We live in an app world. The innovation of Apple and others have meant that expectation about what a software application should cost has fallen to cents, a few dollars or, at best, free (hey, iPhone users… did you not know that Angry Birds is free on Android?).
In this world of low price points and low distribution costs, the world of creative software pricing is looking to me to be increasingly anachronistic. Software priced in the hundreds or thousands of pounds can't, surely, still be long for this planet? Adobe, bless them, have a stranglehold on much of the market. They should take heed, though, from what happened to Quark some years ago. Lack of speed to respond to competitive threat, plus resting on laurels = defunct company.
There is some challenge starting to emerge from the Cloud. The http://www.aviary.com/ service, for example, whilst in no way a full competitor for Creative Suite, is showing what might be possible in a browser in years to come. And to be fair to Adobe they are starting to become more flexible in their pricing and licencing models. The price points of these kind of products, though, are from a different age of the software industry.
mmitII 