A few years ago now, when Adobe Systems first bought up Macromedia, some of you may remember I had a small rant concerning the topic in this very blog. From memory, I remember being concerned about a number of things, such as the implications for ‘competition’ brought about by this merger, the inevitable loss of ‘choice’ for designers, and the very real risk that Adobe was going to run Macromedia’s previously-competing flagship products into the ground.

With Adobe’s announcement of the imminent release of Adobe Creative Suite 3, I think it’s time to revisit this topic, and look at some of the (exciting) implications this new release brings to the table for designers. Regarding the first issue i.e. the question of ‘competition’, I’m only going to touch on this very briefly. In so far as my original post is concerned – I was right on this point. The intervening period hasn’t really seen any ‘new players’ of note come to the market place for top-notch design software. 

If anything, we’ve just seen Macromedia/Adobe consolidate their dominance of “Rich Media” with the ubiquitous Flash format, and it’s various extensions. They’ve also made considerable headway establishing Flash Video as a compelling alternative to the defacto streaming ’standard’ of Quicktime - after all, how many ‘killer’ video sites do you know that use Windows Media or the even-more-archaic Real Networks format ? Photoshop continues to be the standard for raster graphics, especially given Corel’s post-Jasc-acquisition hobelling of the once-promising Paintshop Pro line. Illustrator has regained the crown that Freehand once threatened to steal when it comes to vector illustration (Freehand being the first and thus far only ‘real’ Macromedia casualty of Adobe’s buy-up; but we all KNEW that one was coming), and there is still no credible top-flight alternative to Dreamweaver when it comes to web design.

Is all this a ‘bad’ thing ? It probably would be, if the Macromedia/Adobe stable of products wasn’t so damned good ! Naturally, there are going to be those of you who disagree with me. Yes, The Gimp is coming along nicely as an open-source raster graphics app, but for my money it’s still trailing behind the level even the last Jasc incarnations of Paint Shop were at. Yes, there are still some poor suckers out there using Coreldraw for illustration. Sure – SwishMax is a cheap, reasonably mature, Flash ’alternative’ – but it outputs in SWF format anyway, and has a limited feature-set compared to the original. The point is though, easily 95% of designers would have chosen Adobe or Macromedia products prior to the merger (if we discount ‘price’ as a factor, of course), and that hasn’t changed. With the up-coming release of Adobe CS3, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that’s even less likely to change now.

Now, this may seem like a pretty bold statement. Indeed, if you told me two years ago I’d be writing this, I would have probably looked at you like you were a nutter. That’s largely because for a little while, it did indeed seem like Adobe/Macromedia were in danger of losing the plot. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you ? That’s right, I’m talking about the first major release from the combined Adobe/Macromedia stable, the oft-maligned Macromedia Studio (& Flash) 8 A.K.A ’8-Ball’. So let’s talk about 8-Ball for a minute, shall we ?

Flash 8 take-up was always going to be a little slow, like any major overhaul of Flash. Some features, like the advanced alpha channels, filter effects, and blend modes put a particularly large performance dint in the player, and it’s taken some time for the hardware specs of ‘Mr & Mrs Average’ to catch up. It also sported an improved video codec, which Adobe have done so well to capitalise on in the interim, especially thanks to the growth of sites like Youtube and Myspace, all of which utilise FLV. At the time though, Quicktime was still king, and Youtube was still around the corner. Given this, it’s natural that a lot of designers decided to stay with their old versions of Flash.

True, if you’re working for a BIG developer, you could get the boss to pony up for the upgrade – but if you’re an independent, the new version of Flash alone wasn’t going to swing it, especially since you knew you’d likely be exporting your SWF’s for backwards-compatability for a few years to come. The other components of Studio 8 were no great shakes – ‘incremental upgrades’ I think is the kindest way to describe them. At least Flash 8 had the above new features to attract the ‘deep pockets’ and ‘early adopters’. The Dreaweaver, Fireworks & Contribute upgrades on the other hand were no great departure from their predecessors. The Studio offering was rounded out with Flashpaper 2, a somewhat awkward attempt to bridge the PDF-Flash portable document space.

