So, Adobe have announced that they are going to stop selling boxed software and in the future will offer their products for rent only. We’ve seen this SaaS (software-as-a-service) approach work well for web-based software products that facilitate collaboration (CRM, ERPs etc), but will it work for visual design tools?
When a business adopts SaaS solutions they gain freedom from many of the intricacies of managing an installed application themselves – no servers, systems engineers or support desk people required. If your application is a complex, n-tier, multi-user system this saving can be very significant. However Adobe’s Creative Suite is predominantly comprised of single-user desktop applications so it’s hard to see how a SaaS approach delivers any real advantage to the customer in this respect.
Adobe are building some collaboration features into the SaaS solution but users of the Creative Suite products have been happily using LAN fileshares or dedicated cloud storage like Dropbox to share their work for years. The 20GB cloud storage that Adobe are ‘giving away’ is a volume that most creative professionals will quickly outgrow.
In summary, this looks like a fairly cynical attempt by Adobe to drive more revenue from their cash cow products without delivering anything significant in return. If you’re looking for boxed alternatives to Creative Suite products, there are plenty.