Free Photoshop Offer Overflows Adobe's Site, Halts New Downloads

Adobe's ADBE decision to give away Creative Suite 2 (which includes the CS2 version of Photoshop) has proved to be very popular with consumers from all over the world. As of this writing, the CS2 download link contains the following "Site Area Temporarily Unavailable" message: "We're sorry, the site area you've requested is unavailable. Please try again later." This message has appeared on Adobe's website for more than two hours. The rest of Adobe.com seems to be up and running without any issues, though the main page makes no mention of the CS2 offer. The offer is mysteriously absent from the news room page as well. Nonetheless, the tech world is buzzing with the news that Adobe has decided to give away an older version of one of the most pirated programs ever created. "Wow, this is a great move by Adobe," one user, PaulG, wrote on Gizmodo. "It gives people a chance to use the full suite, and get hooked on it, legally." "This is an amazing deal," another user, RocketJam, wrote. "I use Photoshop CS2 at work still. Does probably 95% of what CS6 does and much less bloated." On Woot!, some users have speculated that the deal is actually a mistake caused by Adobe when it attempted to make the product easier to re-download for those who had already purchased the software. Thus far the company has not released a statement confirming that assumption. In fact, Adobe has yet to comment on the deal at all. If it were intentional, one might expect the company to make a formal announcement and brag about the giveaway. However, if it was not intentional, Adobe would still be expected to make an announcement, if only to tell consumers that their newly downloaded copy of CS2 is not technically legal. Even if that is the case, it would be foolish for Adobe to make any such announcement. The company should instead turn this into a marketing campaign that is aimed at gaining the names, address and contact info of thousands (if not millions) of individuals. This may already be Adobe's intent. In doing so, the company would have a whole host of new customers to perpetually annoy with advertisements for the Creative Cloud service. Follow me @LouisBedigianBZ