Adobe says buh-bye to boxes for Creative Suite

By Meghan McDonough March 13, 2013

adobe-creative-suite_dt — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Do you find yourself longing for boxed software? Oversized boxes filled with official DVDs, an instruction pamphlet and a complicated activation key? Turns out that Adobe doesn’t want to deal with software boxes anymore than you do, which is why the company is discontinuing sales of the boxed versions of its Creative Suite programs as of May 1st.

The news comes from an Adobe spokesperson via TechHive, who confirmed that box sales of Creative Suite were ending and stated, “Electronic downloads for Creative Suite and Acrobat products will continue to be available – as they are today – from both Adobe.com, as well as reseller and retail partners.”

This isn’t a huge surprise since Adobe started offering its full suite of professional creative software on subscription basis last year at a rate of $50 a month. As a whole, Creative Suite – which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere, Fireworks, AfterEffects and other related programs – is almost prohibitively expensive for small businesses and individual users to purchase all at once with a hefty price tag of $2,600 for the Creative Suite Master Collection. In addition to the $50 monthly subscription fee, Adobe offers exclusive features for its Creative Cloud users, making the need for boxes even less relevant.

Adobe is not doing away with its stand alone software model completely; all of its software will still be available for purchase and download at Adobe.com and through the company’s retail partners. However, if you intend to purchase the whole Creative Suite Master Collection, we suggest starting the download and then going out to dinner. Even with a fast connection, that download will take a while.

Love gazing upon a shelf of Creative Suite boxes as if they were hunting trophies? You have until May 1st to grab your last set.

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Meghan McDonough

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Meghan J. McDonough is a Chicago-based purveyor of consumer technology and music. She previously wrote for LAPTOP Magazine…

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