitfilm.com for an NLE with 3D effects engine for a few hundred notes).

        Own a sector, but manage it well - if they price carefully, they can keep the sector they currently control

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Too much

          Good business to a point is right.

          Look at what happened to Quark. They used to own the whole DTP market, until Adobe bought-out all the other real competition and brought out their (actually) superior product.

          Adobe have owned the market for years and done almost no innovating, while their apps get bigger, slower and more buggy.

          Where is the open-source product to compete with InDesign for instance?

          That's a serious question actually - cos I can't find anything worth a damn yet.

  7. Graeme Sutherland
    Holmes

    Adobe roll out annual upgrades for their CS suite, and the current is around £360.

    Assuming that the price stays at around £50 / month, and this isn't cranked upwards in six months or a year's time, then it would take around eight or nine years (assuming you bought the annual upgrades) for the boxed software to work out cheaper.

    If you're buying into the product for the first time then the cloud version makes sense, particularly as I suspect that Adobe are going to insist you buy it this way within a few years in any case.

    One big advantage of the Creative Cloud version is that you'll be able to install both Mac and PC versions off one license. (You're limited to two machines.) That makes switching between platforms much easier.

  8. mraak

    I'd rather buy

    Instagram over Photoshop anyway. It only costs 1 billion.

  9. Peter Labrow

    Not so good for upgraders?

    If you'd don't have the Adobe apps, then this seems like a good deal. If you're a user who already has CS5 and you don't need more apps than you have, then it's pretty pants. You can upgrade for less than £357 (for example, if you have the Premium Suite) but a year's subs costs you £562.56. I'm struggling to see the incentive, other than to access products I don't really need and services I wouldn't really use.

    1. Graeme Sutherland
      Thumb Down

      Re: Not so good for upgraders?

      They do a cheaper subscription for existing users at £328.08 for the year.

      I think that buying the upgrade would make sense, as it isn't limited to the subscription period. If you shifted to the cloud version then you'd have to continue to shell out to retain access to the software, and the price would rise to the £562.56 level the following year.

      1. Peter Labrow

        Re: Not so good for upgraders?

        Graeme - thanks, not spotted that price for upgraders. As you said, it makes more sense to upgrade - assuming you don't want the extra software. Thanks for spotting that.

  10. Peter Labrow
    WTF?

    I'd not spotted the greater Adobe rip-off

    The upgrade price is from CS5.5 - the intermediary version of the software released halfway through their normal upgrade cycle (as far I'm concerned - and indeed, Adobes own press releases at the time). If you're like me and you decided to hold out for CS6, then tough crap. The upgrade price is over £700 - effectively that's doubled what it used to be in the CS1/2/3/4/5 days. Either you pay for each .5 release or you pay double for the full update. Total rip off.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like