Adobe has announced that it’s acquiring Figma, a popular design platform, for around $20 billion in cash and stock. After rumors surfaced early on Thursday about a potential acquisition, Adobe made it official in a press release shortly afterward. It’s big news in the design and development world, particularly as Figma has been competing heavily with Adobe’s XD products in recent years.
I had never heard of Figma before, but it seems it’s actually quite popular – for example, Microsoft uses it to design Office and Windows. This seems like a big catch for Adobe, but a competitor less, too, and that’s not exactly great for the market.
If Macromedia was any indication, this likely means the end of Figma.
Rather the opposite: Adobe have put their Figma-competitor XD in maintanence mode (won’t get any new features, etc…). Seems like Figma will become the main UX design tool at Adobe.
EDIT: I suppose your point somewhat still stands as this means Adobe XD will have share the ill fate of Fireworks. One less player in the UX design space.
Honestly I think Figma is a good fit for Adobe. They seem to make tradeoffs that mirrors the same thinking Adobe has. Prioritise multiplatform and service. Personally I’ve always preffered Sketch as it’s a native (and well performing) Mac app, in contrast to Figma which is an web/electron app.
This could go either way.
Adobe currently has two different business models. One of them is the “creative cloud” with a monthly subscription. And the other is the new “freemium” express ecosystem.
For example: https://www.adobe.com/express/discover/templates
If they roll Figma into the older ecosystem, yes, it will be like all other Adobe acquisitions.
If they merge Figma with their current online first offerings, it is a sign of significant change.
“for example, Microsoft uses it to design Office and Windows. ”
Is this the reason why Windows and Office look like crap?
I’m a frontend developer (react.js) and have been given designs in Figma for the past few years now. It’s a great tool, especially if designers understand a bit of web dev and use colour variables and so on.