Unlike previous Macromedia-only versions of Studio, version 8 also saw the notable exclusion of Freehand from the bundled product line-up. A sure sign, to the ‘die-hard’ Macromedia fans (like moi), that our merger-inspired fears were in real danger of coming true. In addition to all the above, when it comes to 8-Ball, the PRICE SIMPLY WASN’T RIGHT ! From memory, the upgrade to Studio 8 from Studio MX 2004 was anywhere between AUD $580 – $650. When you consider that the original version of MX ’04 cost around AUD $1500, the upgrade path was ONLY available to MX 2004 owners if I remember correctly (earlier versions being restricted to a full purchase), and as I’ve already mentioned, Flash was the only SUBSTANTIALLY upgraded app in the package (with Freehand being dropped altogether), for independents like yours truly, the upgrade to 8-ball simply didn’t represent good enough value.

So instead of upgrading to 8-ball, I stuck with my MX 2004 version of Studio, happily continued using Freehand, and stayed with Paintshop Pro 8 as my raster graphics app (coz ponying up another $1.2K for Photoshop on top of Studio + my $2.5K version of Director MX 2004 was something I just couldn’t do). Apart from the aforementioned ‘deep pockets’, and large studios, I know I wasn’t the only one.

This all brings us rather neatly, then, to Adobe Creative Suite 3. This is the new release from Adobe/Macromedia, slated to hit the stores mid April, just in time for my birthday. Guess who’s buying themselves a little design pressie ? :-) For this release, they’re pitching a few different versions, which represent different bundle offerings. I’m going to concentrate on the “Web Design Premium” incarnation, because in my opinion, this represents the best value, especially if you’re a web designer. If you do a fair bit of print, the “Design Premium” bundle may be more your thing (it includes a new version of InDesign, and ommits Fireworks + Contribute), but the upgrade price is steeper from Studio. There’s also a rather exxy ”Production Premium” package aimed squarley at the video buffs (includes version of AE, Premier, among others), but I’ve already got some decent video editing software, and useful video functions have also found their way into the new versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks, all of which are included in the “Web Design Premium” bundle of CS3.

Let’s talk specifics then, shall we ? For starters, the ”Web Design Premium” package naturally includes a new version of Flash Professional. This once again has a host of new features, including a new version of Actionscript. It’s also closely integrated with the other Creative Suite components – which is a big drawcard, when you see what the other components are. Naturally, any sensible designer will still be exporting his/her SWFs for backwards compatibility (so Actionscript 3.0 won’t actually be getting a major look-in for a few years yet) , but ”backwards” now encompasses Flash 8 as well (the takeup of the relevant player starting to filter through pretty decently by now), complete with ’Tube-alicious FLV streaming.

Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Contribute have also been upgraded, and it looks like the upgrades are more substantial this time. There’s better support for standards like XML, XHTML, CSS, and Spry/Ajax – all the important ‘Web 2.0′ tools basically. ’Integration’ is once again the buzzword, and once again this is a great thing, when you know what they’re integrating with. S, without further ado, I’ll stop teasing, and let you know what the other big draw-cards of this bundle are ….

Two words - (1) Photoshop & (2) Illustrator !!! That’s right peeps, in one fell swoop, they’ve put non-Flash vector illustration back in the picture to make up for dropping Freehand, and they’ve upped the ante by throwing THE ‘gold standard’ raster graphics program into the bundle as well. Not only that, it’s actually the ‘Extended’ version of Photoshop CS 3, with the aforementioned video-centric enhancements, plus various web-related ones.

Sensibly, they’ve also decided to drop the farcical ‘Flash Paper’ idea from this release, and all the packages (except “Production Premium”) are also rounded out with Acrobat 8. *Bam* – there goes my el-cheapo registered version of PDF Creator Pro :-) So … the BIG question … is the ‘price right’ this time ?

You bet your arse it is, kids ! There’s a much more comprehensive ‘upgrade eligibility’ matrix, covering previous versions of Macromedia Studio right back to MX, and the cost for upgrading from MX 2004 is just AUD $865. For that you get Flash CS3 Professional, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3, and Photoshop CS3 Extended + Illustrator CS3 + Acrobat 8 (as well as the helper apps Bridge, Version Cue & Device Central).

That is already a SERIOUSLY good deal – the full version of the package costs almost 3K (AUD $2,775) … so the upgrade is a definite money saver, and certainly worth it (it’s a saving of around four hundred bucks, for the literal minded).

However, when you also consider that buying Photoshop seperately would set you back AUD $1735 alone, and Illustrator is AUD $1039 – in REAL terms you’re saving FUCK-LOADS more than the $400 I just mentioned above, since you’re upgrading your existing ‘Studio’ software AND picking up PS + AI as well.

That my friends, is why Adobe has FINALLY got it right :)