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Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

bloomberg.com

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Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#621

Post by [deleted] »

mortenjorck wrote: post #494
joshe wrote: post #379

This is probably the only tech acquisition that's ever made me sad. I just hate Adobe so much. The nightmare of their installer, the weird store with horrible designs popping up when you activate normal ui stuff, the difficulty in canceling a subscription, and the stasis in their product and ui. Oh and the sloppiness of Lightroom on mac with it's weird ui and that it didn't even import and manage photos well. I've be…

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

[deleted]

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#622

Post by cjsawyer »

tempie_deleteme wrote: post #485
hackitup7 wrote: post #458

So smart for both Adobe and Figma. Figma posed a serious threat to Adobe and it makes sense for them to do it. The losers are all of us poor sods who were happy Figma customers. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

it's a bit counterintuitive that something can be good for a company (or companies) AND bad for the customers of said company... shouldn't something that is bad for a customer of a company be bad for the company too?

Companies aren’t your friends. They exist to maximize what customers will pay in exchange for the minimum effort on their part.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#623

Post by killerdhmo »

thehappypm wrote: post #618
connor11528 wrote: post #537

According to the FTC the law states that mergers are illegal when the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly." Pretty positive this would lessen competition in design software and restablish Adobe as a monopoly. This merger should be blocked. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

Miro and Canva are really similar to Figma, no ?

Not... really. Sketch is what is most analogous.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#624

Post by that_guy_iain »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #574
that_guy_iain wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the instant response on HN was to upvote the open source competition and the fact many people are probably going to leave to go to a competitor because they hate Adobe. It probably doesn't lessen competition but increases it since a lot of competitors are getting sign ups right now.

The argument "but there are competitors" – that the very existence of other players in a market should preclude the blocking of acquisitions – is flawed and misleading. For competition to strengthen a space, it needs to be meaningful competition. The goal for regulators should not be "more than one player in every category." It should be diverse product expression, improved customer utility, and most of all ZERO winn…

> For competition to strengthen a space, it needs to be meaningful competition.

There are meaningful competitors to Adobe's design tools. There are quite a few applications like Figma with a decent amount of traction. The fact they will be receiving an uptick in users will increase their meaningfulness which means Adobe acquiring Figma is not lessening the competition.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#625

Post by mekkie »

mortenjorck wrote: post #494
joshe wrote: post #379

This is probably the only tech acquisition that's ever made me sad. I just hate Adobe so much. The nightmare of their installer, the weird store with horrible designs popping up when you activate normal ui stuff, the difficulty in canceling a subscription, and the stasis in their product and ui. Oh and the sloppiness of Lightroom on mac with it's weird ui and that it didn't even import and manage photos well. I've be…

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

I can't believe I'm not the only one. Something similar happened to me with one of their iPad painting apps. They told me it would be completely free for artists. Went to save my files and put them on my computer for printing, only to learn they were locked within the adobe cloud cage of despair

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#626

Post by samsolomon »

thehappypm wrote: post #618
connor11528 wrote: post #537

According to the FTC the law states that mergers are illegal when the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly." Pretty positive this would lessen competition in design software and restablish Adobe as a monopoly. This merger should be blocked. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

Miro and Canva are really similar to Figma, no ?

Not at all close to the design tool—features like autolayout and performance are significantly better than anyone else on the market.

Both of those are pretty close to FigJam, Figma's. whiteboarding tool. It's a nice tool, but that's not why anyone uses Figma.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#627

Post by drawkbox »

time_to_smile wrote: post #566
hackitup7 wrote: post #458

So smart for both Adobe and Figma. Figma posed a serious threat to Adobe and it makes sense for them to do it. The losers are all of us poor sods who were happy Figma customers. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

> So smart for both Adobe The market aggressively disagrees with this assessment.

Acquisitions from the acquirer side always tank the stock, the acquired always get a bump. The down market and the $20B spend is why it is down.

From an ADBE perspective, this actually is a good long term move and shouldn't be such a hit.

From Figmas perspective, I am sure this was one of their hopeful outcomes.

If people here don't like the outcome, then I wonder if they know what type of game they support. This is the game with VC/growth/exits.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#629

Post by zinglersen »

unstrategic wrote: post #604

Figma was never on track to change the world. They were an Adobe clone from the beginning, out-executing them, but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative. Not that $20B is anything to shake a stick at — but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. Figma was scratching at this with their "whole org collab" vision and FigJam, but they lacked the vision to crack it, and their e…

Figma literally changed my world so I couldn't disagree more.

Today I have +800 users and +100 editors in my Figma system; copy writers, ux, ui, ur, pm's, analysts, bizz, everyone, is collaborating like I have never seen in any Adobe setup.

Adobe hasn't even been a contender, meanwhile Figma won over Sketch and Invision as well. So while I agree that they are still missing some features, especially for shared design systems, then I don't understand your view, care to elaborate?

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#630

Post by icu »

toastal wrote: post #463
icu wrote: post #442

RIP Figma, I've been trying to avoid Adobe products since they charge the earth for their products and free open source options are solid alternatives. I'm expecting Adobe to eventually price gouge us to the point where we are forced to find a Figma alternative.

Post C6, I was 100% out and only FOSS as well. Dedicating time to those tools have proven more than acceptable and on occasion I got to file a bug too. Of them, darktable and Hugin have been my favorites.

Gimp and Inkscape are incredible PhotoShop and Illustrator alternatives. I'll have to check out Hugin, thanks for the tip!
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