Hilton’s grand ballroom is full, and Srihari is on the stage, with a colourful backdrop of Adobe. “We are here in Chennai to brief creative professionals in the city on Adobe’s latest offering – Adobe Creative Cloud,” he begins. Launched in India in May 2013, Creative Cloud re-imagines the creative process through a stunning set of ‘CC’ desktop applications and sophisticated cross-device collaboration and publishing capabilities, elaborates Srihari Palangala, Country Marketing Manager, Adobe Systems India Private Ltd, Bangalore. “The response from the city has been phenomenal with participation from over 400 creative professionals who range from design and print digital imaging professionals, cross-media designers, web developers, videographers and VFX artists.”
What follows is a brief interaction with YourStory, where Srihari delves deeper into the ‘Cloud’.
What is Creative Cloud?
Adobe Creative Cloud is an ongoing membership that gives creative professionals in India their first chance to experience a radical new way of accessing Adobe’s iconic tools and services. The Adobe Creative Cloud puts you and your content at the centre of the creative process by connecting you to the people and resources that matter most across every step in the creative workflow. From a product perspective, it introduces stunning versions of Adobe’s next generation of desktop applications including Adobe Photoshop® CC, InDesign® CC, Illustrator® CC, Dreamweaver® CC and Premiere® Pro CC. Adobe’s desktop tools, previously known as Creative Suite (CS), are now branded CC to reflect that they are an integral part of Creative Cloud and have been reinvented to support a more intuitive, connected way of creating. It provides users with unlimited access to download and install all Creative Suite® desktop applications, tools and services; game developer tools and integration with Photoshop Touch apps. Creative files can be stored and shared, via Creative Cloud, on Mac OS, Windows, iOS and Android. Behance, the world’s leading online creative community, is now integrated with Creative Cloud, so creative professionals can showcase their work, get feedback on projects and gain global exposure.
What has Creative Cloud enabled? How do you see it helping entrepreneurs?
Customers who use Creative Cloud on a daily basis love it. They love having access to all the desktop applications so they can learn new skills, while always being up-to-date with the latest software. For entrepreneurs building businesses, low and flexible cost of paying for software is critical — our monthly membership model has dramatically lowered the barrier of entry for a new generation of creatives.
Access to the best-of-breed creative tools is critical as entrepreneurs dabble with creativity in their product design. Also, since the Creative Cloud provides access to a whole bunch of applications, it has enabled creative professionals go beyond their ‘comfort zones’ and dabble with newer elements and technologies. For example, designers can now very easily extend themselves to build and publish basic websites without needing to write elaborate code. With Creative Cloud, the entire creative world gets its own centralised hub, where ideas, files, fonts, settings, notifications, and team members are connected and organised.
What is the relevance of Adobe to the C-level executive?
With Creative Cloud, publishing finished work has never been easier, thanks to enhanced services that build and power websites, and access to high-impact publishing solutions. This is very relevant from a workflow perspective where the executive can easily see and manage the entire workflow and have access to reports and content across multiple screens and form factors. Creative Cloud for teams and enterprises offers administrative tools, increased storage capacity, and expert services. It includes tools for easy management of virtual workgroups, expert support services, centralised administration for quick and easy deployment of new seats, centralised billing and efficient licence management which are critical for the C-level. On the digital marketing side, our solutions put the power of relevant data into the hands of marketers. Business are able to see the trends, get key insights, and make strategic decisions from the content created that help them customise digital experiences, find and retain loyal customers, and increase revenue. Businesses today look for solutions that provide a holistic approach and we provide just that with solutions for content creation to monetisation.
On the SaaS model.
Adobe will be delivering the range of applications via the cloud along with a host of benefits including syncing of files via the Internet. The applications will reside and run on your desktop and not on the cloud (or browser) so it is not a SaaS model in that sense. Customers will need to validate their licence every 30 days. However, customers with an annual membership and who have given us a credit card to be used to renew their annual membership, will be able to use the products for 3 months (99 days) when offline. All Creative Cloud for teams customers get this 3-month grace period as well. Month-to-month customers will still need to validate every 30 days.
We are overwhelmed by the strong uptake for the Creative Cloud from customers across the enterprise, SMBs and individuals. Till date we have over 700K paid subscribers on Creative Cloud worldwide. In India, the low-price entry point for Adobe’s world class tools coupled with the flexibility to choose plans that best suit their needs have resonated well with Indian creatives and we see more and more people getting onto the Creative Cloud every day.
What are you doing to keep the innovation at Adobe rolling?
Focusing our resources on the Cloud will enable us to put innovation in our members’ hands at a much faster pace. We can pioneer new ways of connecting the worldwide creative community and making their creative process easier. Given how quickly our customers have embraced the Cloud, and their demand for a constant stream of innovation, we will continue to put our efforts into innovating on the cloud.
