Adobe eases CS6 upgrade policy

Adobe appears to have eased their CS6 upgrade policy, possibly as a result of the outcry it encountered recently, even from its most loyal supporter and evangelist Scott Kelby. The upgrade policy used to be that anyone who wants to upgrade to CS5 for a special upgrade price, needed to be at the latest version (CS5.5) to be eligible for that. Today Adobe published a clarification, and now they say that they will have a transition period until December 31, 2012 for CS4 and CS3 users. The policy now reads as follows:

Adobe’s new Creative Suite upgrade policy, which goes into effect in the first half of 2012 when Adobe Creative Cloud™ and Creative Suite 6 are released, will require customers to be on the most current version of Creative Suite in order to qualify for upgrade pricing when new versions are released. This means that customers need to be on CS5 or CS5.5 in order to receive upgrade pricing when CS6 is released.

To ensure customers have the opportunity to evaluate both Creative Cloud and CS6, Adobe will extend an introductory offer to CS3 and CS4 customers for special upgrade pricing on CS6 until December 31, 2012. This will give CS3 and CS4 customers an upgrade path to CS6 or the option of moving to Creative Cloud (which will include all of the CS6 products, creative services, Adobe Touch Apps, and more). Customers who remain on CS2 or earlier will not be eligible for upgrade pricing for CS6 but will be able to move to a Creative Cloud membership.