Tech #22 - Adobe's New(ish) Software

Image Digital Journal

Creative Suite 5.5 is here. That's right, you read 5.5. Adobe has abandoned it's traditional 18 month upgrade cycle for a 24 month milestone release cycle mixed in with 12 month mid-cycle upgrades for select programs and suites.

It's an interesting take on buying and keeping your software up-to-date and there's potential to save businesses money. Let's take Photoshop Extended for example, it runs $49 per month if you pay for a year up front for a total of $588. Year two roll around and you purchase an additional year, total so far $1147. Traditionally this would have cost $1000 for the initial purchase and $350 for the upgrade. If you're keeping track, you're saving $200. As another benefit, this gives businesses an opportunity to license software for a short amount of time, for say, consultants that are on specific contract length.Not all software is going to be on these 12 update cycles, but it may be more cost effective to run with a subscription model for your business.

You can get the skinny on the subscription FAQ here.