Adobe Moving to the Cloud

The cloud for anyone not aware is a system in which your hardware or software is used and stored at a remote location. It does away with having to keep files, programs etc. on a local hard disk and give you the freedom to access your data anywhere and share with anyone.

Some common examples of the cloud for storage are

•     Dropbox
•     Apple’s ICloud
•     Google Drive

Adobe recently announced that their future software is going to move away from the traditional hard copy software and instead move to a cloud system. This includes their professional software most recognisable to designers such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier Pro, etc. This move will also entail users to pay a monthly fee over a lump sum and allow users to have access to the latest and greatest upgrades to Adobe software as it comes in. Currently even with a discount, you have to pay for every incremental upgrade to Adobe should you want it.

There are some serious advantages to this idea, one being the cost. I currently own the Adobe Master Collection CS5 obtained through a student discount. This gave me access to nearly all of Adobes professional software but even with the student discount it came with a rather substantial price tag. Being that Adobes software is geared to professionals over hobbyist in the realms of photo and video editing, vector graphics, page design layouts etc. it  stand to reason that this software can command a price, however it is unfortunate that some starting in the field of freelance may have difficulty in obtaining these industry standard tools due to the initial cost. This may help elevate some of those issues around start-up stresses.

Still there are some significant concerns I have with this decision, namely what happens when the payments stop? Currently my CS5 software is outdated by CS6. However even without upgrading I still own significantly powerful software tools. Going back even farther in the software lineup still yields capable software that is perfectly usable. If an annual plan is implemented, and payments no longer are put forth, you then are left with nothing but a useless program. I liken it to renting or buying property, even if your house depreciates it is still your house, your asset, renting can feel like paying to use as space that never becomes yours. Adobe never really gives you anything for your money, instead they simply allow you “rent” their software.

So if you are not concerned with having every update put out by Adobe, owning your own software seems like a good investment. Other issues such as Adobes compensation to those already invested in the company are also a concern. Currently there are significant discounts for updating your hard copy software, but to my knowledge only a small initial year subscription reduction for those moving to the cloud. That could be interesting to those who are already loyal Adobe users.

To be fair, this is only at its beginning stages, so how Adobe handles this will be interesting and it is perhaps not fleshed out enough to criticize…yet. I defiantly see some significant advantages, but I also have some genuine concerns as well.  It will be interesting to see if Adobes plan is the wave of the future, or they have their head in the clouds.