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Flash in the pan

April 12, 2010 // Link

Adobe has announced Create Suite 5, which might as well carry the slogan “The version you hope is the last you’ll ever have to buy.” Prices for the suite — or, rather, the suites — range from $1,300 to $2,600.

[aside]

Yeah, I know they’re a buck less than that. But Homey don’t play no ends-in-99 price games. Suck it, marketeers.

[end of aside]

The whole Adobe pricing matrix is the kind of mess that makes even Microsoft’s bevy of Windows SKUs look sensible.

There’s Design Standard, which is the only bundle that includes the basic version of Photoshop; for six hundred bucks more Design Premium has the “extended” version of Photoshop and a bunch of web tools including most (but not all) the web stuff from Web Premium. And two of the five suites only come in Premium versions even though there is no equivalent Standard version, so the Premium version is actually the standard version.

With me so far? Well, too bad because it just gets more confusing from there.

For instance, Production Premium comes with some of the design stuff (but not InDesign), and some of the Flash stuff (but not Flash Builder). Oh, and it’s the only suite that doesn’t come with Acrobat Pro. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.

They even had to post an online pricing grid that contains 19 different prices in red, none of which includes the various upgrade options. The prices for 14 of the 19 individual software components are listed down the righthand side, the rest not counting toward the “value” of each suite.

Speaking of which, the suites listed along the top of the grid are ordered in terms of price as 4-1-3-2-5, but ordered in terms of “value” as 3-1-2-4-5. What the hell?

I think the real reason Apple has banned Flash on the iPhone is just that they can’t figure out how to buy to goddamn thing.