Adobe recently released an entirely new way of using their impressive creative tools and programs. Adobe Creative Cloud allows users to rent their software on web apps for a small fee of $49/month for individuals ($69.99/month for workgroups). The fee gives you access to the heavy hitters such as Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, as well as smaller programs such as Collage, Kuler, Touch, Publishing Suite, and Typekit as well as others.
If you don’t feel like forking out the $1,300+ (that’s for just 4 of the Creative Suite programs) upfront, this solution could be perfect for you and offers access to a huge variety of programs. You’d be looking at $2,600 just for the full Creative Suite if you were to buy them in one shot.
If you, like me, were wondering if you’d need a continuous Internet connection to access the programs there’s good news. The creative Suite programs will be installed on your computer and you won’t need to be connected to the Internet concurrently to use them. Some of the other programs such as the Digital Publishing Suite and Typekit will still require an Internet connection.
Overall, this is a pretty exciting movement in the payment structure for Adobe as it removes a significant barrier to entry for professional products. We hope that all uber-expensive software suites will eventually move this way.