Studio 8.0 - should you upgrade?

Macromedia is promoting Flash 8.0 as its biggest release of the Studio to date, although the changes that have taken place in this version are much less significant than the division between Flash Basic and Flash Professional in MX 2004. This time, Macromedia has concentrated on building up image filters and video support - much of this is very welcome for creating broadband content.

Fireworks, which has always been a highly competent image editor, seems to be falling down the list of the company's priorities - not surprising when it has to compete against the all-powerful Photoshop. But it still remains a very useful tool in the Web developer's arsenal. Much more interesting inclusions in Studio 8.0 are Contribute 3.0 (a screenshot is available here)- allowing non-technical users to update and maintain Web sites - and FlashPaper 2.0, which allows developers to convert spreadsheets, presentations and other files into Flash or PDF documents. Along with Dreamweaver and Flash, these provide compelling reasons to upgrade.