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Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

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Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#391

Post by airstrike »

peyton wrote: post #386
airstrike wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But anti-trust isn't being invented now. It's always existed. Companies already factor in anti-trust risk when doing M&A—it's just hard to quantify the expected value of that risk If anything, IMHO, we've been too lenient with anti-trust in Tech in particular over the past 5-10 years. This just dials things back a little, and makes it so that "hard to quantify" risk is a little more likely than it was before, and cer…

Published guidance is the correct tool. Blocking acquisitions doesn’t really decrease uncertainty.

The guidance already exists. Don't buy your biggest competitor, unless you're but one player in a diversified sector.

Blocking acquisitions creates precedents.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#392

Post by fairity »

> Fifteen months into the regulatory review process, Figma and Adobe no longer see a path toward regulatory approval

How in the world did it take fifteen months for regulators to reject this? That’s an absurdly long time to be operating a business in limbo, and I have to assume it’s the regulators dragging their feet since the companies have every incentive to move quickly.

I don’t have an opinion on whether or not the merger should be approved, but regulators need to make up their minds quicker or else you can expect a serious chilling effect on M&A. Can you imagine agreeing to get acquired knowing that it can take up to 2 years to close? Anyone operating a real business would be crazy to sign on for the distraction.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#393

Post by i_am_jl »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #277
madeofpalk wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, digital product design happened in Photoshop and Illustrator. Then competitors like Sketch and Figma came out with a better product. This made Adobe create XD to compete, but it was unable to make a good product so instead they tried to purcahse their competition instead of making something better. 9 months after Adobe announced it was to purchase Figma (and 3 months before it hoped the deal would c…

Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction. > Adobe discontinued XD That was my understanding as well, hmm

>Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction.

I couldn't disagree more. Fireworks was a perfect blend of raster and vector editing and was killer for early 2000s web design work. It was an amazing Macromedia product that got neglected by Adobe.

If I'm in a cynical mood I sometimes think it's because an up-to-date Fireworks would have cannibalized the sales of PS/AI, but I think that gives too much credit to Adobe.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#394

Post by dclowd9901 »

jyunwai wrote: post #351
542458 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adobe is very good at building software. Is that actually true? XD attempted to directly compete with Sketch and Figma, and was not generally considered to be a success at that primarily because they couldn’t ship features fast enough to catch up.

At the same time, however, Adobe maintains products with no clear competitors due to their quality. This is especially true for After Effects (for motion graphics in videos).

> At the same time, however, Adobe maintains products with no clear competitors due to their quality. This is especially true for After Effects (for motion graphics in videos).

Really not sure if this is true. Probably due more to "network effects". It's hard to compete with Photoshop or Illustrator if everyone is familiar with their UIs and has all their files as PSDs or Illustrator files. Also anyone who would be reasonably close to creating a good competitor would be bought.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#395

Post by satvikpendem »

evantbyrne wrote: post #358
rafram wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generative AI isn’t useful without a good editor for humans to manually tweak and integrate the AI’s output, and Figma is essentially the only name in the game for that.

Sketch still exists and is not only very good, but in many ways better.

In what ways is it better? I've found Figma to be vastly superior, especially since they treat design like development, automating tedious processes like manually tweaking the layout and instead having a version of flexbox literally built into the design ("auto constraints"). They're bringing web dev and mobile dev ideas into design software.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#396

Post by yellow_postit »

JadoJodo wrote: post #218

While I do see this as great news (for all the reasons others have outlined), I wonder how this will impact VC in the future; If the current goal is for companies to get VC money, burn that cash for years and years and years, and then have a huge IPO or acquisition (that makes it all worth it), it would seem regulatory issues would start to scare away investment.

I’d hope this somehow influences regulators too. 15+ months of uncertainty and it’s the tiny UK market that tanks things. The lack of regulatory certainty will push for more lobbying and influence peddling which I think is net worse for the global industry.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#397

Post by chongli »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #317
delusional wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "disruption" narrative has played itself out by now. Nothing has been disrupted. Society still largely functions the same way as it did 20 years ago, and the same firms are mostly still running the same businesses. We were promised a radical new world, what we got was a couple of apps for fast food delivery from McDonald's.

Hmm... I struggle with your post. What about AMD vs Intel? Or TSMC / Samsung vs Intel? Intel is far weaker that it was 20 years ago, and chips are cheaper (inflation adjusted) and WAY faster 20 years later. Is that not a win? I feel like desktop computing is basically flying cars at this point. For 1500 USD, you can get 5GHz CPU, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB NVMe drive, reasonable GPU that is utterly light speed compared to 20 ye…

I think the person you’re replying to was referring to the post-smartphone startup era. All those hardware companies you mentioned are older than dirt. None of them qualify as “disruptive, VC-backed startups” like Figma, Uber, or Airbnb.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#398

Post by spiderice »

pier25 wrote: post #231
nbzso wrote: post #95

I am opening a bottle of champagne as we speak. It is time to remove electron based app and invest in something that will have a proper memory management. Not only 2gb. My phone has more than this. You have cornered the market. Now deliver.

It's amazing though. The performance of Figma is better than all native vector apps out there.

Has performance in Sketch fallen in recent years? I know it's not as popular any more, but years ago when I used Sketch the performance was always top notch.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#399

Post by iAMkenough »

rafram wrote: post #307
zpeti wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, seems like there are massive risks to Figma as a business at this point with the developments in generative AI. I'm not that confident spending $17bn is justified if its going to take 10-20 years to make it back. Some generative AI startup could easily leapfrog figma. And Adobe already has its own massive trove of copyright images that it can use for much better generative AI. I think the last year has put a…

Generative AI isn’t useful without a good editor for humans to manually tweak and integrate the AI’s output, and Figma is essentially the only name in the game for that.

Who gets a better deal on compute costs, Figma or Adobe? If prices skyrocket, who is better prepared to pivot?

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#400

Post by pininja »

> Figma’s founding vision was to “eliminate the gap between imagination and reality.”

While this is the first time I’ve seen their vision written down, it feels like they’ve done a great job in fulfilling this initially for software product design. Excited to see what comes with a renewed independent focus!

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