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Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

bloomberg.com

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Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#441

Post by imwillofficial »

nayroclade wrote: post #54

Many years ago, when Adobe bought Macromedia, they acquired a tool called Fireworks[1]. This was a combined bitmap and vector editor that was incredibly well-optimised for user-interface and web design, at a time when most designers were paying exorbitant license fees to do such work painfully and slowly in Photoshop and Illustrator. Fireworks was cheap, powerful, and hugely ahead of its time. Many of the features an…

I used fireworks back in the day! Loved macromedia as a young fledgling tech person

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#442

Post by icu »

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.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#444

Post by solardev »

brailsafe wrote: post #369

$20B is hard to say no too. Is that the new Unicorn? One piece of software basically being worth more than some first world cities? Thankfully I never tried it, so I don't know what I'll miss when it's destroyed.

Figma is really pretty revolutionary as far as web apps go, both from the design side (collaborative, beautiful, and easy to use) and from the dev side (realtime multiplayer, fast stateful graphics with undo/redo, incredibly complex UI, built in a combination of WebGL, WASM, and Workers).

For a while before it, Sketch was the dominant UX/UI tool, but then Figma came outta nowhere and surprised the world by showing what could be accomplished with a web app, using a freemium model, developed by a previously unknown company.

As far as unicorns go, I can't think of many startups that have delivered similarly amazing value (maybe Cloudflare and Vercel?), and certainly none in the design space. Like Canva and Draw.io etc. are alright, but Figma is really technologically impressive (and beautiful, and usable!).

If you ever see a complex UI that you enjoy using... chances are very high Figma was used for some part of it.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#446

Post by jchw »

There is literally no direction this can go but down.

If there wasn't enough evidence before, this seems to strongly suggest your only salvation from user-hostile corporate monoliths is community open source projects. So... Anyone want to build a multiplayer design tool? :)

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#448

Post by thiscatis »

nayroclade wrote: post #54

Many years ago, when Adobe bought Macromedia, they acquired a tool called Fireworks[1]. This was a combined bitmap and vector editor that was incredibly well-optimised for user-interface and web design, at a time when most designers were paying exorbitant license fees to do such work painfully and slowly in Photoshop and Illustrator. Fireworks was cheap, powerful, and hugely ahead of its time. Many of the features an…

I can’t believe Fireworks is already considered “once upon a time software”. It’s what got me into webdesign, together with Dreamweaver.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#449

Post by capableweb »

pilingual wrote: post #201

Show HN 10 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4744877

6 comments, not a lot... Should show people that successful Show HN isn't the end-all be-all that some believe.

Here is some more interesting submissions with 30+ comments:

- Launch of Figma, a collaborative interface design tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685407 - 135 points|7 years ago|40 comments

- Introducing Vector Networks: Generalized path editing for graphics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070600 - 198 points|7 years ago|30 comments

- Figma 1.0 – Collaborative interface design tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597915 - 340 points|6 years ago|58 comments

One interesting comment made ~6 years ago

> I hope they'll eventually choose this route. I also hope they won't be as greedy as Adobe. vladdanilov on Sept 28, 2016 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12599444

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#450

Post by fblp »

javajosh wrote: post #141
lioeters wrote: post #55

I don't understand how this acquisition is not anti-competitive behavior. It was such a joy to see Figma's growth and technical innovation, and now it will just get eaten by the established power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Inc.#Anti-competitive_pr...

I don't think "the government" does anything unless someone complains. In this case, the process is to send a letter requesting a "Business Review" [1]. It's probably a "fill out this simple 30 page form, wait 2.5 years (max!) and then have your review request politely declined" situation, but I suppose it's foolish to complain before trying. It feels like one of those processes that costs lawyer money that another b…

Anyone here can lodge this simple form. If you think this merger will substantially lesson competition and stifle innovation lodge a complaint: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation

At a minimum, they will investigate this and make inquiries (typically within months) if they see a high volume of complaints.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

"Some mergers change market dynamics in ways that can lead to higher prices, fewer or lower-quality goods or services, or less innovation.

Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions when the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly." "

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