{"id":57,"date":"2013-08-21T14:56:10","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T18:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/altimac.com\/?p=57"},"modified":"2019-10-16T19:57:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T23:57:41","slug":"long-range-forecast-partly-cloud-y","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altimac.com\/2013\/08\/21\/long-range-forecast-partly-cloud-y\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-range forecast: Partly “cloud”-y"},"content":{"rendered":"

As promised in my last posting, I’ve been taking a pretty hard look at clouds–from both sides now, mind you–for the past couple of months, and I really can’t see any way that Adobe’s Creative Cloud (CC)<\/a> truly benefits the end user when contrasted with the previous model of simply upgrading to a new version of Creative Suite\/Creative Cloud when the time is appropriate for you to do so.<\/p>\n

With CC, you’re basically committed to a lifetime of monthly payments for Adobe software, and should you stop making those payments, you will no longer have access to any of the Adobe apps. This essentially locks you out of any file you’re created in each and every one of those programs. Ever seen the 1984 sci-fi classic “Repo Man<\/a>“? OK, you probably haven’t, but I’m sure you still get the picture.<\/p>\n

I suppose there is some minor convenience in terms of budgeting, but that’s only if you were planning on upgrading ad infinitum, as you would then have an accurate assessment of your yearly software expenditures via the fixed monthly fee. I’ll even go so far as to say it may save you some hassles by pushing the latest version out to you automagically, but it’s not all that much harder to go download it when you’re ready, as opposed to when Adobe says you are. They do throw in some cloud-based document storage with some of their Team\/Enterprise (as in even pricier) plans, but nothing you couldn’t get by using DropBox<\/a> or any one of a dozen other online storage services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And lastly, if you want to get started with the Adobe apps and don’t want to lay out $1,299 up front for CS6 Design Standard, you can jump onto the cloud for $49.99\/mo. and have access to the entire Master Collection. Awesome, right? Well, after two years you’ll have spent the same amount as you would have to buy Design Standard, and if you really didn’t need or want the rest of the Master Collection apps anyway, you’re now stuck paying $50\/mo. indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Plus you still don’t “own” anything; should you stop making the monthly payments, your CS software becomes vaporware. If you did want access to the entire Master Collection, that changes the equation a bit, but otherwise you’re locked into a monthly fee, paying for a lot of programs you don’t need and would not have purchased in the first place.<\/p>\n

You always have the option to simply stop paying, but how are you going to open or access your files once Adobe cuts you off? I had originally thought this might be an attractive option for freelancers, who could pay by the month and stop\/start as needed if they had slow periods. But if you read the fine print, you’ll see that in order to be able to jump on and off Adobe’s cloud at will, you actually need to fork over $74.99\/mo for that privilege, which loosely translates to $900\/year! So you’d be better off slapping the $1,299 on your credit card, making the minimum monthly payments and using the miles for a trip to Tahiti (or maybe even a Geek Cruise<\/a> if you’re into that sort of thing).<\/p>\n

So does this “cloud” software concept really benefit anyone? Absolutely. It’s a huge win for Adobe, and will probably be for Microsoft as well, given that the next version of Office for Mac (2014?) will be cloud-only and require a monthly subscription. With CC, Adobe doesn’t have to worry about those “upgrade-skippers” who jump from CS3 to CS5, or CS4 to CS6 and don’t fork over the money for the versions in between. They now have a very reliable and predictable revenue stream that’s not subject to the whims of those end users who don’t see the point in upgrading simply because a new version is released. And if you believe their sales figures<\/a>, Adobe says that as of June 19 they’ve already signed up 700,000 of us, and expect to add another 500K or so by November. Long term, they project at least four million CC subscribers by 2015.<\/p>\n

Which means, folks, that the cloud software subscription model is most likely here to stay, and in Adobe’s case there are not a lot of truly viable, non-“cloud”-y alternatives out there. There are some capable image editors, like Pixelmator<\/a> and The Gimp<\/a>, but other than QuarkXPress, there’s really not a viable substitute for InDesign. For Illustrator, sadly, there’s nothing.  So if you’re not sold on the cloud, but you need to use the Adobe Creative Suite apps, your options are somewhat limited at this point.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with a few basic factoids about the transition from CS to CC:<\/p>\n