View http://blogs.adobe.com/fireworks/2013/05/the-future-of-adobe-fireworks.html
The writing has been on the wall for years but it’s really quite sad that this day has arrived. Although Adobe’s contributions to Fireworks in recent releases have been a bit sub-par in comparison to the other products in Creative Suite, they’re officially done with it as of yesterday. There are other changes as well, no longer does CS exist but instead if you’d like to continue to use those products as they’re updated you’ll need to subscribe to Creative Cloud, Adobe’s subscription service that encompasses all of their applications.
The realist in me says it’s a smart business moves in many ways for Adobe, and I’m willing to bet that most people are going to benefit from the change in their wallet. Creative Suite is expensive, and if you upgrade with every release I’d be willing to bet buying even the upgrades is more expensive than subscribing to Creative Cloud. There are likely other benefits insofar as piracy prevention, but I don’t think Adobe cares much about that seeing as Photoshop is likely the most pirated software in the world next to Windows.
As a developer, I’ve been a Creative Cloud subscriber for a while now, and since Photoshop is the only application from Creative Suite I use, $20/mo isn’t too bad. The work I do with it definitely pays for itself, but there’s a bigger picture here, one that I’m super excited about.
I’m really hoping that this announcement sends a rift among the community that uses this software, that has them look more seriously at alternatives instead of concluding that while there are other apps out there, they’re just not ready yet. Speaking from an OS X angle, there are three terrific offerings that I hope boon from this announcement:
These apps have been in the works for years, and the maturity I’ve observed is quite stellar. I’m hoping the community latches on to these applications and this “CS to CC” announcement propels them to the next level, and then the next. I’m extremely sad to see Fireworks go, but we all knew it was coming.