More Katy videos at YouTube, but congrats to Adobe, which was founded in 1982 and launched Photoshop in 1989, Premiere in 1991, and the PDF in 1993. The company will also be trying to kill Flash for the rest of human history.
The US Justice Department is preparing to investigate Adobe’s acquisition of rival creative software company Figma, with Politico reporting that the DOJ has contacted Adobe as well as Figma’s customers, competitors, and investors to determine if the transaction will hurt market competition.
The $20 billion deal caused Adobe shares to tumble in September, resulting in the worst one-day decline since 2010.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky admitted that “XD has become a pretty immaterial product for us” and that its support will be re-evaluated if the Figma acquisition goes through. Belsky thankfully also doubled down on keeping Figma a free-to-use service, even if it does spiritually replace Adobe XD: “We don’t want to fix something that’s working really well.”
Open-source design software Penpot has been gaining users ever since Adobe agreed to buy Figma for $20 billion. The company said sign-ups also jumped by 5,600 percent in a single day following the acquisition.
“Adobe is a toxic brand for designers, and now Figma is tainted,” said Penpot co-founder Ruiz-Múzquiz to CNBC.
Penpot just announced $8 million in new funding to help fuel that growth.
Forbes calls the retention package historic, with Figma CEO Dylan Field set to take home about half of the $2.3 billion earmarked as part of the acquisition by Adobe. Figma and Adobe would jointly decide what “subset of Figmates” would be entitled to the stock grants which vest in four years.
Neither Adobe nor Figma were available to speak to Forbes about the behemoth retention package, though we imagine those sharing in the riches would say “10/10, would be acquired by Adobe again.”
–Figma CEO Dylan Field, in the unenviable position of having to reflect on an old tweet.
Field tweeted last year that Figma’s goal “is to be Figma not Adobe.” Fast forward to today and... Figma is going to be part of Adobe! My colleague Jay Peters spoke with the two companies’ leaders about what the merger means for designers everywhere.
Adobe just announced that it’s buying Figma, a collaborative graphics editing tool used in digital design and prototyping. Figma has become a growing competitor to Adobe XD in recent years, providing similar UI and UX services. Adobe seems to be settling the rivalry once and for all with its wallet.
[news.adobe.com]
‘Prepare as NFT’ coming to Photoshop
