Adobe’s fifth-gen CS family sports new features and new apps but with single-app upgrades from $340 and full packages costing from $1,000 to $4,300, will you step up or stay put?
Adobe’s flagship software enjoys the same rarified status as that of Microsoft Office – within its market of creatives and coders, it’s almost the
de facto standard.
And like Office, the biggest challenge for each new version of the Creative Suite family is convincing existing customers to upgrade.
That’s not going to change with the CS5 range, which officially launches this week and goes on sale in the middle of May (although Adobe is happy to take your advance order at its
online store).
Adobe is revving up a
six-city roadshow
to wow the crowd, kicking off in Sydney on May 3rd and winding up in
Canberra on June 10th.
There’s ample shiny stuff in each of the CS5 products, indeed far too much to catalog here, although it’s all detailed over at
Adobe’s Web site so you can check out the apps you use and the features you care about.
Prices on individual apps like Photoshop CS5, InDesign CS5 and Illustrator CS5 start at $340 for upgrades, with qualifying software stretching back five full years to the CS2 editions. If you’re buying those apps straight off the shelf the price soars north of $1,000.
Upgrades for the product-packed CS5 bundles begin at $840 for Design Standard edition;$1,000 for Design Premium, Web premium and Production Premium; and $1500 for the burger-with-the-works Master Collection. Outright prices stretch from $2,170 to $4,340.
So the question we’re posing to APC readers is: if you’re already using Adobe software, will you make the move to the CS5 generation – or will you stick with your current kit?