Inspiring

Answered

Figma Question

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 15, 2022
21 replies
42288 views

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

See attached

Adobe_to_Buy_Collaboration-Software_Company_Figma_for_About_$20_Billion_-_WSJ.pdf

Correct answer ProDesignTools

@Chris W. Griffith Can you post the link to the Bloomberg announcement? I want to hear about the XD development. In hindsight, Adobe was never going to get Figma. Microsoft will probably buy them now after AI peaks. This is a strategic asset and it's potential is too big for Adobe. All Adobe would do is add it to CC and jack up the prices quarterly...

Adobe Ends XD Effort After Figma Deal Fell Apart – Bloomberg News [paywall]

Chris W. Griffith

Community Expert

Oh, the deal is quite dead. The termination was recently annouced. Adobe via a spokesperson to bloomberg.com also stated work on XD has stopped as well.

C

Carlisle1500Author

Inspiring

@Chris W. Griffith Can you post the link to the Bloomberg announcement? I want to hear about the XD development. In hindsight, Adobe was never going to get Figma. Microsoft will probably buy them now after AI peaks. This is a strategic asset and it's potential is too big for Adobe. All Adobe would do is add it to CC and jack up the prices quarterly...

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

Short answer - you are right. Figma is the app for UX designers to use today.

@thomashallgren

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

XD is an excellent program and the development team was stellar. Unfortunately Adobe has a bias towrd building desktop applications. And that proved to be the downfall of XD. Adobe had to stop development of the Mac version to make a Windows compatible version. That cleared the path for Figma to iterate at an exponential rate. Had Adobe developed a web version of XD, it would likely have owned the UX landscape. Maybe Adobe will do that in the future. Given they were about to spend $20B on Figma, they would redouble that same investment to migrate all their applications to browser version. Lets hope!

@thomashallgren

A

addicted2type

New Participant

Not sure what will happen with XD but if you look at the Adobe Complete Product page Adobe XD is missing from there as well as the Adobe XD landing page, they may support it for a bit but looks like Figma or some new Hybrid will take over. If Figma replaces XD I hope its put on the Creative Cloud so I don't have to get another damn subscription to something.

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

If part of CC, then I can save money. What about non-designer access?

@thomashallgren

T

Thrasos

New Participant

Hello ! I leearnec that Figma has been acquired by Abobe. To download Figma how do I proceed ? Is it present on the adobe suite or do I have to buy it via the usual platform ?

ProDesignTools

Community Expert

Adobe has announced the intent to acquire Figma, but this has not happened yet and the process will take months for the deal to close:

"The transaction is expected to close in 2023, subject to the receipt of required regulatory clearances and approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions, including the approval of Figma’s stockholders."

https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acquire-Figma/default.aspx

So in the meatime, those who wish to use Figma should proceed as before; there are no changes at this time and the product is not (yet) available from Adobe.

T

Thrasos

New Participant

Thank you very much for all these precisions

HARSHIKA_VERMA

Community Manager

Hi All,

We apologize for the delay in response and thank you for your observations.

What’s the plan for XD? Will Figma become part of XD, or will XD be EOL?

We will continue to serve our existing Adobe XD customers. Post close, we look forward to engaging with the XD and Figma communities to understand ways we could add value. Key info: adobe.ly/3BEzZ2n

Thanks,

Harshika

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

Thanks. We already know what will happen. Community in tears.

@thomashallgren

A

Anonymous

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.

Peter Villevoye

Community Expert

Don't be ridiculous. Adobe is not a monopoly. There are hundreds of companies competing with them in many areas. They're dominant in print and imaging, strong in audio/video, just starting in 3D, but especially in web and app design they were just a small market player between dozens of other tools (hence the acquisition).

C

Carlisle1500Author

Inspiring

Well, the landscape isn't so monotonuos at all !

In the print area, no one actually really tries or cares...

Canva shaves off the less professional users, and Affinity only caters for customers who don't like subscription models. Both have succeeded in partly mimicking and partly simplifying the interface and workflow, but Adobe retains its dominant position for professional in this area.

In imaging, Photoshop and Illustrator are dominant.

There have been various others, from Cricket Draw and Corel Draw to FreeHand and Inkscape, from PaintShop and Pixelmator to GIMP, Affinity and ProCreate. Some gain traction, some remain amateuristic. So Adobe stays in charge, keeps it up by constant moving around, with spin-offs (Lightroom, Elements, etc.) and dozens of mobile apps and services (of which I don't keep track anymore...)

In video, there have always been a couple of strong market players.

In the early decades there were Adobe, and Avid, and a lot of specialized systems. Then Apple entered this area, with Final Cut and some other tools. Now, Davinci is also making waves. So Adobe continuously needs to stay in shape and be alert for what competitors come up with.

In music, Adobe never really wanted to played a serious role.

In 3D, they only just started, by concocting a 3D bundle of tools.

Earlier attempts (3D in Photoshop) were a laugh, 3D in After Effects is actually 2D planes and simple shapes with perspective, and recent apps (3D in Illustrator and Dimension) are low profile. While other popular 3D tools like Maya, Blender, and Cinema4D have been soaring.

In digital (web and app) design, their role has been varying.

In the early days, they now and then suprised users with alternating (mostly acquired) tools, like PageMill, GoLive, LiveMotion, ImageReady, DreamWeaver, FireWorks, Edge Animate, Muse, and last but not least Flash. They tried things with digital publishing but left the "creative" area and went overboard with their Experience Cloud for marketing and analytics. But creatively nothing lasted, not even XD, I'm afraid...

So you might have the impression that Adobe is a monopoly, but they're defeinitely not. At best, they're dominant in some areas, but even that comes not naturally to them. They have to stay on it, constantly !

@Peter Villevoye The "Bundle" is the monopoly tool. Microsoft did it to IBM and now Adobe is doing it to the creatives. Substance & Base Creative cloud are unmatched.

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

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!

@thomashallgren

Peter Villevoye

Community Expert

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 ?

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

@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.

@thomashallgren

Earth Oliver

Brainiac

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

War Unicorn

Community Expert

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

T

thomhallgren

Inspiring

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?"

@thomashallgren

T

thx1138

Inspiring

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

Community Expert

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.

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded