Adobe is to formally announce its much-awaited Creative Suite 3 (CS3) product towards the end of this month in a move that will be the precursor to a flood of software and hardware upgrades among creative professionals.

The software giant confirmed a 27 March announcement for CS3 yesterday but did little to stop the fevered speculation about the product. Instead, Adobe confirmed that it would hold a conference on that day where it “will reveal in detail the features and suite configurations that make this the largest software release in Adobe’s 25-year history”.

However, Adobe watchers expect the software to be available within weeks of the announcement and there has been plenty of debate as to what Adobe will include in the program. Among certainties to appear are upgraded versions of PhotoShop, Illustrator and InDesign, alongside Dreamweaver and Flex, which Adobe acquired with the purchase of Macromedia in late-2005.

Together with the imminent next version of Mac OS X, the Adobe release is sure to act as the trigger for many organisations to upgrade their creative systems to Intel-based Macs.

In an attempt to further stir up hype, Adobe also posted a video to YouTube, called What’s In The Box?, that shows users passing around illuminated boxes. The message is likely to be that CS3 will now run in native mode on Intel Macs as well as on PCs and Power-based Macs.

There is also a UK website with names of companies that will be early adopters.