Editorial

Posted on 5 Jan 2007 at 11:01

 

Gallery

A public pre-release version of CS3? It seems larger companies are finally wisening up to the benefits of beta releases.

Elsewhere in this issue, you'll find a very neat summary of the digital world in which we now live. In his interview with the team behind Moo.com, Christopher Phin coins a phrase I think we should each adopt as our personal online mantra: 'beta is a badge of honour'.

It was once only true of the darlings of Web 2.0 - Flickr, Google and the like - but then Adobe cottoned on. More through need than choice, it released a beta of Lightroom, its as-yet unfinished application for processing Raw photos. Clearly this was a move intended to reassure us that it wasn't sitting idle in the face of an Aperture onslaught, but it seems it was also the dawning of a new corporate philosophy.

labs.adobe.com is now one of my most frequently clicked bookmarks. It's a bit of a developers' playground, and an outlet for some of Adobe's most impressive and interesting new technologies such as Spry, Kuler and Digital Editions. You might not recognise those names, or know what they do - and if you don't, I'd urge you to pay that site a visit - but you'll certainly know the latest addition: Photoshop CS3.

A public pre-release of such a major application is almost unprecedented, and it can't have been done without a significant amount of forethought and perhaps some sleepless nights. There are safeguards in place, of course - it will eventually expire, and you need a CS2 activation code to get it up and running - but this could be Adobe's smartest move to date.

For one, it'll stop the grumbles about slow progress on Intel-native versions of its marketleading applications. For another, doing the same with InDesign could help it claw back some ground lost to Quark with the latter's release of a fully updated - and impressive - new XPress. Most importantly, though, it's almost guaranteed to boost sales of the boxed product when it finally ships.

If, like me, you've downloaded the beta, you'll know there's no way you could return to trusty CS2 once it expires and, more likely than not, we'll bump into each other in the queue to upgrade.

Beta products, then, aren't just test releases put out there to iron out the bumps, dents and nicks: they're powerful marketing tools. To see just how powerful, check out our exclusive review on the site, and if you've downloaded it yourself, email us your thoughts to mailbox@macuser.co.uk.

Author: Nik Rawlinson