Adobe PhotoShop going online for free

Written by Wil Harris

March 1, 2007 | 10:25

Tags: #flash #flex #online #photoshop

Companies: #adobe

Adobe Software made a massive announcement yesterday - PhotoShop is going to be put online, for free usage.

Wow.

Speaking to Cnet, Adobe's CEO Bruce Chizen said that "We recognize there is a customer there - we recognize they are not going to pay us, necessarily, directly. But we could use ad revenue as a model. Google has demonstrated that it works pretty well for certain types of applications."

Using Adobe's new Flex, it's possible to create flash-based applications which work both on and offline. The technology is designed to be a more flexible iteration of the rich media trend started by AJAX.

PhotoShop will be online, as a hosted service, within six months, according to the company. Whilst Adobe makes most of its money from customers buying applications, it's looking to move into web-applications as a way of diversifying its revenue and picking up on the trend for portable applications. "That is new (for Adobe). It's something we are sensitive to because we are watching folks like Google do it in different categories, and we want to make sure that we are there before they are, in areas of our franchises," Chizen said.

So, it looks like anyone who can't afford the hundreds of dollars required for a PhotoShop license will soon be able to use the software for free. Can it possibly work as well, given the bandwidth limitations? Will it take people away from Google Picasa? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.
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