Creative Suite 5.5 Product Line

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product line, enabling designers and developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, as the revolution in mobile communications fundamentally changes the way content is distributed and consumed. Substantive advances to HTML5, Flash authoring, digital publishing and video tools as well as new capabilities that kick-start the integration of tablets into creative workflows, anchor the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product family.

This launch marks a major change to Adobe's product release strategy for Creative Suite. Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and—starting with Creative Suite 5.5—significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring.

Adobe also debuted a subscription-based pricing plan, attractive to customers that want to get current and stay current on Creative Suite products, have project-based needs, or try the software for the first time. New Subscription Editions ensure customers are always working with the most up-to-date versions of the software, without the upfront cost of full pricing. With subscription pricing customers can use flagship products, such as Adobe Photoshop for as little as US$35 per month, Adobe Design Premium CS5.5 for US$95 per month, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection for US$129 per month.

"Creative Suite 5.5 will drive the development of new digital experiences across devices, including all major smartphones and tablets," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. "As publishers, media companies, advertisers and enterprises transform the way they develop and distribute their content, Adobe will be there to support them with technology innovations in content creation, management, measurement and distribution."

The new Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium Suite is packed with innovations in HTML5 and Adobe Flash authoring tools, empowering customers to create, deliver and monetize rich content and applications for virtually any screen. This release helps enable designers and developers to deliver mobile applications on Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS, iOS and other platforms; create rich browser-based content across screens using HTML5; and leverage Flash Player to deliver premium video content, casual games and rich Internet applications. Creative Suite 5.5 comes at a time when mobile devices are exploding in terms of sales and capabilities; radically altering the way content and applications are developed and consumed. With the launch of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 Premium (available in Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium) and the Flex 4.5 framework, developers can easily develop and deploy mobile applications to more than 200 million smartphones and tablets by the end of 2011.

With more than 131 million smartphones expected to have Flash Player installed by the end of the year, Adobe Flash makes it possible to bring rich content to desktops and devices inside the browser. Flash Player is supported on Android, HP webOS and Google TV today. BlackBerry Tablet OS, upcoming versions of Windows Phone, Samsung SmartTVs and others are expected to support Flash Player in the near future.

Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium Suite builds upon Adobe's recent product innovations in digital publishing, already deployed by some of the world's leading magazine and business publishers to create digital editions for tablet devices. Using Adobe InDesign CS5.5, in combination with the integrated Folio Producer toolset, designers can add new levels of interactivity to their page layouts targeted to tablet devices. Documents can include video, audio, panoramic views, 360-degree object rotation, pan and zoom of images, integration of HTML and HTML5 content and other interactive overlays, leading to a much more robust and engaging reading experience. Creative Suite 5.5 complements Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to support publication, sale and analysis of content on an array of tablet devices.