An analyst with Merrill Lynch says that Adobe will likely introduce Creative Suite 3 around March 27, with a ship date that would follow shortly afterwards. Most important to this refresh would be native support for Intel processors on the Macintosh platform. Up until now, users must use CS2 in emulation mode, which results in slower performance. Adobe has long said that native Intel support on the platform was a priority.

Jay Vleeschhouwer, the analyst who wrote the report disclosing the release date, says he expects about six different CS3 product suites, and 14 individual products overall. Core CS3 products would include Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.