I think Adobe saw that most legacy users weren’t updating with each new release, waiting every few years or so like you said. If they did want the new versions, it was easy to find them on torrent sites.

The truth is that the subscriptions are more expensive for users in the long run, even if those users were buying every new release.This is because Adobe would offer legacy users major discounts on upgrades.

The upside is that the subscription let’s users have continuous access to new features if they want.

re: piracy – In the end, people always find work arounds.

Stand alone Adobe products without any of the numerous incentives cost about 2k, @ $600 a year with major updates usually coming in about every 3-4 years the cost is basically the same.

That being said, by connecting to the internet to validate and update, it makes piracy a lot more difficult.

I think that this will be interesting to see if and how the software pirates will adapt to this.

Looking through the comment sections on a lot of these articles you see a lot of rage from the casual users who heard the hype and didn’t understand exactly what was happening.

They assumed that all Adobe products were now going to be accessed through web browsers, which was simply not the case.

Like you said, when talking to the heavy users (who are the primary revenue target for the Creative Cloud)you realize not much has changed except a push by Adobe to offer users better features and gain a steady stream of recurring revenue.

I think we’ll see the financials taking a dip over the next few quarters as less people spend $2000+ on Creative Suites and more users fork over the $50 a month for the Creative Cloud. But over time, you’ll see the graph climb a little.

Thanks for the comment!

I still believe that this is an important milestone because of the subscription focus, but not the cloud earthquake that some have made it out to be.

Will be interesting to track this over the coming quarters to see if the financials back up the vision.

cheers,

craig.