14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe System Inc. has confirmed earlier this week the launch of its highly-anticipated Creative Suite 3.0 on March 27, at a special event in New York City. The company said this will only be the official announcement, the shipping will take place later this spring (sources say this will be during the second half of April).
CS3 would be the first version that works natively on Intel Macs. The current CS2 version uses Apple's Rosetta emulation technology to run on Intel-based Macs. CS3 will perform better on such machines.
The suite includes Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and several other design applications. Though they've made no specific comments on additional applications and features for CS3, Adobe did say this will be "the largest software release in Adobe's 25-year history."
"Since CS3 will be optimized for Intel Macs for the first time, many pro users have been waiting for this launch to upgrade from their PowerPC-based systems," said Gene Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co, in a note to clients. His estimated market for Adobe's CS3 is of about 3 million users, according to a 2006 survey of Mac users.
Assuming 15 percent of Intel-based Mac Pro or MacBook Pro users upgrade to a new machine, the Cupertino-based company could sell an additional 450,000 systems based only on Creative Suite 3.0.
"These additional units would also boost margins, as the high-end Mac Pro and MacBook Pro models carry higher margins than the rest of Apple's computer line," said Gene Munster. 450,000 MacBook Pros would mean $900 million in sales for Apple.
Looks like, this summer, everything will be going Apple's way. Apple TVs will be available for sale in a couple of weeks, iPhone will be launched in June and it won't be long now and Leopard will have its public release. Can you hear "Cha-Ching!"? Apple surely can.