Hot on the heels of completing its acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe is offering bundles of Adobe and Macromedia software. The first two bundles, the Adobe Design Bundle and the Adobe Web Bundle, contain the latest releases of software from Adobe and Macromedia. These are just the original products, with no additional cross-product integration. The Design Bundle includes Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium (Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, GoLive CS2, Acrobat 7.0 Professional, Version Cue CS2, and Bridge) along with Macromedia Flash Professional 8. The Web Bundle also includes Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium, along with Macromedia Studio 8 (Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 3, and FlashPaper 2). A third software bundle, Adobe Video Bundle, is expected to be released in early 2006. There's no word yet on what it will include.Pricing is steep. Adobe Design Bundle sells for a cool $1599, and Adobe Web Bundle for $1899 at the Adobe Store. There are upgrades from earlier versions of Adobe or Macromedia software suites. If you own Adobe Creative Suite 1 Standard or Premium, you can upgrade to Adobe Design Bundle for $949. If you own Adobe Creative Suite 1 Standard or Premium or Macromedia Studio MX or MX 2004 you can upgrade to the Adobe Web Bundle for $899. Those of us who bought the latest versions of the software may be left out of the upgrade path. Adobe suggests that if you bought Adobe Creative Suite 2 recently, you may be able to return it to the location from which you bought it and buy a bundle instead. There is no upgrade path from individual Adobe or Macromedia products to a bundle.
If you can get the education discount you're in a better position. Adobe's education price is $549 for the Design Bundle and $599 for the Web Bundle.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-05-2005 @ 1:54PM
Mark said...
First off, the community should be happy to know that I just Switched. My wife and I are very pleased with our two shiny new iMac G5s at home.
Second...I tried installing Studio MX 2004 on my new Mac, which worked, and deactiving the license on my PC laptop that's 3 years old, which worked, and tried activating it on the Mac and...no go!
I talked to someone on the activation line who stuck to the 1 platform rule: If you bought Studio, which contains versions for Windows and Mac on one CD and lets you transfer the license between 2 computers that you own (i.e. home/work), but NOT different platforms (i.e., it treats you as though you bought a CD for either a Mac or a PC).
So, my question...If I take the upgrade path, am I stuck w/ the Windows path? Bleh!
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12-05-2005 @ 1:55PM
Brady J. Frey said...
Adobe, can I have a version that doesn't include GoLive anywhere, will that make it cheaper?
How about one that doesn't include GoLive or Dreamweaver, but comes with a free version of BBEdit?
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12-05-2005 @ 2:02PM
El Payo said...
Mark, if you contact Macrodobemedia I'm pretty sure they'll issue you a Mac license - I think they send you a letter which you sign and return in which they make you agree that you'll remove/destroy any copy of their software on the previous platform or whatever.
I had a problem once using their store - they sent me a download link for the PC version of Freehand, rather than Mac, and I had to send them a form stating that I'd deleted the PC version of the software and so on.
Which brings me to my real reason for writing a comment. WHERE'S FREEHAND? Aaaaarrrgrgh. I hates me some Illustrator.
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12-05-2005 @ 2:42PM
Jason Clement said...
Yes, it's a dark day in the design world. I too will miss Freehand. We've been through so much together over the years. So long old friend. *sniffle*
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12-05-2005 @ 3:11PM
Tom said...
Actually, the new pricing provides a discount. If I were to buy Studio 8 and CS2 Premium separately, it would cost me $2200. Now the price is only $1900. That's a new $300 discount.
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12-05-2005 @ 4:00PM
Mark said...
According to Macromedia Support, it's not so easy:
Once activated, it would become specific to the platform it was first installed into. Therefore, you will not be able to activate it on a different platform anymore, even if you uninstall or remove it from the original machine.
So if you want it on your Macintosh, you have to purchase another full license of Studio MX 2004 with Flash MX Professional.
You may check on this link the list of resellers where you can still buy Studio MX 2004 with Flash MX Professional 2004:
http://www.macromedia.com/buy/
Or, as an exception, I can just give you a 20% discount if you would like to upgrade to a full commercial version of Studio 8, which means that you can just get the software for only US $800.
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12-05-2005 @ 5:37PM
Wry Cooter said...
I was expecting Freehand to get lost in the acquisition. Now if they can only do the same thing with their own GoLive, and drop the bundles under a grand.
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12-05-2005 @ 5:56PM
John Laur said...
I have CS2 with a prepurchased 2 year upgrade plan. I wonder if I am entitled to any of these. w00t!
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