bad news of the day.
Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
51–60 of 1001 posts
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#52downside: Adobe acquired yet another piece of software, one that even competes with Photoshop XD.
upside: I now can roll out Figma anywhere we have adobe CC licenses without a rigamarole from management
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#53From Adobe's end: https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acqui...
The founders of Figma must be very happy: "Adobe announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock."
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#54Many 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 and flows people love in Figma and Sketch were pioneered years earlier in Fireworks.
After the acquisition, Adobe starved Fireworks of resources and marketing. They broke things, left major bugs and performance regressions unfixed, and eventually discontinued it altogether. I'd argue this wasn't simply negligence, but a calculated decision to kill an innovative product because it threatened the profits of their cash cows.
As much as I hope otherwise, I believe the acquisition of Figma will go the same way. Once it's under the Adobe umbrella, the simple mathematics of profits from Photoshop and Illustrator vs. those from Figma will result in the latter being starved, stripped of functionality, and eventually left broken.
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#55I 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...
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#56Figma's blog post title [0] being 'A collaboration with Adobe', when it's really an acquisition seems like a warning sign.
[0] https://www.figma.com/blog/a-new-collaboration-with-adobe/
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#57Adobe’s PR includes the price:
“…approximately $20 billion in cash and stock”
Apparently it’s roughly half in cash according to other news reports.
Adobe stock is down 8% premarket, so seems like the market thinks they overpaid. (Personally I disagree — this is a good acquisition for Adobe)
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#58Well that’s the end of Figma then. It was fantastic while it lasted.
Although it’s still great software I’m stopping usage today because a) I refuse to support adobe and b) I’m confident the software will progressively get much worse, so any investment today is a waste of time I should spend finding and learning something else. Is there a blender of tools like this?
Inkscape, penpot and/or maybe gimp afaik.
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#59Adobe and Figma says that Figma will remain autonomous. I think if this acquisition is treated the same way as the MS / Github model then things will be fine. Im a little surprised at the timing. This deal must have been in the works for quite awhile.
Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B
#60If I had to pick a single product that I thought could upend an entrenched competitor, this was it. Congrats to everyone who benefitted, but it's a bit of a letdown to see them go this route and give up the opportunity to build a lasting company.