All the buyouts Slate/Plugin Alliance etc

[Robmobius]

I have seen a few situations (in other ranges of products) where a company was acquired just to destroy it and reduce competition. Who knows...

Exactly, you'd never know what goes on behind the scenes.

[plexuss]

In my professional career as a digital designer we finally got a software design tool which gave us the features we needed - Figma. Most design teams I know of switch to Figma from whatever they were using. In the last month Adobe bought Figma for $20B or something crazy like that. Now, pretty much the whole design community is expecting either Adobe will "kill" Figma, poorly integrated it into their tools or otherwise wreck it for us. Such is the world of software tools...

And like the music tool community, the design community is freaking out in their respective forums too!

[chk071]

In my professional career as a digital designer we finally got a software design tool which gave us the features we needed - Figma. Most design teams I know of switch to Figma from whatever they were using. In the last month Adobe bought Figma for $20B or something crazy like that. Now, pretty much the whole design community is expecting either Adobe will "kill" Figma, poorly integrated it into their tools or otherwise wreck it for us. Such is the world of software tools...

The important thing is what they actually do, not what people expect them to do with it.

People expected Studio One to become a fully fledged guitar DAW (whatever that is), when Fender bought Presonus. I think it's safe to say now that that was complete bullcrap (as I expected).

Lots of angst in that regard these days. With no factual base.

[plexuss]

In my professional career as a digital designer we finally got a software design tool which gave us the features we needed - Figma. Most design teams I know of switch to Figma from whatever they were using. In the last month Adobe bought Figma for $20B or something crazy like that. Now, pretty much the whole design community is expecting either Adobe will "kill" Figma, poorly integrated it into their tools or otherwise wreck it for us. Such is the world of software tools...

The important thing is what they actually do, not what people expect them to do with it.

People expected Studio One to become a fully fledged guitar DAW (whatever that is), when Fender bought Presonus. I think it's safe to say now that that was complete bullcrap (as I expected).

Lots of angst in that regard these days. With no factual base.

In the case of Adobe/Figma the concern is because of the poor track record of Adobe to maintain good design tools - Adobe usually screws them up and charges top dollar. Hopefully it works out but based on Adobe's track record, we are expecting to be disappointed.

[chk071]

Hmm.. well they surely have a good track record with their image editing, and PDF tools. In regards of the whole industry using them, kinda.

I don't know about the specific software you're talking about, of course.

[plexuss]

Hmm.. well they surely have a good track record with their image editing, and PDF tools. In regards of the whole industry using them, kinda.

I don't know about the specific software you're talking about, of course.

One thing Adobe did that is atagonistic to it's users is (might sound familiar) stop selling perpetual licenses and went sub only, in 2013. In fact they were one of the first companies I saw do this, years ago. That's when I, and many other designers, moved away from using Adobe. Up to that point Adobe been a main toolset I paid for and used. The subscription costs about $85CAD ($63USD)/month. Like music software unless you are making money with it, it's 100% pure expense and often can't be justified. It wasnt for me and so I dropped Adobe after 25 years as a customer.

Talking about acquisitions, another thing Adobe did was buy their competitor Macromedia in 2005 and proptly destroy Macromedia's tools which were a main-stay in CDROM and online animation work back then.

So, yes, an acquisition is not always a good thing and you wont find out until you find out...

[chk071]

Their subscriptions are very expensive, and, for my uses, I'd never go that way. But, people choose their software for a reason. I never used a better PDF Reader than Acrobat, and, Photoshop Elements that I own (perpetual license) is light years ahead of anything else I tried, also payware like Affinity or Corel Paintshop.

I know that people like to complain a lot when the software is expensive (me included), also with Microsoft Office, or 3DMax, but, in the end, those are tools which are picked for a reason. There's nothing better than MS Office either, I tried them all.

[plexuss]

Their subscriptions are very expensive, and, for my uses, I'd never go that way. But, people choose their software for a reason. I never used a better PDF Reader than Acrobat, and, Photoshop Elements that I own (perpetual license) is light years ahead of anything else I tried, also payware like Affinity or Corel Paintshop.

I know that people like to complain a lot when the software is expensive (me included), also with Microsoft Office, or 3DMax, but, in the end, those are tools which are picked for a reason. There's nothing better than MS Office either, I tried them all.

Well in terms of design software as I mentioned Figma is the leading edge. Then Sketch. Adobe's offering in this regard XD sucks and is too expensive. Most Figma users are expecting Adobe to wreck Figma. That is the essence of my message.

[chk071]

Their subscriptions are very expensive, and, for my uses, I'd never go that way. But, people choose their software for a reason. I never used a better PDF Reader than Acrobat, and, Photoshop Elements that I own (perpetual license) is light years ahead of anything else I tried, also payware like Affinity or Corel Paintshop.

I know that people like to complain a lot when the software is expensive (me included), also with Microsoft Office, or 3DMax, but, in the end, those are tools which are picked for a reason. There's nothing better than MS Office either, I tried them all.

Well in terms of design software as I mentioned Figma is the leading edge. Then Sketch. Adobe's offering in this regard XD sucks and is too expensive.

Probably a good move to acquire Figma then.

Most Figma users are expecting Adobe to wreck Figma. That is the essence of my message.

The essence of my message is that I rather wait and see, before speculating. If they don't sack 90% of the original staff, then maybe there isn't anything to be afraid of.

[chk071]

Funnily, I know two people who use XD for GUI design.

[sjm]

There was quite an interesting Guardian article on the Figma acquistion:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -land-grab

[masterhiggins]

Well... at the very least it's not a sign of a business running badly, because, I surely wouldn't want to buy into something which doesn't create profit, unless I want to buy something really cheap, with hopes go get it running well again.

Or you want to buy out and cease competition. Or whatever.

I never would’ve assumed any of that. In one example, I’d want to buy a struggling company with a product I see unrealized potential in. They may suck at marketing it or managing the development. If they’re struggling they’d be more incentivized to sell it at a relatively low price. If they’re doing exceptionally well they’d probably have other offers driving the price up. Of course that’s just one reason. To anticipate a venture capitalist you need to think like one.

[vurt]

there's many reasons people will invest, from looking to profit, shutting down competition, tax write off or even vanity projects. there's probably many more too, once you have lots of money, sometimes it is even just for the gamble.

some investors are ruthless arseholes, others are folk who want to help others achieve bigger market shares...

like any other profession, it takes all sorts...

[eBlue]

Their subscriptions are very expensive, and, for my uses, I'd never go that way. But, people choose their software for a reason. I never used a better PDF Reader than Acrobat, and, Photoshop Elements that I own (perpetual license) is light years ahead of anything else I tried, also payware like Affinity or Corel Paintshop.

I know that people like to complain a lot when the software is expensive (me included), also with Microsoft Office, or 3DMax, but, in the end, those are tools which are picked for a reason. There's nothing better than MS Office either, I tried them all.

A lot of people don't realize the trick to Adobe subscriptions, you have to negotiate the price of the subscription every year when it comes up for renewal. I first signed up for the Everything Bundle as a student for $20 a month. When I finished school, they tried to raise my monthly costs to $50 a month which is their normal advertised price. When I went to cancel, they asked if I would be willing to pay $30 a month which I thought was fair.

Now every 12 months they try to raise it back up to $50 and I go to cancel and they give it to me for $30 a month again.

[chk071]

Interesting. Not sure if that's a bad or a good thing though.