The event will be webcast live at 3.30pm ET, with details on how to view the webcast to arrive on Adobe.com later this week. At the event and through the webcast (and all the subsequent reporting) we’ll all get to learn about CS3’s new features, and the suite configurations it will be available in.

No guidance is given on whether or not there will be any kind of ‘budget’ version alongside the full package so we’ll just have to wait and see what they say at the launch or see what info pops up beforehand, as well as gauge people’s reactions to CS3 afterwards, in what certainly has been a much anticipated piece of software, both from the point of ever better design and photographic software, through to compatibility with the Intel Mac, as it will allow Adobe’s flagship products to run at full speed on both Intel Mac and Power PC Mac powered systems.

Adobe are claiming that it will be “the largest software release in Adobe's 25 year history”. Adobe no doubt hopes that it will be one of the most profitable for them as well, as Adobe have taken full advantage of the same style of activation systems that Microsoft employ to stop users from making pirate copies, which robs the company of revenue.

There can be no question that pirates will nevertheless try to break Adobe’s protections so it will be interesting to see what activity transpires after the CS3 launch in this regard, although if Adobe employs some kind of ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ equivalent to check the legitimacy of a software installation it could be a game of cat and mouse between Adobe and the pirates as seems to be happening now with Microsft, Vista and the pirate community.

Unfortunately, the announcement is just that – it is not an event that celebrates the actual release of the software. Adobe advise that “the software will not ship until later in Spring 2007”, which supposedly means a few more weeks after March 27 has come and gone.

Still, we’re surely in the home stretch now, and that’s a good thing. The eventual timing seems like to be close to Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 launch date, with some thinking it will arrive at the end of this month, while others still predict the Apple WWDC in June.

Whenever Apple launches their new operating system, Adobe’s new suite is bound to be featured in some way, at least as one of the brand new and very popular software suites designed for the Apple Mac, with the ability to use some or all of Mac OS X 10.5’s capabilities, many of which we still haven’t been made aware of. Of course, there will also be a Windows version of CS3, too, but many Adobe Creative Suite users prefer the Mac.

So… if you’ve been holding off on buying an Intel based Mac, a new operating system. Adobe’s new CS3, along with Apple’s other software and even Microsoft’s upcoming new Mac Office and the whole and very cool Windows XP/Vista virtualization thing may well all be the reasons you need to make the switch. They’ve certainly all got me thinking very seriously about what my next computer will be!
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