Bad move from Adobe: Future releases of Photoshop and the rest of the Creative Suite subscription only

Adobe has announced the next version of their Creative Suite applications (e.g., Photoshop, Indesign, Dreamweaver, etc.) will be solely available as a cloud based subscription service with a monthly fee.

While this makes the creative suite available to new users at what seems to be quite a good price (full suite is available at $49.99/€61.49/£46.88 a month), the new scheme is much more expensive over time, especially for existing users. Sure Adobe gives you a discount as existing user of CS3 and over, but this is only valid the first year and only when you subscribe before 31 July of this year.

There's been a lot of discussion on the internet about this already and many people seem to share the same sentiment that this is an extremely bad move from Adobe… While so far I have bought every update to Photoshop available since I started using it, I don't think I will be subscribing to the Creative Cloud version of the software soon. I will sure be looking at alternatives though (hmm, Aperture is starting to look real good now).

Pricing options:

• Full suite (new user): $49.99/€61.49/£46.88
• Full suite (owner of a CS3 – CS5 application, first year only): $29.99/€36.89/£27.34
• Full suite (owner of a CS6 application, first year only): $19.99/€24.59/£17.58
• Single application (new user): $19.99/€24.59/£17.58
• Single application (owner of a CS3 – CS6 application, first year only): $9.99/€12.29/£8.78

For more information on Photoshop CC and the other Creative Cloud applications, have a look at the Adobe website.