Adobe Creative Cloud – The 5.5 Things You Need to Know
There have been many rumbles and grumbles after Adobe’s announcement a few weeks back regarding their “radical” shift to the cloud. It has left many long time Adobe followers dazed and confused, not knowing whether to stay the course or jump ship. Adobe has been the industry leader for document, design, photography, web, and video editing software for the past decade. Consumers had become accustomed to purchasing their products as they needed them, upgrading at their own free will, and paying upfront to own the software. The Creative Cloud announcement from Adobe was not really a big surprise to us at The Foundation, we were actually more surprised that the announcement took as long as it did.
The truth is, most software companies are adopting similar models for their own software offerings. Unfortunately for Adobe, they were the lucky ones that got to take the brunt of all the criticism. Being the first large and established software company to announce that they would no longer be selling physical media, and would only be focusing it’s development efforts on their cloud offering, this opened Pandora’s Box to a slue of angry protest. Evidently people do not like the idea of renting their software.Truth be told, subscription based software is nothing new. SaaS solutions have been around for years and are often based on monthly or yearly subscriptions. Microsoft’s Office 365 offering is built on the same monthly/yearly subscription model as Adobe Creative Cloud. The difference between Microsoft and Adobe, in this case, is that Microsoft has not made any announcements regarding the discontinuation of its physical products or one time purchase-to-own downloads.
If you do not have time or the energy to read through Adobe’s site on Creative Cloud, here is the most important information you need to know. Like it or not, this is the future of Adobe licensing.
1.
There is no more CS6 or CS anything… Creative Suite is no more. Your only option for future updates of Adobe software is to have the Creative Cloud subscription. You can still buy CS6, but for how long, no one knows.
2.
With Creative Cloud, you do NOT have to update your software whenever Adobe says there is a new update. You are welcome to stay on your current version of Photoshop, InDesign, or whatever you use, without updating.
- Creative Cloud for Individuals – This is for the single user, the contractor, or the independent one person small business. This is purchased through Adobe.com and is registered to the end user’s email address. This is paid for on a monthly basis. If a one year commitment is made, then there is a discounted price.
- Creative Cloud for Teams – This is for any business or group of two or more people. This is purchased through Adobe.com or through a reseller partner such as The Foundation (wink, wink). Creative Cloud for Teams allows seats to be purchased via a business’s own Adobe ID. The seats are retained under the business and can be easily transferred to other users if necessary.
- Creative Cloud for Enterprise – This is for any enterprise group over 100+ users. Pricing can be quoted through Adobe directly. It comes with all the bells and whistles that Creative Cloud for Teams offers, with even more granularity.
4.
You can purchase Creative Cloud for access to one application or ALL applications. This applies for Creative Cloud for Individuals and Creative Cloud for Teams. If you choose to purchase one application, you can change what the application is after one year.
5.
Creative Cloud IS more expensive than the old Creative Suites and single copies of software ONLY IF you are a simple user that used 3 or less pieces of software and only upgraded every 2+ years. If you were one to always stay within a year of the latest release, then it might even be cheaper!
5.5. (Hehe.. get it?!)
Adobe does not hold your data hostage. If you decide to end your Creative Cloud subscription, your data will remain locally on your hard drive (if you chose to store it there) or in your Creative Cloud cloud (yes, I meant to write cloud twice) – you just won’t be able to open the files without the software.
If you are feeling ambitious, check out Adobe’s site for more information.
If you have more questions or need a quote for Creative Cloud for Teams, email me stacie@fndtn.com.
If you need to brighten your day after reading this, click here.
Stacie Marshall
Director of Client Services