Adobe’s unsurprising Creative Cloud move

Adobe is dropping its Creative Suite boxed software. Instead the company will now offer users a A$50 a month subscription service to what it calls the Creative Cloud. New Zealand prices are in Australian dollars.

This doesn’t come as a surprise. The company’s boss hinted at the strategy during a recent visit to Australia. And Microsoft is heading down a similar path with its subscription-based Office 365.

Still, Adobe’s switch to Creative Cloud is a big step. And it changes the way those of use working in the media will use software. It also means managing subscriptions and over the long haul many people will find they pay a lot more for their Adobe apps.

Photoshop as a subscription

For a monthly fee users will give PhotoShop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Premier Pro and Illustrator.

Adobe has structured prices so that it doesn’t make economic sense to pick and choose. According to this price guide, individual apps cost A$20 a month and you don’t get full access to the services. That’s clever because it means you’ll get to use apps like Acrobat effectively for free – a move which puts pressure on Adobe’s competitors.

On the other hand, you have to commit to a full year to get Creative Cloud – that’s A$600 – a big commitment by today’s standards.

Strictly speaking Creative Cloud isn’t cloud computing in the sense that the grunt work is all done on giant remote servers – the apps download to your computer.

Given that Adobe’s apps are some of the most demanding software tools most users will meet, that means you can’t realistically run these on lightweight machines or tablets.