The firestorm over Adobe’s recent move to a subscription-only model for Creative Suite and other applications has only just dulled to a low grumble. Now, last month’s predictions that another tech giant might enter the fray may soon come to fruition.
Sharp eyes around the Web discovered this little morsel on the blog of online-advertising giant DoubleClick:
Google Web Designer. To help advertisers and publishers more seamlessly unlock the potential of cross-device programs, we are investing in a new HTML5 creative development tool – Google Web Designer. Available in the coming months, Google Web Designer will empower creative professionals to create cutting-edge advertising as well as engaging web content like sites and applications – for free. Google Web Designer will be seamlessly integrated with DoubleClick Studio and AdMob, greatly simplifying the process of building HTML5 creative that can be served through Google platforms.
Right now there are more questions than answers, but there just might be a way that print designers finally get their happy ending.
Though we’re clearly talking about a (free!) Web design platform here, we are also likely talking about a cloud-based design program – a rival to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Once the application is written, it can easily be tweaked into being a print design program as well.
Even if Google decides not to do this, unless the company specifically goes out of its way to omit exporting features from its Web design application, there’s no reason that it shouldn’t be used for print design anyway.
Yes, very early days yet, but the implications leave us cautiously optimistic. We could either get a potentially viable Creative Cloud alternative, or the competitive pressure from Google alone could force Adobe to rethink its subscription-only model, or at least its pricing. Frankly, this is all most of us wanted anyway.
All of which is a pretty far cry from where we were when Adobe dropped its bombshell back in May.
