UPDATED Please See August 27th Post!
Well with only 2 days to go Mac users everywhere are freaking out! They are really excited for the new snow leopard operating system and they want their old software to work! We have to keep in mind Snow Leopard is what Leopard should have been in the first place; it is a re-write on pretty much everything Apple has done until this point. When Adobe was asked about older Adobe Software (CS3 in particular) here was their response
"Q. Will older versions of Adobe creative software—such as Adobe Creative Suite 3 or Macromedia® Studio 8 software—support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)?"
"A. Older versions of Adobe creative software were not included in our testing efforts. While older Adobe and Macromedia applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available. You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution. Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)."
Adobe-SnowLeopard_FAQ.pdf
This is a very unfortunate situation for all computer users. If we have to start shelling out thousands of Dollars for upgrading our software, (I think CS3 to CS4 is around $899.00) then piracy will go up make no mistake about it. If Apple and Adobe want consumers to be continuously purchasing their software they need to make it worth our wild. Make the CS4 Master upgrade $499.00. Make it affordable so people will want to buy it. I understand Adobe needs to make a profit but the money they say they are losing to piracy would be compensated by the number of people willing to shell out $500 for the latest software bundle. Taking this approach will be easier for Adobe and the consumers in the future. If upgrade prices are affordable for everyone not just companies and businesses then everyone wins. No one pirates, no loses their job because of lost revenues. Maybe some guy upstairs doesn't get that new ivory back scratcher but he still gets to drive his BMW.There is going to be a major issue within the next couple years and it is going to hit the web hard if we don't nip this in the butt right now. If people are going to be forced to re-buy all their software that they have all ready purchased then they may stay with the older operating systems and browsers. This is very bad. There needs to be a cost effective balance between running old software and buying new hardware. If that means that Operating Systems have to come with seamless virtual machines (ie. parallels in coherence mode) then Apple and Microsoft have to integrate it. You can't expect people to rebuy all their software because their computer died, or they upgraded their operating system. Consumers need a fix and they need one now, so who is big enough to step up to the plate? Microsoft? Apple? Adobe? More then likely it will be some poor open source guy that just wants it to work.
Trevor
