The Adobe "Creative Cloud" is not cloud software. It just the Adobe Creative Suite desktop applications sold on a subscription model.

The problem here was that they added DRM to it to make sure you can't use it if you don't have an active subscription and those 'call home' servers failed.

It is more of a DRM problem than a 'cloud' problem.

I disagree in some specific cases. For software that is focused around accessing shared data. Say, ERP, document collaboration, etc. for small businesses that can't afford or don't want dedicated IT staff cloud based software makes a lot of sense.

It makes a lot of sense iff those businesses lose less money on cloud+ISP downtime than they would spend on IT staff or on-site support from a retail store.

What's the point of that? You still need to worry about your own off-cloud backups and a contingency plan for when your vendor goes out of business.

> You're pretty much SOL if you can't find a replacement quick.

Everyone who seriously considers moving mission-critical software or infrastructure to the cloud should (if they don't already) have a contingency plan at the forefront of their evaluation of any platform/service. Evaluations of solutions like that take away much of the risk that you're proposing. It's also just smart business.

The problem is, Adobe never did this and abruptly forced everyone to switch to a subscription model if they wanted to upgrade. And existing versions only keep working for so long unless you keep the same hardware/operating system with them forever. So suddenly, thousands of people who rely on Adobe software daily are forced to switch to a subscription-only model.

Our shop is currently holding at CS6, and we have no desire to 'upgrade' to CC. Unfortunately, customers have been sending in artwork and source files created in CC, so we will eventually be forced into Adobe's subscription plan unless some other full-featured software suite of equal or greater capability comes along.

Does Creative Cloud not allow you to save in a format compatible with previous versions of Photoshop?

I ask for open formats from people. Send me something I can work with in my choice of software! Save multiple versions and deliver those just for redundancy. There's no excuse if you're using pro-level software to ever say "well I guess you'll have to buy it to do something with this"