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Getting Creative on Campus: Adobe CS4 Launch
Q & A with Adobe VP Peter Isaacson
9/24/2008
This week Adobe Systems Inc. made public the software suite it calls its biggest release ever--the fourth version of its Creative Suite. Campus Technology talked with Adobe Vice President for Worldwide Education Peter Isaacson about the Adobe CS4 launch and some implications for higher education.Campus Technology: Your CEO, Shantanu Narayen, says that CS4 is the biggest launch Adobe has ever had. Do you think higher education users are expecting major changes in the new version – say, compared with CS3?
Peter Isaacson: CS3 was such an important launch for us, coming together with Macromedia and Adobe products for the first time, that I think there might be a little less anticipation for CS4, because so many campuses are really just digesting CS3. We recognized that, and knew that we had to do a pretty big hit to get people’s attention with this new release of CS4, and that’s what we did. Across the product line, from our video products, to our interactive products, to our digital imaging products, there are just some incredible new features that are going to be and have proven to be really compelling to customers.
CT: What, for example, might peak interest in higher education?
Isaacson: We’ve talked under NDA to some media departments within higher ed about the metadata that exist, an issue that commercial broadcasters and editors face all the time – how do you sort through content and find the relevant clips. We’re finding out from customers in education and media departments that this is a daily issue for them as well – how do they source material, and how do they access clips that can be used royalty free for their students so that they can use them as source material for their creative and media workflows. So, we’ve gotten tremendous response from educators just on that specific piece of our video technology.
CT: Do you think that colleges and universities are going to pick up on CS4 quickly in order to make their students ready for the market?
Isaacson: Sure. What we’ve found is especially when we talk to our core customers in education, the ones that are really training the creative professionals of tomorrow, they have an absolute requirement – a self-described requirement – to get their students on the latest technology, so when the students get into the workforce they are going to be more easily hired and they’ll have skill sets that are relevant for the workflows of commercial business. Schools have to train students, and they want to train them on the latest technology. And if they feel like the commercial side of the business is adopting CS4, then they need to adopt that technology pretty quickly into their curriculum.
CT: What do you do when you make big version changes to give institutions a heads up so they have time to change curriculum?
Isaacson:
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