Adobe Creative Cloud

One of the really big changes in CS6 is the Creative Cloud. Last year Adobe announced subscription licenses to their products, but it wasn’t really worth the money – especially if you were upgrading from an earlier version.

However this CS6 Creative Cloud definitely has some potential.

What is the price for the Adobe Creative Cloud:

The base price (when you pay for 12 months) is $49.99 per month. That equates to roughly $600 per year, which is the same as upgrades to two Adobe Products (they are usually $299 for an upgrade).

The month-to-month plan is $79.99 per month so that makes it substantially more expensive. It might be a good choice if you only need access to the programs a couple of months, but in that case it might be cheaper to just do a regular upgrade of the products that you need so you have them as a boxed product.

So what do you get for $49.99 / $79.99 a month?

That is the really cool part. You actually get access to all Adobe CS6 Creative Suite applications + some cool touch apps for your tablets.

Which programs are included in the Creative Cloud:

Adobe Photoshop Extended CS6
Adobe Illustrator CS6
Adobe InDesign CS6
Adobe Muse CS6
Adobe Acrobat X Pro for Creative Suite
Adobe Flash Professional CS6
Adobe Flash Builder CS6
Adobe Dreamweawer CS6
Adobe Edge Preview
Adobe Fireworks CS6
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6
Adobe After Effects CS6
Adobe Audition CS6
Adobe SpeedGrade
Adobe Prelude
Adobe Encore
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Media Encoder

Services:
Device and PC sync
Business Catalyst
Typekit
Story Plus

Learn more about the individual CS6 products here!

So by subscribing to the Adobe Creative Cloud you get access to all the above programs. You can download them and install them on your machine just as you normally would install a program. You can still use the Adobe programs on two separate machines provided that they are not used at the same time. Nothing has changed in the way that you use the programs, but with the Creative Cloud you get access to a lot of exiting software.

You also get access to 25 gb of Cloud Storage, which gives you access to your source files from anywhere you like.

Special promotion for current Creative Suite users:

Current Creative Suite customers save US$20 per month for the first year on a Creative Cloud membership. This offer is available only to licensed customers of Creative Suite editions or individual products, version CS3 or later (CS3.x, CS4, CS5.x, or CS6), who purchase directly from Adobe. That means that your price for the Creative Cloud will drop to $29.99 per month or $360 for the first year. That is a really good deal and it allows you to try this out for a year for a very competitive price.

Use the link below to check if you quality for this special promotion on the Creative Cloud.

Check if you qualify for the reduced Creative Cloud Price here!

The big question – What adout Adobe Captivate CS6:

So since this blog is about Adobe Captivate then the big question is of course if a future Adobe Captivate CS6 is included in the Creative Cloud.. The answer is… probably not. Adobe Captivate has always been a part of the eLearning Suite (eLs) and this suite has never been part of any of the Creative Suite offerings or the Adobe Master Suite. Therefore it is unfortunately very unlikely that Adobe Captivate CS6 will be a part of the Creative Cloud.

So where does that leave us Captivators? Well it depends.. If you only use Adobe Captivate then it won’t really be a problem because you would then evaluate if you need an upgrade to Adobe Captivate when one becomes available. If you use Adobe Captivate and Adobe Photoshop then you are probable still better off by just purchasing the two products through the regular channels. However, if you are using multiple Adobe products then it might be worth going for a stand-alone upgrade of a future Adobe Captivate version and then a Creative Cloud subscription for the remaning products – especially if you qualify for the Special Promotion for existing users!

The only real problem I see is if you are a current user of Adobe eLs 2.5. Here you have Adobe Captivate 5.5 and a range of the other Adobe programs. The big benefit of the eLs suites is that the programs work really well together and are thightly integrated in their workflows. You have optimized workflows between Adobe Captivate and Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe Audition and so forth. You have access to the SCORM packager and Device Central.

Since it is not likely that the eLearning Suite will become part of the Creative Cloud then this thight integration between the programs that you are used to will evaporate. That is actually really sad and something that I will miss.

I will definitely go for the Creative Cloud myself since I qualify for the special price. I can get access to the new versions of all the programs I use with exception of Adobe Captivate for just $360. That is really a great deal and will finally give me the opportunity to try and work with the new Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects versions. I still have version CS3 of those two programs, since it is too expensive for me to upgrade all my software everytime a new version is available.

Well – that was my inital thoughts about the new Adobe Creative Cloud. Drop a comment here and let me hear what you think about it!

/Michael