Hey folks, regarding CS6, I was wondering, if anyone is considering subscription pricing, and if so are you thinking in month-over-month of yearly subscription , and what may be the reason for this. Also wondering if anyone can share their experience using Adobe’s creative cloud. Will appreciate any advice you may have
As a designer I’ve spent years using various versions of the CS suite. Thankfully always at my employers cost. We’ve worked with Adobe products since Quark was slow to adapt and it became a much cheaper option. We’re a smallish firm so we’ve kept as up to date as possible leveraging different products to keep the regular update cycle as cheap as possible. Almost inevitably if you work in the area you end up doing work for charity. This might be the next door neighbour or a friend or family member - how do you manage the work if the software tools you have are at work? Do you pay for a private license when it costs thousands? Do you cheap-out and use an education license?
I’m in the situation whereby I use a lot of the Adobe products sporadically too. I predominantly use Photoshop and Indesign but will quite happily use Illustrator or Dreamweaver or Captivate for jobs. The CS6 subscription represents a very attractive offer for someone like me who can easily justify gaining access to the tools for approx US$50/month. If a job is going to be intensive even the most strapped charity understands that work of a professional nature isn’t free. It doesn’t represent a lot of money to have to find for a lot of access and software.
So for me, small businesses and sporadic independent contractors now have a life line to use legitimate products without hassle or a large lump sum payment. It isn’t a perfect scenario but it is now a viable option that didn’t exist prior and one I intend making use of when the need arises.
I think it is a good call to subscribe for small and mid-sized companies!
I am planning to start using it [Personal and for my employees] in 2013. And I will go the yearly subscription way.
I was in the presentation of CS5.5 when they introduced the monthly and yearly subscription. I thought it was a great idea and a step in the right direction. Still, while the price per product didn’t look too bad and seemed reasonable, when you added 2 or 3 to the list, the subscription was a bit pricely (I don’t know the prices now, this was then). Although Adobe products are very expensive, the monthly fees added up almost to the price of the standard version of the software in one year.
Then, I decided that it was not for me and that I would wait a bit longer. I haven’t looked into CS6 but I will and I’ll see if this could be the right choice for me or not.
I use photoshop everyday amd Acrobat, but I also use InDesign and Illustrator quite often and Flash from time to time. There are some other software that I’m interested too.
Subscriptions give you a choice of a large upfront payment or small payments spread out. Just like anything that you pay overtime you end up paying more for it in the end. Still a good choice for smaller business and those designers that are just starting out.
The other benefit though to remember is that it includes access to all their software, not just one particular package. On that front it is absolutely unbeatable if you are a wide user of Adobe products. (Well certainly outside the US if other comments made about pricing are anything to go by).