I dislike Adobe as much as the next person, but I think there isn't a person on earth that wouldn't take this deal. If I had a product like Figma, I'd sell it in a microsecond for what Adobe offered.
> Like many of you, I grew up using Adobe software and it was a critical part of my personal creative journey. It is an incredible opportunity and honor to help Adobe build the next generation of creative tools. Especially in a time when AI-generated models make us question the role of human creativity, this opportunity is also a huge responsibility.
Is AI generated design really much of a thing?
That’s a very strange little comment about AI models tacked on the end. I suppose stable diffusion has been very visible lately, but for a heavily manicured corporate blog, it’s an odd touch.
I guess this means a big boost for Penpot? It might not have a full feature overlap, but I can imagine it beeing more than good enough for teams collaborating on mockups and web related graphics. Plus it is open source and can be self-hosted, so it can't really be bought up and "taken hostage" like Figma has been.
So, what's our alternatives? As others, I'm both pessimistic about the future and increasingly anti-Adobe (last thing I liked from them was non-subscription Framemaker and maybe PS 5.5).
Affinity has a suite that is pretty nice (not affiliated with them, just like the tools and didn’t want to pay a subscription for my rather occassional use).
Oh, sorry, I meant as an alternative to Figma, not the Adobe Suite itself.
But yeah, I dabbled a bit with Affinity Designer. It is quite focused on the "PageMaker" side of things, i.e. not for medium to large documents (IIRC still no support for footnotes, multi-column mode being a bit manual etc.)
Before criticizing Dylan, step in his shoes. These are $20 billion we are talking about. With his creativity, he might very well revolutionise a similar or another industry.
Let's be optimistic here. There are alternatives (Penpot) for the rest.
I don't really get why a company wants to be acquired if they're already best in their class and therefore will be raking in money for the foreseeable future. Don't they get a big payout either way?
I feel you there. Sticking around long-term may also not be sustainable for everyone.
It takes a lot of energy (to wade through the ups-and-downs) as even running a co in a "profitable" situation isn't always as rosy as one hopes it to be. There are lawsuits, internal politics, competitive drama, etc.
Cashing out allows one to regain some headspace, take care of family or address other personal matters that need attention (or have been inducing some strain) and finance the next idea that one may have had on their minds.
Furthermore, things tend to get more corporate-ish as orgs grow because more structure is needed/required and this may not fit every personality type very well, so I guess builders will do themselves a service to hop out once the train shifts into a different gear to allow folks that are better at that game to take it from there.
Just hope that Adobe doesn't end up ruining things because I feel that is usually the issue with acquisitions. The buyer just dulls things down or they actively kill to push one of their overlapping overrings.
I assume bloomberg.com will update that article now that the news is confirmed.