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Adobe Reverses Course on Creative Suite Upgrade Path: Photoshop Users Rejoice
Posted Sunday, January 15, 2012
Adobe has announced it will now allow owners of CS3 and CS4 products to upgrade to the upcoming Creative Suite 6.
In November of last year Adobe Systems ruffled the feathers of more than a few of its Creative Suite users by announcing that upgrades from versions 4 and earlier would not be possible for Creative Suite 6 and its individual applications, expected for the first half of this year. This was in marked contrast to Adobe's traditional policy of providing an upgrade path for older versions. While design firms rely on the Creative Suite bundles, and most duly upgrade with each new release, smaller firms and individuals, especially in the current economic climate, can't always justify moving to each new version. This is often the case for those using just Photoshop, many of whom upgrade only every second version.
To shorten the time between releases and encourage upgrades, Adobe last year began shipping point versions of its Creative Suite products, beginning with 5.5. Then in November it followed this up with a bombshell — unless you were using 5 or 5.5, you would have to pay full price for CS6. You could upgrade from older versions to 5.5 at a discount until the end of December but after that, no cigar. As if to underline the inflexibility of this, Quark, not known for generous upgrade paths, unexpectedly announced that any version of QuarkXPress could be upgraded to the current version. Adobe's new policy proved a particularly bitter pill to swallow for many in the Photoshop community, with users expressing their dismay at apparently being cut adrift from a company whose product they had championed, in some cases for two decades.
In a rather dramatic reversal, Adobe has now apparently reconsidered this policy and is once again allowing users to upgrade to CS6 from CS3 and CS4 until the end of 2012. CS6 will be closely linked to the upcoming Adobe Creative Cloud, which Adobe says will include "access to all of the CS6 desktop software plus additional services, new tools, Adobe Touch Apps and rich community features." It sounds quite ambitious and is likely to receive a warm welcome from intensive Creative Suite users. But it's good to have Adobe confirm that those just using one or two apps won't be left behind.
Labels: Adobe
