Figma Question

[Carlisle1500]

Can someone talk about this acquisition of Figma? Is XD dead?

See attached

[thomashallgren]

This purchase proves that if you believe that you are a big company, creating a big product with a big, well-paid team, you can't lose. Well, Figma just proved Adobe wrong. $22 Billion wrong. Figma's investors saw the weak points in Adobe's ship and looted it.

[thomashallgren]

@Carlisle1500 To answer your question simply - yes, XD is dead. Adobe will likely provide a converter in the future from XD to Figma. For now you can Copy as CSS or SVG and copy into Figma. Or migrate your large files from XD to Figma easily here now (for a price $): https://magicul.io/converter/xd-to-figma

[thx1138]

I have my own mixed feelings on this based on similar past situations and so I'd like to remind everyone about preferences that we all know and understand well. 

If you own a pizzaria and there's an pizzaria down the road makes good pizza it doesn't mean you have to buy them out.

If you own a sandwich shop and there's a sandwich shop down the road that makes good sandwiches you don't have to buy them out.

If you own a burger joint and there's another burger joint down the road it doesn't mean you have to buy them out. 

Just because McDonalds exists, doesn't mean there's no space for Wendys or Burger King or Dairy Queen or whatever restaurant you like. not everyone has the same preferences and tastes. 

- signed Captain Obvious

[Peter Villevoye]

If you own a brand that has a lot of money but is weak in sandwiches, not popular for their burgers, and not serving good coffee, and there's a whole road full of them looking for an owner, whaddayado ? Adobe bought lots of companies to create a constellation of tools for creativity and marketing. Figma serves excellent coffee. Hopefully Adobe doesn't change that. 

[Carlisle1500]

@thx1138  AMEN!! I could see them paying 10b but 20b, right? What could justify that premium. Maybe I need to read the Figma annual report

[Earth Oliver]

W O W !
Looks like the markets aren't having any of this acquisition. Adobe stock is down 23% since the announcement

[War Unicorn]

Well...that's been true across the market, not just Adobe. Everything's taken a hit, hasn't it?

[thomashallgren]

That's not the broader market. This deal is Adobe's admission of TOTAL defeat. Maybe the market wonders, "what other parts of Adobe's solutions are not working for their customers?" 

[Carlisle1500]

@Earth Oliver  It's the cost of the deal! 5-10b not 20b...

[Earth Oliver]

@Carlisle1500 Adobe's valuation has dropped by about 23% over the past five days... much more than 22B.

[thomashallgren]

Adobe course corrects every so often, and this is an expensive course correction. Adobe needs to migrate over to Webapps with Electron shells across the board. Go!

[Peter Villevoye]

Maybe they should buy Electron, as the underlying technology for a slew of digital media. They invented and own PostScript and PDF (and succeeded very well), with Flash they tried to set up a standard against HTML (and failed). Maybe owning Figma and Electron will give them enough new inroads to to flourish as a valued supplier of foundations for digital media ?

[thomashallgren]

@Peter Villevoye Oh no! Adobe, can't buy Electron. Half of the global developer community would turn blackhat against them.  Adobe just needs to learn how to develop web-apps going forward. This is a monumental shift in philosophy for Adobe, only if they want to grow. By going web-app the updates are frequent, secure, cross-platform. Most of their entire suite needs to go webapp with Electron shell options.  

[Carlisle1500]

@thomashallgren  Tell 'em!! Electron is in everything...Visual Studio Code. Everything PWA is basically Electron. Nobody would go for clown Adobe buying Electron.

[thomashallgren]

Adobe is not a clown. Microsoft has intentions that make offering free software that align with its intnetions good business. Adobe has not figured out how to make that work for them, yet. 

[Carlisle1500]

@thomashallgren Adobe is a clown...they have deleted customers files at time and regularly steal customer data. Conspired to hold down employee salaries. Either you are new here or ignore the truth.

[thomashallgren]

@Carlisle1500 I'm relatively new here and so not familiar with any of those claims. I'm just a designer who wants to have better tools. I love some of Adobe's tools and have used them for 30+ years. But after they buy something new they don't update it for many years and create closed formats. That Figma is an open standard now is good. Adobe will likely destroy that. 

[Earth Oliver]

>the updates are frequent

sure, just like with Ps for iPad, right? L O L.

[Peter Villevoye]

Oh, I was just teasing you by stating Adobe might buy Electron. 😉 Or... was I ?Who knows.

Anyway, Adobe sure lacks development vision and/or resources to pull such an in-browser circus off. They tried and still try it with apps like Adobe Express, and there was even once an online tool called Fantastic Fold (in Electron) but they just don't get it right. So I hope that Figma will also bring in some valuable technological insight, how to get it done, properly.

[thomashallgren]

Well, it's the classic problem. Adobe could spin off a Skunkworks team. Or something. But that would usually happen with a founder or someone close to a founder. Adobe is past it's prime. Time for others to take over.

[Peter Villevoye]

I also thought Adobe would find its position as a major market player crumble down to just one of many, especially in this area.

But this Figma acquistion struck me like a tidal wave. I still don't know what to think of it, really. Do they really want to get back into this business, seriously ? Do they need Figma to fill the huge gap in their whole Creative Cloud, to retain its overall prominence and popularity ? Will they succeed in satisfying current Figma customers, and be able to come up with a good offering in the next years ? Will Figma stay ahead of others under the helm of a combined management ?

We'll have to wait and see. 

[Guest · Accepted solution]

I would like to see Adobe stopped from aquiring Figma. 
They are a monopoly. 

Adobe sits in the heart of San Jose along with Google, Facebook, Twitter and the rest. These people have no allegence to Freedom or the American way of life. Technocracy is their end game. 

[thomashallgren]

@Deleted UserFigma has the unique opportunity to convert to a public good with the community that helped it grow. We can help make that happen at Fractally. Figma's developers and private equity investors get significantly rewarded over time.

Adobe's offer proves Figma has a high independent value. It was built right - with integrity. Figma can now go PublicGood and begin replicating all of Adobe's products in the browser.

When Adobe buys products, they lock in the feature set, update little, and stagnate.

https://hive.blog/figma/@thomashallgren/figma-should-be-a-public-good-not-a-property-of-adobe

[Carlisle1500]

@thomashallgren  Explain this public good again. Maybe I missed this. First, 20b is too much for this firm. Adobe is desperate to pay this much. Why can't Figma just make themselves public? I read your post but some of the information is a white lie.

You claim everyone wants browser but Adobe's whole business has been rich client. I do believe we are at the broswer age but even now browsers still don't work together. Pages aren't very fast still. I love Firefox but I'm forced to use Chrome or Edge because Industry wants to see what I'm doing and FF doesn't allow that so they try to kill it.

[thomashallgren]

1) A Public Good, thats where the community comes together and builds things, like a lighthouse, a road, a product that's needed - like Figma. Figma should open source, and their value to the world would soar. Alternatively, Figma team could raise more in the capital markets than what Adobe is offering. If the Figma team is made up of people who want to change the world, not just jam their pockets with fat stacks, then a Public Good would send shockwaves and unite the design and developer communities.

2) I run Figma in the Electron shell app. Also run it in Brave. Inside that Electron app is a browser. It runs very fast in both cases. Much faster than XD even with very large documents.

3) Ultimately, I've never seen Adobe acquire anything like this, and all other acquisitions have led to locked features and stagnation for years, and complaints by customers of the acquired product.