Adobe rethinks CS6 upgrade plans

Last November, Adobe announced its Creative Cloud service, which includes subscription-based access to Adobe Creative Suite and Touch Apps software, along with 20GB of cloud storage and a number of other services.

At the same time, the company revealed that it was altering its upgrade program for Creative Suite customers who had decided against switching to the Creative Cloud subscription service. From the end of the year, said Adobe, upgrades would only be offered to customers switching from the most recent major release of the software, meaning that upgrade pricing would no longer be available for customers with versions before Creative Suite 5 once CS6 launched. For customers wanting to retain the ability to upgrade to CS6, the company offered a 20% discount on upgrades to the latest releases, through the end of 2011.

Customers who would no longer be able to upgrade at less than full cost understandably reacted less than enthusiastically to the news, and late last week, Adobe reacted to their concerns. A post on the blog of John Nack, Principal Product Manager, Mobile at Adobe Systems last Thursday details Adobe's updated upgrade offer, which now gives CS3 and CS4 customers until the end of 2012 to upgrade to CS6, once it is announced. The news will be welcomed by customers who prefer not to switch to the subscription-based model, but of course raised concerns for those customers who'd made the decision to upgrade to CS5.5 after the announcement, solely to retain the ability to get upgrade pricing on CS6. John's blog post recommends customers in this situation to contact Adobe customer service for assistance.