| I was just at the FlashInTheCan conference here in Toronto, and there was lots of talk about CS4. No timeline, of course, but if I had to bet I'd say Septemberish.
Regarding Fireworks, I want to point out that if you have any reasonable expectation of needing to handle bitmapped images as part of how you make a living, you will eventually bite the bullet and Photoshop — so if you can squeeze it into your budget now instead of buying Fireworks now and Photoshop later (after which you'll likely never use Fireworks again), then it will cost you less in the long run (not just in cash; you won't have to learn the ins and outs of two programs). Despite having used Fireworks for two years, I believe Photoshop wins every contest hands down.
Regarding upgrades, after the initial plunge you can then follow the upgrade path for subsequent releases -- and often wait two releases and still get the discount (ie CS2 users should qualify for the same discount on CS4 as CS3 users) -- at least that's the way it always was with Macromedia, and that was true when Adobe's CS3 came out. |