All you that talk about "CS6" or Premiere, listen up. Adobe announced that they will not continue to develop their Creative Suite. No CS7, no giant package of production software. However Adobe would only be making enemies if we stopped now, their solution is Adobe Creative Cloud, established in 2012. Adobe MAX is the creativity conference taking place May 4-8, 2013 in Los Angeles and the center of this massive initiative. The shift from CS to CC can mean a lot of things, and chances are if you use Adobe Creative Suite 6 products you'll want to start by looking up promotional pricing, because there's limited time to save on a possible transition. More on the money in a bit, but to clear the air, what is the Creative Cloud?
There's a letter to newcomers of the Creative Cloud, in it, The Creative Cloud Team says it plainly – you are storytellers. Indeed, this is who the Creative Cloud is made for and users make up the substance of the cloud. What you get by becoming a member of the Creative Cloud is the ability to use applications that at one time shipped in boxes that require substantial space on the bookshelf. With Creative Cloud your desktop contains apps such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Photoshop CC and more than 20 others. You get the same capabilities that the software programs provide, plus online cloud storage, and a healthy dose of service is yours to use. The workflow is easily enacted by collaboration among members and non members, and when it comes to working with software, there's few suites out there that are flexible enough to let you run a version as long as you like, on Mac or PC computers, and without a constant Internet connection. There is more power to create than a user previously got with getting a single suite of software since practically all of Adobe's software is included. With so many ways to tell stories, Adobe Creative Cloud is a great option for anyone to consider when looking to create.
The plans offered are free 30 day trails of all applications, single program pricing, or the complete Adobe Creative Cloud for $50 per month, plus 20GB of storage. There are options for business and education that end as early as June 25. Much like upgrade pricing, you may get a discount on a year's subscription for already using Adobe software. Then comes a business question, will you be earning money with the stories you create? This will likely guide your direction on whether you'll pay monthly for applications, storage, and service or consider alternatives. How often did you upgrade your software anyway, every one to two years? (Just so you recall, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium upgrades went for $375-$950 – now, the only upgrade offered is for CS5 or CS5.5.)
So how cloudy is your future? The Adobe Creative Cloud opens up many tools and options for even the smallest businesses, so is it worth it for larger operations, and how about one man bands? We're into year two of the service and we expect the number of Creative Suite users to fade, what about the competition? How will other video editing software companies react to Adobe's commitment to the Creative Cloud? We'll keep the light on in this potential storm, so search within and see if you'll enter the cloud.
