There’s been a lot of hullabaloo on the Internet about Adobe discontinuing the Creative Suite. Many sites are reporting that Adobe is getting rid of Creative Suite altogether.
Here’s the official statement from Adobe’s FAQ about the discontinuation of physical media (aka shiny discs).
Why is Adobe discontinuing boxed copies of Creative Suite and Acrobat?
As Adobe continues to focus on delivering world-class innovation through Creative Cloud and digital fulfillment, we will be phasing out shrink-wrapped, boxed versions of Creative Suite and Acrobat. Electronic downloads for Creative Suite products will continue to be available – as they are today – from both Adobe.com, as well as reseller and retail partners.
So the real deal is that physical media is being discontinued. Same thing Apple did to all of its software packages. The Creative Suite is not discontinued. This is a misunderstanding (and one that I personally verified with Scott Morris, the Senior Marketing Director, Creative Cloud & Creative Suite). Morris assured me that CS6 will continue to be sold with a perpetual license.
“Adobe is not discontinuing CS6. We are just discontinuing the shipment of physical boxes with physical DVDs, and will instead offer the products as ESD (electronic software download) only, or through Creative Cloud,” said Morris. “This change does not affect the availability of Adobe’s perpetual products, just the delivery medium – in the same way that most music is delivered online now, instead of via a physical CD.”
So there you have it… you can still buy Creative Suite… if you want to. Though I personally think the Creative Cloud is a much better deal.
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Thanks for clearing up the confusion!
“We will continue to sell and support Adobe Creative Suite® 6 applications, and will provide bug fixes and security updates as necessary. We do not, however, have any current plans to release new versions of our CS applications.”
http://www.adobe.com/cc/letter.html
According to this link Adobe Discontinues Standalone Applications and Moves to Subscription Only Model:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/06/after-nearly-10-years-adobe-abandons-its-creative-suite-entirely-to-focus-on-creative-cloud/
@Steen – And that link is wrong. According to Adobe (and I think they would know) they are still selling CS6 and LR4. I used this thing called Google and found out you can buy both right now.
Scott, I think you’re missing the point here. Yes, CS6 is still available, and your licence is perpetual, and Adobe will issue patches for bugs and security flaws (though this will stop, just as for XP), but it will never be upgraded. There will never be any new or improved features, or a CS7. To move forward you must switch to CC. And once the file formats have changed, if your Internet connection fails or you stop paying the monthly fees to Adobe, you lose the ability to edit your work.
@Kevin… Your previous perpetual licenses continue to work. You will be able to open most files and formats in CS6 version of apps.
@RIchard… You’re still missing the point. Yes, we can all still work with CS6 in perpetuity. But, if you want any new/future features you have to move to CC and if you use any of those features then the only way to guarantee the ability to edit those features into the future is to make a “LIFETIME” commitment to giving money to Adobe.
Is it so surprising that some of us find that disturbing?
This “lifetime” commitment to giving money to Adobe is silly. You’re not forced to get the new features. And who knows if Adobe will even be the dominant player in the space in five or 10 years? Remember Netscape? They owned the browser market 10 years ago and were nearly as big as Google in the USA. Now their offices are used and owned by Google and Netscape has essentially been disintermediated. Things change. There is no gun to anyone’s head. You can quit any time. This model has its drawbacks for certain customers, but unfortunately it’s where the entire computer industry is going. Music licenses will switch to subscription in iTunes soon. They are already available for Microsoft Xbox. Office is now sold in exactly the same subscription model. I could go on, but the point is subscription services will be as normal as CDs once were. People can find alternatives if they truly don’t want to buy into this new system. But it’s where things are going.