For years, Adobe has sold its professional design software under the Creative Suite banner. There were hints that was going to change when Adobe stopped selling CS6 at retail, but the company has moved to kill Creative Suite faster than anybody expected.
Adobe announced at its annual MAX conference that it will no longer be releasing new versions of its software under the Creative Suite banner. Instead, all future updates and features will be delivered via Creative Cloud. In other words, those who buy Creative Suite 6 will only get just that while all new features to Photoshop and the like will only be available via Creative Cloud.
The move to Creative Cloud, which is a subscription service, has upset some members of the Adobe user community. The complaints were excellently captured in a new video released by our favorite Taiwanese animators at NMA:
Adobe says that it’s moving to a subscription-only model because it will allow them to deliver updates to users at a faster rate:
“We launched Creative Cloud a year ago and it has been a runaway success,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe. “By focusing our energy — and our talented engineers — on Creative Cloud, we’re able to put innovation in our members’ hands at a much faster pace.”
To convince current CS6 users to move to Creative Cloud, Adobe is offering discounts on the subscription service for a limited time. You can check out all the different Creative Cloud plans here.