nclatino, I guess my take on it is that I am very glad cc is not like an msdn subscription. The lowest price msdn subscription that includes Visual Studio Professional is $1199 up front for the first year, and then $799 up front for each year's renewal. For five years that adds up to a total of $4395! Also, it does not appear that MSDN allows for a monthly payment.  I would hope one could keep the software after putting out that kind of money. CC, on the other hand, doesn't allow you to use the software if you stop paying, but the 5 year outlay is considerably less, about $2800 (assuming you qualify for the first year reduced price. The Master Collection option, assuming buying the full version, plus 3 upgrades over a 5 year period adds up to a total of about $4175, (This total would be about $2100 if you don't have to start with buying the full version), which is close to the outlay for msdn, and you get to keep the software as well. This did not appeal to me, as I am not currently in the MC upgrade cycle and would have to initially buy the full version. So, for me, the lower five year outlay of $2800, plus the immediate upgrades, plus the avoidance of putting out a bunch of cash up front, made the choice to go with CC just about a no-brainer. On top of that, I plan to use the business catalyst hosting, which allows me to save the $10-15 per month cost of hosting elsewhere. Finally, comparing Creative Cloud to MSDN is a little like comparing apples to oranges, don't you think? They each really address almost completely different needs.

I just learned something else: the MSDN subscription agreement does not allow its use in a production environment. This is a huge difference from Creative Cloud.

Message was edited by: bobmepp

I have to admit I didn't pay a lot of attention to the specifics, but the list was over a dozen long, so it covered at least 3/4 of the apps I have installed. The point isn't so much related to fixes, although they will be part of it, but to the fact that it's possible (both technically and in some areas legally) to push out new features and major revisions without waiting for the next "regular" release. Consider that there are something like 20 product teams working on Creative Suite applications. A major release can include only those things that every team can complete by the shut-off date when the products have to go to manufacturing. Some part of the Photoshop team might have a major new feature that they need an extra month for, let's say, but release dates have to be set, venues booked, tours planned, marketing materials made ready, video tutorials prepped... A product launch is like a full scale military campaign. It involves thousands of people in dozens of countries. Everything has to dovetail.

The Creative Cloud has the potential to free the individual teams from these constraints to some degree, so that when a feature that customers really need is ready, it can be pushed out immediately. We win, the Adobe folks win, and our clients win if we can do things for them that would have been infeasible or involve some new demand (think iPad and ePublishing) that nobody saw coming 6 months earlier. One thing that's important to keep in mind is that we're not talking about a faceless corporation. These are real people who are as passionate about their work as you and I are about ours. They want to make their applications better. They get excited about new ways they can help us get our jobs done. You only have to spend an hour or two talking with some product manager or engineering lead to know how enthusiastic they are, and how much they care about what they do.

I don't have a crystal ball to know exactly how it will all work, and I'm willing to bet that there are folks at Adobe wondering about it too. This is a radical move, and all that server infrastructure and code didn't come cheap, I'll bet. In some ways it has to be a bit of an educated gamble. My opinion is it's the right move, because it gives them the ability to be fluid with releases and application management, but ask me in a year, and I can answer better. One thing is for sure, the price of entry has just dropped dramatically, and that will bring its own changes that we have no way of foreseeing.