The imminent release of the Adobe eLearning Suite has got me thinking about the authoring tools market as it stands in 2009. Who needs authoring tools and which tools do they need?
For $1799 or £1509 the suite will provide you with Captivate 4, Presenter (formerly Breeze), Photoshop CS4, Dreamweaver CS4 (with e-learning interactions added), Soundbooth CS4, Flash Professional CS4 (also with e-learning add-ons), the latest Acrobat and all the goodies needed to tie all the bits together. Quite a bundle and an exciting prospect for toy lovers.
But I can't help but wonder who all this is aimed at. Captivate and Presenter are rapid authoring tools, presumably aimed at trainers and subject experts; Photoshop and Flash (at least the animation building aspect) are professional tools normally aimed at graphic designers; Soundbooth is for audio engineers; Dreamweaver and Flash (the ActionScript development environment) would normally be used by serious web programmers. These are heavy duty tools and not easy to learn - I would imagine most purchasers will use only 2 or 3 of these tools on a regular basis and dip into the others very infrequently - probably not often enough to justify the learning curve.
And by the way, why is Premiere not in here? Video is very much the medium of the moment as far as e-learning is concerned and Premiere is as good as any video editor on the market. I can only imagine that the inclusion of Premiere would lift the price of the bundle out of reach, and certainly over $2000.
I would understand the offering better if purchasers could split the bundle across multiple PCs so a number of specialists could work with the various tools at the same time. But I can't even implement my copy of Creative Suite CS4 on my laptop as well as my desktop, let alone break the suite up.
So who will buy the eLearning Suite? First off, those who already use several of these tools and can save money by upgrading to the bundle (which can cost as little as $599); secondly, those renaissance developers out there who have a go at everything and want the best tools available; thirdly, and despite my confusion about the targeting, me.
A couple of comments...
ReplyDelete1) I somewhat agree about video. Maybe Adobe needs to offer a "lighter" version of a video editor... Premier, has a very steep learning curve; compared to iMovie (Mac) and other tools on Windows OS's. There are reasonable replacements here - but you make a valid suggestion.
2) You niche these products into scales that are inappropriate. While SoundBooth could be used by a professional sound engineer, they will likely adopt ProTools or a more suitable sound editor. This is a quality editor that someone could learn quickly enough to generate a podcast.
3) Cost... Even if a user only uses a couple of these tools, the U.S. pricing makes the suite affordable, even if it is collecting "hard drive dust" from some applications in the suite not being used.
4) Finally, I haven't read through my end user agreement for CS3 and CS4 recently, but I believe that it will allow for the install on a laptop and desktop computer, that are used exclusively by you. You could not install on two computers for two end users to use. But I believe your license and the DRM will allow for two simultaneous installs.
I agree with Anonymous' #4 point. I have the web suite and I was able to install on 2 computers without an issue.
ReplyDeleteThe eLearning Suite is aimed at eLearning professionals = content creators. That's the developers who form a one-person team that does everything from video editing (!) and podcast production through Captivate, highly interactve Flash content and more.
ReplyDeleteYes that is not your typical Instructional Designer - for many IDs, the Technical Communication Suite might actually be a better fit.
As for video editing - you can achieve some very stunning results using Flash alone, or combining Flash with Windows Movie Maker.
Should Premier be included? Perhaps, but if you have the Production Premium or Master Collection suites, you can buy the eLEarning Suite as an upgrade for $599, which is $200 *less* than the full price for Captivate 4.
My biggest gripe has been that for web-based content, Fireworks is generally conssidered to be the better graphic editor, and I would have preferred to see it rather than PhotoShop in eLearning Suite.
With the number of free or inexpensive alternatives available to the different elements of the eLearning suite, I think this offer must be targeting specialists, rather than being for the general eLearning public.
ReplyDeleteI will not be forking out sums like that when I can get by with tools like Gimp for Photoshop, ScreenToaster for Captivate, Audacity for Soundbooth and a variety of free web-authoring tools.
Experts will tell me that these options are not nearly as powerful as the Adobe suite and they are quite right. But I would never use much of their functionality, and I don't have time to learn how to use them.
Hello all,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with an earlier comment as far as Premier goes. The learning curve is quite large however to include/create a "stripped down" version would've been nice. Flash can definately be used but it is limited when it comes to video editing.
I think a suite like this is specifically targeted towards e-learning developers and designers (hence it's name, LOL). The eLearning Specialist or Instructional Designer positions are growing rapidly and this suite has been produced/targeted directly at them.
I am an eLearning Specialist myself and I use Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Captivate, etc. almost daily. A package like this is GOLD to somebody like myself and with the economy the way it is, more and more designers and developers are going to have to be able to become "jacks-of-all-trades".
What gets me about all Adobe programs is the cost. Education, particularly public education, was never exactly an industry with deep pockets. In California, we're going broke. Even with educator discounts, Adobe programs are unaffordable. What are they thinking-- "Let's over-price ourselves into oblivion!"?
ReplyDelete