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Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

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Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#961

Post by hawk01 »

tsycho wrote: post #549

[Pure speculation; I don't work in the UI space at all, and at neither of these companies] I wonder if Adobe is secretly happy about this. They were acquiring Figma at the peak of the market (for growth stock/startup valuations) because of the existential risks that Figma was threatening, due to their collaborative development UX. But since then: * Startup valuations have fallen. Ignoring regulatory concerns, a new a…

> * Startup valuations have fallen. Ignoring regulatory concerns, a new acquisition deal today would be cheaper.

The chances of them buying Figma this decade is lowered. I wouldn't be surprised if figma doubles the valuation at that point

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#962

Post by macspoofing »

lvl102 wrote: post #229
airstrike wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still a better long term outcome than selling to Adobe

Agree 100%. Microsoft would actually make the product a lot better and add useful AI elements to it. I just don’t trust Adobe.

I disagree.

If I was Figma, and I had to choose, I would go with Adobe. Adobe would have made Figma a core strategic product and would have made them much more relevant in a space that they deeply care about. Microsoft would never care that much about Figma, because the design/UX space isn't core to Microsoft. Also, Figma is too small for Microsoft to make it a centrepiece of any of their strategic initiatives.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#963

Post by pas »

kmlx wrote: post #897
pas wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have no idea when they filed what papers where ... and when regulators answered and what, and then how the companies reacted, and when, and ... on the announcement, Sep 15, Adobe stock fell by 17%. the FTC opened some investigation on Nov 2. some EU thing started its process in February (based on filings by refering countries, and of course we have no idea of the details of those country-level processes) so, all i…

> we have no idea when they filed what papers where ... and when regulators answered and what, and then how the companies reacted, and when, and ... detailed timeline, explanations, submissions etc here from UK’s CMA: https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/adobe-slash-figma-merger-inquir...

thanks! very interesting. how do these big M&As work? was Adobe-Figma supposed to file some request? (but that would be on the timeline I suppose.)

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#964

Post by macspoofing »

airstrike wrote: post #720
Solvency wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other beloved product has MS acquired and made a lot better?

GitHub? But that's not the point. The point is the value of not having Figma sell to its largest competitor.

>The point is the value of not having Figma sell to its largest competitor.

Adobe does not compete with Microsoft in any meaningful way. There is some overlap in some products here or there, but it's not meaningful competition.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#966

Post by aliston »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #676
aliston wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so bad about the Spotify app? For the most part, it looks like a bunch of lists (not so much spreadsheets) to me... As someone that is only tangentially in the design space, why do you think collaborative design works so poorly? I have noticed that, in engineering reviews, complex backend designs get scrutiny, but rarely "I feel..", "I prefer..." types of comments, whereas frontend teams get all types of those…

This is a stylized comment. It is a bunch of lists, but the UI is sometimes the lists are scrolling horizontally album covers, sometimes they are popping up from menu buttons, sometimes they go full screen and scroll normally, sometimes they are cut short to 5 elements and you cannot see more, sometimes they continue to 20 elements and you can press to see more, sometimes it's a list with headers that all contain mor…

Wow, I hadn't thought about it through that lens exactly, but you are 100% right. Virtually everyone in large organizations (engineers, PMs, designers) are incentivized to launch things that align with their end-of-year performance goals. Those goals are sometimes at odds with the best overall customer outcome.

I hadn't thought about figma specifically as being a symptom. I'm sure some organizations use it effectively, but I can see how it might spiral out of control to result in an "I'm helping too" sort of ethos, with a poor net outcome.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#967

Post by c0nsumer »

Springtime wrote: post #960
chefandy wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious: what do you find missing in the affinity stuff? I see a bunch of people referring to it generally lacking 'stuff' but I'm curious about the sort of stuff it lacks. Maybe my use case won't be impacted much. I'm grandfathered in with the introductory CC pricing but there aren't too many threads left in the rope anchoring me to that. I rarely do print design anymore so InDesign isn't the huge sell it used to be…

Affinity has various workflow interrupting issues and missing features, from things Adobe figured out 20 years ago. And to be clear, I'd love Affinity to succeed at being a more serious competitor. Just a handful from one notes file: - No percentage document scaling drop-down option, despite featuring some uncommonly used units for design work. Instead it's hidden as a non-discoverable feature where you enter a perce…

I really, really, really want to use the Affinity suite for more stuff, but just the other day when I was trying to knock up a basic drawing of something that exists in real life (a bicycle frame) I found that Designer couldn't draw a line of X length at N angle. It just... didn't have the option.

All I wanted to do was draw a few lines of given lengths and angles and join their ends. Then overlay another set of the same in different colors so I could see how the two groupings compared visually.

But... I couldn't.

That's such a fundamental part of Illustrator that I guess I'll be going back to it.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#970

Post by obmelvin »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #906
obmelvin wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowest estimate I see for Figma's ARR is $200m, so to suggest that even $500m is a high valuation is just untethered from the facts

Yes, but Adobe was going to buy them at 100x revenue. Thats quite insane.

I never questioned that 20B was high. It's also important to keep in mind that Adobe has failed for years with xD - so the value to them is quite different than it would be to almost any other purchaser

The poster clearly has an axe to grind with Figma and anyone who is involved with UX decisions at most companies. Being mad at Spotify doesn't mean Figma is worth around 1 years of ARR (assuming they met their 2023 growth)

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