Adobe Creative Cloud: This Ain't Dropbox
[Editor's Note: After publication of this article, Adobe在5月11日发布Adobe Creative Cloud后澄清了其对Edge可用性的立场, 声明称:“用户目前可以在Adobe实验室免费获得Edge公共预览版. Adobe将详细说明购买和/或订阅选项，当Edge 1.0 is released later this year."]
Yesterday's announcement regarding the launch of Adobe's Creative Suite 6 (CS6) and the Creative Cloud received significant editorial attention across the globe. 然而，在旧金山德扬博物馆(de Young Museum)的一场发布后的问答环节中, Adobe高管承认，并不是所有人都觉得Creative Cloud有吸引力.
"We still see a large market for our perpetual licenses," said David Wadhwani, Adobe's senior vice president of digital media, 指的是消费者和企业以899美元到2499美元不等的价格购买的盒装产品.
"We feel that creative professionals, over the next few years, 会因为一些原因迁移到Creative Cloud吗," he continued.
Wadhwani和Adobe首席执行官Shantanu Narayen在Q访谈中提出了一些观点&A session may shed additional light on Adobe's plans.
More Relaxed Licensing for Creative Cloud
那些注册Creative Cloud的用户将会收到一个更宽松的终端用户许可协议(EULA)，允许单个云订阅者在最多两台计算机上加载Creative Suite应用程序, whether they be Macintosh or Windows computers.
"We find that customers want flexibility," said Wadhwani, 他指出，一些客户拥有一台Windows台式机和一台Mac笔记本电脑. “我们以前的EULA只允许在两台使用相同操作系统的计算机上安装, 因此，我们认为扩大授权将有助于我们的客户."
虽然有很多程序——创意云中包含了超过30个应用程序——但EULA不允许“较小”的应用程序，比如 Adobe Edge to be loaded on to other machines. In other words, 在任何设备上加载任何Creative Cloud应用程序使用两种可用许可证中的一种, 这一点可能会让那些拥有多台机器专门用于打印工作等特定任务的自由职业者感到沮丧, web development and even video production.
More Applications Coming for Creative Cloud
Creative Cloud公开发布的一个奇怪之处是一个视频，展示了稍后将向Creative Cloud订阅者提供的功能.
It seemed an odd thing to showcase during the launch, 对于那些可能考虑购买永久许可证的人来说，这几乎是一个玩笑, 或者对是否接受创意云概念犹豫不决的人.
“我们为创意云订户提供的灵活性才刚刚开始," said CEO Narayen. “我们将继续增加价值，包括新的应用程序."
Some Applications are Cloud-Only
We've covered Adobe Edge在预览阶段，Adobe每月都会推出更新. We were surprised, however, 昨天发现Edge将只在Creative Cloud中可用，而不能单独购买. 我们讨论过的另一个应用程序Adobe Story也是如此.
当被问及这一点时，Wadhwani指出，Adobe可以更快地迭代非点式产品，以便将其包含在Creative Cloud中.
This carrot-and-stick approach, 将一些应用程序从永久许可中排除，作为迫使用户进入创意云的一种方式, may backfire. 对于那些可能已经拥有Creative Suite永久许可的人来说，Edge具有引人注目的价值主张, but who might not want to pay $49.99 per month (or even the $29.明年每月99美元的入门价格)，只是为了访问Adobe Edge.
Additionally, 一些曾经是点产品的产品现在计划转移到Creative Cloud上. For instance, 在“即将到来的”视频中提到了Adobe Lightroom 4作为稍后添加到Creative Cloud的内容. 因此，看看Lightroom点睛产品在短期内的销售情况将会很有趣.
Creative Cloud Offers More than Just Storage
In the launch session, Adobe的Jeff Veen花了很长时间来解释Adobe的20GB在线存储能为Creative Cloud的用户做些什么.
"When an Adobe file is put into Adobe's Creative Cloud," said Veen, who is Adobe's senior director of products, "we can do a number of things with the file, including rendering out previews, 允许在程序中对层进行基本操作，甚至生成元数据."
This last piece, generating metadata from video or project files, may prove especially useful for the streaming video world. In addition, 在任何设备(包括苹果的iPad和iPhone设备)上查看这些渲染预览的能力将允许移动访问内容.
What is less certain, though, 视频内容是否可以从创意云传输, 因此，我们将在CS6和新的Creative Cloud全面发布后再次报告更多细节.
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