Exitlog | Leaving Impressions

Adobe unveils Creative Suite 3, finally a reason to upgrade…

Adobe have announced the availability of Creative Suite 3 for latter this month. This release also sees the integration of the Adobe and Macromedia brands and products into a tightly integrated suite. Adobe have simplified the applications and how they work together creating not just a juggernaut of well known applications, but a collection which really addresses the creative communities needs.

Creative Suite 3 comes in six configurations. For publishing and design there is Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Design Standard editions. Web-development and digtal marketing there is Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Web Standard editions. In competition with Apple’s Final Cut Studio there is Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium. And, if you need it all, there is the Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection which combines all 12 of Adobe’s new applications in a single box.

Seemingly unnoticed in much of the media’s coverage is the value users are likely to get. With an upgrade price of £699 for the Design Premium edition or £539 for the Web Premium edition smaller businesses, studios and individuals are more likely to “go legit”; (piracy in the workplace is very unreported). The combined cost of Adobe’s previous Creative Suite and Macromedia’s Studio (or just Flash and Dreamweaver on their own) was prohibitive to those on tighter budgets. For £1,820 users can upgrade to the whole Master Collection – a real bargain. The release of CS3 is going to benefit everyone (sort of, see end note).

Before their merger, Adobe and Macromedia moved to an all-in model with applications bundled together in a single suite, seemingly for better value. But while sales remained steady it was piracy that saw real gains. For smaller businesses the new features and minor improvements were hardly compelling enough for justify the expenditure. Upgrades were seen as nice, but not a necessary exercise. Incremental change doesn’t often equal big profits (see Microsoft’s pre-Vista OS road map). Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing and torrent sites filled the gap between releases.

Now piracy is set to suffer a blow (minor as it seems). With Apple’s transition to Intel processors and the merger of the industry’;s biggest players, CS3 is likely to be the biggest in Adobe’;s history. Every application from the renown Photoshop to the ever-present Flash is undergoing an amazing change. This release, more than just interface tweaks, workflow improvements and enhanced speed, is likely to mean to customers real value for money.

Updated exit: Adobe wants more Britain…

The aformentioned Adobe CS3 upgrade is roughly $470 in the US. The same upgrade here in the UK costs £539, equivalent to $1080 at the current rate of exchange. The inflated penalty this side of the Altantic has to bear comes in at nearly 130%. Incentive for piracy? There is something yet to consider. While the upgrade is a great value, Adobe is still punishing us for our strong pound and more resilient economy.

.NET hasn’t quite lifted off as Microsoft takes another attack…

Adobe want to bring the power of the Internet to the desktop and they intend to do so with Apollo; released this week from its Adobe Labs website.

Apollo is the code name for a cross-platform runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to use their existing back-catalogue of skills to quickly build Internet applications users can install locally.

Apollo applications run as regular applications, just like any you might find on everyday users’ desktop – from games to office productivity apps. Firefox and IE are not required. These new applications don’t need web browser or even a shell to run. And when users aren’t connected to the Internet they still work. This may yet be another great advance. Adobe’s technology has even been tipped to threaten the popularity of Java and Microsoft’s .NET.

Microsoft does have its own strategy. They too want to give developers tools for building Web applications. But their strategy is about tying developers to using applications within the Windows desktop and development environment. This could be the weak point in the .NET plan.

Open source systems and other, paid-for, serious opportunities in the market are eroding the dominance of Windows. Apollo is cross platform and uses standard Internet development technologies such as Flash, HTML, JavaScript and AJAX. Ubiquity and code for all – Adobe wants to court developers with Apollo, but unlike .NET, without persuading them to choose their flavour of desktop.

One of the great strengths of Flash, acquired by Adobe from Macromedia last year, is its ubiquity. Flash enjoys a unique position in that for a proprietary format, it is an important, welcomed part of the web-based landscape. Windows may be prevalent, some would say pervasive, in homes and offices around the world, but it is not universal.

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.