Thanks, YouTube.

It’s been a crazy week following all the buzz around Adobe’s CS3 announcements. As a Macromedia Studio user, I’ve been waiting to see how Adobe melds their products together with the Macromedia line. Everything I’ve seen has been pretty amazing, especially the cross-app functionality between Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Photoshop.

And as a recent convert to an Intel Macbook, I’m eager to get my hands on native versions of all these apps for my Mac. Parallels is cool — but running Fireworks directly on my desktop would be a lot easier.

I finally had some time to sit down and look through the pricing details. The fine print is disappointing:

Can I switch platforms when I upgrade my software to an Adobe Creative Suite 3 version?
No, you are only eligible to upgrade to a version that runs on the same platform. For example, if you own Adobe Creative Suite 2 for Windows®, you are only eligible to upgrade to a Windows version of Adobe Creative Suite 3.

So my Macromedia Studio license does qualify me for a CS3 Web Edition upgrade — but only for the Windows version. Mac converts need not apply. I can upgrade to CS3 apps in XP using Parallels, but to run it directly on the Mac I’ll have to shell out the full price.

People will pay whatever Adobe wants to charge for these apps. That’s a given. It just seems a little silly to put an extra charge on people who have switched operating systems.