The Adobe Student and Teacher Editions look like a great deal. They offer big discounts, as much as 80% off normal prices. They’re available for most of Adobe’s product line, including Creative Suite 5, Lightroom 3, Acrobat 9, and Elements 8. They can be purchased by anyone who qualifies – primary and secondary school students, college or university students, faculty, teachers, and administrators. Even part-time students or teachers can be eligible, and there is no age limitation. They’re available pretty much worldwide in many languages on both Windows and Mac, and you don’t need any kind of coupon or promotion code to get the deep discounts.

So what’s the catch? Is the Academic software different or limited somehow? Is there any sort of time restriction, time limit, or time out – do Adobe Student Editions expire? Or are they unusable for commercial purposes?

Read more…

[UPDATE (April 30th) – As forecast below, all CS5 products are now shipping today!]

Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 could be released as soon as next week. What’s more, the free trial downloads and Student and Teacher Editions will be available on the same day. That’s the latest word from Terry White, Worldwide Design Evangelist for Adobe Systems, at an online Q&A session yesterday afternoon…

Here’s the dialogue:

Question: When will CS5 hit the shelves? When I called Adobe, they said the release date would be April 30th. Terry, can you confirm this?
Terry White: I can’t confirm or deny it, but if that’s what they told you…
Terry White: The official answer is mid-May. In any event, April 30th – if it’s April 30th – would be the time it would leave the doors of Adobe, not arrive.

Question: How about the official date for CS5 trial versions?
Terry White: Previously the release of the trials has lagged. However I’m pleased to announce that whatever the official release date is, the free trial downloads will be available the same day.

Question: And the Student (Education) Editions? Will they lag again as they did in CS4 or be out at the same time? Thank you.
Terry White: Everything should be available at the same time.

So this represents a much improved release calendar over CS4, which as we’ve previously noted wasn’t available until about four weeks after its announce­ment date, with the free trials and Education versions following a month after that… For CS5, the April 30th date above is con­firmed anecdotally by other reports here and here, and would mean everything potentially being available within eighteen days of the April 12th launch.

A ship date of next Friday also means there’s only one week left to buy/download CS4 from Adobe and get a free upgrade to CS5, as well as only one week left in our free Photoshop CS5 giveaway!

The “Ask a CS Pro” session above lasted for over an hour and there was plenty of other great information shared which we’ll be covering in a new post next week.

You may have heard of the new releases today of Flash Builder 4 (formerly Flex Builder), and ColdFusion Builder…

And we’ve written about this particular offer before, but it bears repeating now that we have major product refreshes for both Flex and ColdFusion.

Adobe will give you full versions of these premium develop­ment tools ($249 – $1,299 values) absolutely free if you qualify! And if you don’t, you might know someone who does and could benefit…

Free copies of Adobe Flash Builder 4 Standard are given to (a) students, faculty and staff of eligible educational institutions, or (b) software developers who are affected by the current economic conditions and currently unemployed.

The ColdFusion products are also available for free to educational customers, to use for learning purposes only and not for production use. Complimentary installation support is available, and if you are a teacher and would like ColdFusion 9 for multiple systems in your lab, you can ask for up to 30 education serial numbers in a single request.

So if you can certify yourself for any of these categories, go ahead and download your free software here.

New video out too: Creating Interactive Web Experiences with the Flash Family of Tools.

Adobe has just started a new program of giving away full versions of some of its premium development tools ($699 – $1,299 value) absolutely free if you qualify…

If you are an educational customer or an unemployed developer, Adobe would like to lend a hend. Simply certify you are a student, faculty or staff of an eligible education institution, or currently out of work – and the software is yours to download for non-commercial use.

Get your free products here.

UPDATE (March 22nd, 2010) – With the two new version releases out today, the products now available for free at this site are ColdFusion 9, ColdFusion Builder, and Flash Builder (formerly Flex Builder) 4.

[UPDATE (April 30, 2010) – The CS5 Academic Editions are out, and savings are still 80%!]

If you’re a student or teacher in some capacity, chances are you can now score eye-popping savings on your favorite Adobe products…

Adobe has recently announced a new policy of student pricing that gives 80% (!) off normal prices. And even teachers and professors can still get up to a healthy 70% off most software.

For example, try Creative Suite 4 Web Premium – an eight-product package with $3,842 of total value that normally goes for $1,699, but for students – only $349. Or CS4 Design Standard – normally $1,399 for the suite, but for students – just $299! Heck, just the regular cost of Photoshop alone is $700 or more…

Speaking of Photoshop, if you want just Photoshop CS4 Extended by itself, it’s $199 for higher ed (instead of $999). Or try Dreamweaver, Acrobat, Lightroom, Elements, etc. – all at a fraction of their standard prices.

Such deep discounts couldn’t come at a better time… Check them out at Adobe’s official Education Store, or follow the clipped image below.