Adobe said on Wednesday that it will drop support for Apple’s older PowerPC architecture in favor of the new Intel-based Macs in the next major version of Creative Suite. Adobe’s decision shouldn’t be a big surprise, Apple is also dropping support for the architecture in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It doesn’t make sense for Adobe to be expected to develop for a platform that is already years out of production.

Of course, existing versions of Creative Suite will continue to support PowerPC machines, as well as Intel Macs, but they will be the last to do so.

Adobe said in a note on its Web site that the majority of PowerPC users have already transitioned to more current configurations, which prompted it to suspend support for the platform. Besides critical issues that arise no further development will be done for PowerPC, the company said.

Adobe’s current Creative Suite includes InDesign, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Acrobat 9 Pro, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, Adobe OnLocation, Encore, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central, Dynamic Link and Version Cue.