Digital Home Thoughts: Abobe Creative Suite 5.5 - Now With Subscription Options

"New Subscription Editions ensure customers are always working with the most up-to-date versions of the software without the upfront cost of full pricing. With subscription pricing, customers can use flagship products such as Photoshop for $35 per month, the Design Premium for $95 per month, or the Master Collection for $129 per month, for example."

At first glance this appears to be quite an attractive opportunity to buy in to the Abobe world of products. If you are a design or photography professional you will know that their products are amongst the best available, but are considered by some to be expensive. Whether their cost is justifiable will depend on your business case for their use. The Subscription Editions offer a new purchase and use option that might be quite desirable, but be careful calculating your overall costs. Note also that with the release of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 new product features are also included.

There are quite a few options to consider (hit the Read link for a full analysis), but in general the idea is that you pay a monthly fee to have a valid license to run a particular product. You can subscribe on a month-to-month basis, or commit to longer period with additional savings. You may have to consider a few scenarios to figure out if this is more cost-effective for you. If, for example, you start and stop fairly short-duration projects, employing part-time or contract professionals, then this subscription model might work well for you. You could purchase a license for a few months and then cancel once the project is complete. If you employ a team of design professionals, full time, then there may still be cost advantages to keeping with the traditional model of buying a product license outright, and upgrading when you feel the new features warrant it. All things considered, this new model may be just the option you are looking for to get access to Adobe products in a cost-effective manner.