Adobe Creative Suite 3.0 due in first quarter of 2007
Exclusive: Adobe Systems plans to introduce its much-anticipated Creative Suite 3.0 software bundle towards the end of the first quarter of 2007, AppleInsider has learned.
People familiar with the software maker's plans say the suite is currently tracking for a release towards the end of March, ahead of the 2007 Photoshop World conference scheduled for April 4-6 at the John B. Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass.
The rumblings are contrary to comments from Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen, who in a March 2006 interview with Forbes magazine said the San Jose-based company would not launch the next generation suite until the second quarter of 2007.
Mixing the best of both worlds
Code-named Banana Split, Creative Suite 3.0 will offer the first versions of popular applications like Photoshop and Illustrator that will run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macintosh systems from Apple Computer.
It will also mark the first formal integration of products Adobe acquired from rival Macromedia in its $3.4 billion acquisition of the company last year.
Image Ready booted for Fireworks
According to those people familiar with Adobe's plans, Macromedia's Dreamweaver will replace Adobe's GoLive as the suite's primary web development tool.
Similarly, those same people say that Adobe ImageReady, which has been packaged side-by-side with Photoshop since version 2.0, will get the boot in favor of Macromedia's Fireworks bitmap and vector image editor.
Multiple package bundles on tap
Company documents shown to AppleInsider also suggest that Adobe will market several different Creative Suite 3.0 bundles, each of which will include a different assortment of creative applications.
The current version of Adobe Creative Suite, version 2.3, is available in just two bundles: Standard and Premium.
CS3 adoption rate looks promising
In a recent poll conducted during the September Photoshop World conference, 87 percent of graphics professionals said there is a greater than 50 percent likelihood they will purchase Creative Suite 3.0 within 12 months of release.
The 2006 conference, which attracted approximately 3,000 attendees, was the largest yet in its history.
People familiar with the software maker's plans say the suite is currently tracking for a release towards the end of March, ahead of the 2007 Photoshop World conference scheduled for April 4-6 at the John B. Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass.
The rumblings are contrary to comments from Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen, who in a March 2006 interview with Forbes magazine said the San Jose-based company would not launch the next generation suite until the second quarter of 2007.
Mixing the best of both worlds
Code-named Banana Split, Creative Suite 3.0 will offer the first versions of popular applications like Photoshop and Illustrator that will run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macintosh systems from Apple Computer.
It will also mark the first formal integration of products Adobe acquired from rival Macromedia in its $3.4 billion acquisition of the company last year.
Image Ready booted for Fireworks
According to those people familiar with Adobe's plans, Macromedia's Dreamweaver will replace Adobe's GoLive as the suite's primary web development tool.
Similarly, those same people say that Adobe ImageReady, which has been packaged side-by-side with Photoshop since version 2.0, will get the boot in favor of Macromedia's Fireworks bitmap and vector image editor.
Multiple package bundles on tap
Company documents shown to AppleInsider also suggest that Adobe will market several different Creative Suite 3.0 bundles, each of which will include a different assortment of creative applications.
The current version of Adobe Creative Suite, version 2.3, is available in just two bundles: Standard and Premium.
CS3 adoption rate looks promising
In a recent poll conducted during the September Photoshop World conference, 87 percent of graphics professionals said there is a greater than 50 percent likelihood they will purchase Creative Suite 3.0 within 12 months of release.
The 2006 conference, which attracted approximately 3,000 attendees, was the largest yet in its history.
Comments
I'm glad to see Adobe isn't just axing the competing MM products but is instead looking to keep the best of breed from both sides of the fence. While the loss of competition is alarming, at least it's not a total screwjob.
A bundle of Photoshop, Illustrator/Freehand, Flash, Dreamweaver and Director would be very welcome
And don't force people to own a really recent version: some of us have been waiting for Universal and have kept apps 1-or-2 versions old at the time of the Intel announcement.
Let me dream
Tell everyone they won't be releasing till 2nd quarter than surprising everyone in the 1st quarter... much like apple did with intel comps. We'll see. They are definitely welcome to release it earlier than expected!
Yeah.
It'll be good.
While I'm sure someone will point out that it isn't being completely killed, I doubt the app will get the attention it needs.
Rumour has it though, that Quark is planning to introduce a new product on October 26th.
I think the product might be a competitor either in the area of Image Editing or in Web Design.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Rumour has it though, that Quark is planning to introduce a new product on October 26th.
I think the product might be a competitor either in the area of Image Editing or in Web Design.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
that's actually quite sad. should be funny to see what it is though. i can't imagine even quark is arrogant enough to believe they can compete with photoshop.
Adobe has so many software packages now ... That's not necessarily a bad thing, 'cause it gives you a choice. Do you want PS, AI, Acrobat, Flash and Director ? Or do you want to keep it simple with just AI, PS and Flash ? ...
I, for one, want it all. With the 'CS3 Godzilla Jumbo' version. Yeah !
Wow!!! As a webdeveloper that makes me extremely happy that adobe is booting imageready for fireworks! I've used fireworks since 1998. I've always loved it. I think it's much more intuitive and more powerful than imageready. I'll definitely welcome an intel native version. Now I see the light on Macromedia being purchased... kill flash and I'll be one happy dev.
Always thought the Fireworks interface was a bit crappy in comparison personally although that's mostly because I more regularly use Photoshop and all it's plugins. Fireworks v8 though was much nicer than previous incarnations, as was Dreamweaver 8. Before that they'd become very stale and full of cruft that needed pruning out.
It'll be interesting to see how well the merger goes so as to bring the best bits of Adobe and Macromedia together and not alienate long time users of either.
I also hope the stability is there. DW8 was terrible when it was first released. It took them a couple of updates to get some stability in there.
Rumour has it though, that Quark is planning to introduce a new product on October 26th.
I think the product might be a competitor either in the area of Image Editing or in Web Design.
Judging by their previous attempts at putting Quark files on the web I do hope not. Back when I was publishing dead trees, our designer at the time did a conversion of a print layout to html using Quark's tools. What a mess!
I would love it if Adobe would create a menu system of packaging CS3 where you can customize your package to fit your needs, with discounted pricing for future add-ons to package purchases.
Do it as a download only service, or for an additional fee they burn you a DVD and send it out.
</dream mode:off>
Hopefully one of those bundles will be a simple Photoshop+Dreamweaver package. I guess I'll start saving now.
Me thinks we'll all be paying big time for any incarnation of CS3, be it upgrade or full version. Adobe knows professionals are salivating won't even bat an eye at paying a higher than normal price.
Time to load up on Adobe stock. 8)
I wonder what we will see as far as end user plugins: I really hope we see a light weight version of Adobe reader in stead of loading the entire app in a web window, kindof like what flash can do, a fast and seamless inline integration with the option to open the PDF in the full app if needed.
ie. Like Preview already does? 95% of the time Preview works just fine for me, especially online. If Apple can add later PDF features to their PDF support (eg. forms support), I can't see anyone using Acrobat Reader by choice. Full Acrobat is a different story of course and you have to wonder if Apple isn't getting closer to replacing that too. I've replaced some tasks I was using Acrobat for with PDF workflows.
I wonder if there'll be some way of running PPC Photoshop plugins too, otherwise it's going to be an expensive upgrade upgrading to CS3 if you've also got to upgrade AlienSkin, Extensis/OnOne and all the other plugins that many people rely on.