Corel woos customers unhappy with Adobe’s subscription-only Creative Cloud plan

Ever since Adobe's announcement that Creative Suite was to become Creative Cloud two weeks ago, a sizeable portion of the web has been in uproar over its new subscription-only pricing.

There are certainly plenty of Adobe customers who buy most or all of the Creative Suite and upgrade at every release, and they're thrilled because they find themselves both saving money and getting new features. For those who need only a small subset of Creative Suite, or who skip several releases before each upgrade -- and there are more than a few photographers among this group -- Creative Cloud can represent a pretty substantial price hike, though.

Thus far, Adobe is sticking to its guns, confident that its move is right both for its customers, and for its own interests. With no sign of the company rolling back its plans, many disenchanted users are vocalizing their frustration both on the company's official blogs, and in online petitions. Change.org's is the largest, and is now nearing 22,000 signatures, but smaller petitions have sprung up elsewhere -- even on the government-run We The People petition service, part of the official White House website. They're also shopping for alternatives, and rival software companies stand to benefit from the defections. Among these, Canada's Corel is most openly courting those fleeing the new Adobe, and the company has just announced a short-term plan to sweeten the deal. The company was also quick to reassure users that it has no plans to follow Adobe's lead  into the subscription-only market.

Effectively immediately and thru August 30th, 2013, customers moving from various Adobe products to their Corel equivalents will receive discounts that in some cases range up to around 60% off the regular retail pricing. Products and deals are as follows:

Note that although Photo & Video Suite X5 is listed as an eligible product, upgrade pricing isn't shown on the Corel site. We have a query in to the company regarding this, and will update this item when we receive further information.

To receive the upgrade pricing, a proof of purchase will be needed, and you can try the Corel software before buying to confirm it meets your needs. With the exception of AfterShot Pro and Painter 12, the applications mentioned above are all available only on the Windows platform, although senior director of product management, graphics, Gérard Métrailler, has stated that Adobe's move has "put the discussion back on the table" with respect to Corel providing more expanded Macintosh support. We would expect it will take quite some time for development even should Corel decide to issue Mac versions of CorelDRAW, PaintShop Pro, or VideoStudio Pro, however.

More details in the official Corel blog, and on the Corel website.

 

Corel's PaintShop Pro X5 realistically sits somewhere between Adobe's Photoshop Elements and Photoshop, in terms of feature set.