Adobe Creative Suite boxes discontinued

Adobe Systems has officially announced to its retail partners that they have discontinued boxed versions of Creative Suite and Acrobat since April 30th,2013 globally. Henceforth, Adobe will now be focusing on Creative Cloud, a subscription based collection of Adobe's creative products. This major transformation will lead the company to become leading cloud based software vendor, unlike software companies who are still contemplating to move fully on to the cloud.

Adobe introduced its Creative Cloud in India in the month of March with launch of Creative Cloud for teams, now the company has announced Creative Cloud for individuals through its Adobe online store.

Speaking on this major transformation, Umang Bedi, managing director, South Asia, Adobe India said, "Adobe India is going to focus on new path forward, all our efforts will be on Creative Cloud. Hence, there is no other perpetual software release beyond Creative Suite 6. Our commitment to cloud is no longer love affair, now it has become a long lasting relationship, unlike other software companies which has flirted with this model. So Adobe is making the big move to the cloud."

Vineet Sood, director - channel sales & alliances (South Asia) at Adobe Systems highlighted, "All the Adobe boxed software is being discontinued as on April 30th whatever inventory is left is left , there is no further shipping of boxes. Outside boxes, there is perpetual licensing, which is Creative Suite 6(CS6) will remain available via re sellers in its current form. Having said that, we are not making any further development on the CS6, but we will continue to support it."

It is also introducing 15 new applications to Creative Cloud by June. This mean perpetual software is no longer going to be updated from this point of time. If a customer wants to buy perpetual, he gets creative suite 6 at the price point that exist, which was launched one year ago. The company has made it cleared that there will be no update and no further release in the perpetual world, the world is moved to cloud, that train from Adobe's perspective has left the station. Henceforth all the new products, software updates and releases will be available on Creative Cloud.

In these new 15 applications, the company will be introducing more than 100 features. According to the company, the Creative Cloud hold great value proposition for India as network speed and bandwidth is challenge. The Creative Cloud does not require to get connected to the internet.

To make, the Creative Cloud more appealing to the resellers and its partners. The company has further slashed the subscription pricing of its Creative Cloud for teams, which is for small and medium businesses. Bedi added, "The subscription for CC for SMB customers were at Rs 2885 per month as the price point which has further come down to Rs 2230 per month, only Rs 26000 per annum . This is limited time offer which will expire in near future. This market for us is on fire. Our sales team has already hit the all ball out of the park just in a month time of launch. For newly launched Creative Cloud Individual the price point is at Rs 2700 per month for full Creative Cloud."

Besides special pricing, the other major move company has taken is to drive its channel partners is a new deal registration and rebate program. The company claims to offer 20-30% of back-end rebate to its Certified, Gold and Platinum partners. In a short span of time, the company has moved its partners to Creative Cloud platform.

Sood mentioned, "We have been doing rigorous channel enablement training and making our partners to make first transaction on Creative Cloud. Partners who are registered under the deal registration program , some of them have already completed their seats quota. Under the deal registration, if a partner registered lead opportunities, which are greater than 5 and 20 seats, he will get 20% and 30% back-end rebate. Currently Adobe has 250 partners of which 170 are Certified Gold and Platinum partners. Among these 170, 70 partners have already transacted on the Creative Cloud in the past 5 weeks. In the Creative Cloud, both partners and customers will get their console which will allow licensing inventory to both. Hence the partners are rapidly moving to Creative Cloud."