Adobe Systems is making its first big foray into subscription-based software, testing a business model that’s designed to attract new users and stabilize revenue growth after years of uneven results. The company will unveil the latest edition of Creative Suite, its flagship set of design applications, including Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Illustrator. One version of the software, Creative Cloud, will be delivered over the Net for $50 a month. or $600 for a one year contract.
By moving to subscriptions, Adobe is attempting to make sales growth more predictable, avoiding the revenue shortfalls and stock declines that occur in-between updates to Creative Suite. The shift also carries risks. It will take Adobe more than four years to collect from cloud customers as much as it generates from a single sale of the desktop version of the top-end Master Collection, which goes for $2,600.
