Adobe promises

Adobe's Creative Suite CS is now going through a period of basic change. In previous columns I have focused on this seismic shift away from Flash towards universal HTML5 and device specific native apps, but equally important is Adobe's new software and business model called the Creative Cloud, which promises users ongoing membership of a digital hub where you may be able to explore, create, share, and deliver your work. we have heard this kind of cloud based revolution hype before, which nearly invariably proves a crashing disappointment frequently literally. So is Creative Cloud any different? The buzzword cloud may propose that Adobe has set up a big server farm to stream its CS applications straight to end users, which is available from any internet enabled device, but it has not. Creative Cloud remains established around the present native CS applications installed locally on your main computer, plus one backup copy though a small advance is that one of your installations may now be Windows and the other Mac. The fact that it is not true cloud based SaaS is a good thing, since it means our applications will work just as before and access will not rely on a working internet connection. That said, you will have to connect at least once every 30 days for Adobe to check your subscription position, as Creative Cloud is generally a reworked variant of the software subscription model that Adobe presented with CS5.5, but without the flexibility of renting individual applications. Before you dismiss Creative Cloud, you may want to check the prices. The monthly rental for a full year's subscription to the CS5.5 Master Collection costs 116, but to subscribe to Creative Cloud costs 47 inc VAT. While the CS5.5 subscription offered no savings to present CS users, Adobe now offers registered holders of any CS3-or later application the 1st year of Creative Cloud membership for only 27 inc VAT per month. This pricing places a different slant on Creative Cloud. Think of the CS5.5 episode as an experimental way to check the feasibility of subscriptions, but this is the real thing and its violent pricing and advertising show that Adobe is dedicated to making it work. it seems as although Adobe expects the most of CS users to become Creative Cloud members sooner or later. So what can you expect if you sign up? The Creative Cloud experience starts with the new central Adobe Application Manager, which manages your installations. Open this and you are presented with a clean and simple dialog listing all the Creative Cloud applications, starting with the 14 that make up the full Master Collection suite. Not all of these will be relevant to your interests, and you don't have to install those that you will not use. As Adobe puts it: think of Creative Cloud as a magic toolbox that gives you the right creative tool the moment you need it. That might sound a little over the top, but the creative power it offers as well as web design and development, video production, commercial print, interactive design for smartphones and tablets, photo editing and vector example is pretty surprising. As a standalone suite, the current Master Collection represents pretty good value for money at 2,645, but Creative Cloud membership gives you access to all these award winning apps for a small percentage of that cost. Positive first user reviews demonstrate that many new members can not quite believe that effectively bought an access all areas pass to Willy Wonka's factory for such a knockdown price. This is all well and good, but Adobe is determined to make Creative Cloud far more than just a new way of paying for access to its Master Collection. to start with, it gives an wider range of applications, starting with the inclusion of Lightroom for quickly managing and editing your digital photos. The major beneficiaries are web designers and developers who get access to two extra applications: Adobe Muse, which allows you to create advanced websites with totally no HTML coding expertise, and the preview variant of Adobe Edge, which lets you create Flash style animations in HTML5 I plan to look at both these applications in more detail in a future column.

Creative Cloud members also automatically get access not only to Adobe's promised yearly round of variant x.5 releases, but to a uninterrupted stream of exclusive new functionality. as an example, in early September important capabilities were added to Illustrator, Muse and Edge, a couple of weeks afterward, new features as well as simplified handling of HTML5 objects, audio, video and animation were added to Dreamweaver. All this new functionality is welcome, but more so is the sense that you are to get an better deal for your money.