Adobe has decided to officially kill the boxed version of its Creative Suite, virtually killing or certainly injuring your ability to pirate Photoshop, Illustrator and the rest of their products anymore. As someone who subscribes to their Creative Cloud package, I am quite happy to see this move made for a variety of reasons.
The new versions of the products will launch in June, titled Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, etc., and offer several new features. Offering their products in the cloud will not only curb piracy, but it will regulate Adobe’s finances. Rather than getting large chunks of cash when updates are put out, they will be getting regular, predictable monthly revenues.
I’ll admit that way back in the day, I stumbled upon pirated versions of Adobe’s software. I didn’t really know how to use them, but they got me interested in learning about them. Years later as my focus shifted from radio and audio production, I toyed around with several different kinds of photo and design software. When Adobe launched the Creative Cloud monthly package, I dove in and haven’t looked back. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Audition, Lightroom and everything else for the cost of one good dinner with my girlfriend each month. What I stand to make in additional business by not having to contract anything out makes the software pay for itself.
Additionally, I have worked very hard to do what I do. I paid for my software and put a lot of effort into learning to use it. I certainly don’t want to lose any business to the CEO’s nephew and his pirated copy of Photoshop in the future. I am glad the monthly price is affordable and hope it inspires more people to just pay for it. I thought the prices for the boxed versions were absurd and could hardly fault young designers for getting it any way they could. But there are no excuses now. Simply put, if you are going to ever charge for your work with this software, you can afford the monthly fee.
Also, selfishly, my fancy, futuristic laptop doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive! I can only put software on it that I download! Otherwise I have to extract it on another computer and put it on a hard drive. Who needs that hassle. Downloadable software is clearly the present and the future.
It will be interesting to see if other software providers do the same thing in the future. If Adobe can offer all of these products for what it does, it stands to reason that other companies can offer what they have for even less. Hopefully this breeds some good competition. Way to go, Adobe.