DOJ Preps Antitrust Suit to Block Adobe’s $20B Figma Deal(bloomberg.com) |
DOJ Preps Antitrust Suit to Block Adobe’s $20B Figma Deal(bloomberg.com) |
T-Mobile famously got a $4B breakup fee after DOJ blocked ATT from acquiring them. That $4B was used to buy more spectrum and overhaul the brand, leading to huge growth to the point that T-Mobile is now a big 3 player (it used to be big 2 only).
If Figma wrangles $2-3B cash out of this, they could probably take down the entire adobe ecosystem.
Do you think that just $2-3B would be enough to push for developing alternatives to at least Photoshop and Illustrator and Lightroom and After Effects and successfully going after their markets? During what timeframe? Doesn’t feel like it tbh.
There are alternatives out there and Figma has a huge grip on web design among other things. Adobe has nothing good for web design. Nobody wants to use XD.
So you can see that there is already strong push away from Adobe. I don't know if Figma is going to eat Adobe's lunch in the next couple years, but they will be poised to be competitive.
My business would dump 50% of our Adobe footprint just for leverage.
Adobe has intellectual property, not innovation.
Interesting detail about the prior 2014 Softbank/Sprint bid to acquire T-Mobile:
> "It was reported that... Sprint had insisted on a low termination fee to prevent regulators from being given an incentive to block the deal, as had occurred with AT&T's failed attempt to purchase T-Mobile."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merger_of_Sprint_Corporation_a...
I think you highly underestimates how much lock-in adobe has (and intentionally pushed, e.g. by doing what they can to prevent other programs from parsing their file formats, similar to what Microsoft used to do but fortunately no longer does).
If I am not mistaken, the fact that DOJ is preparing a suit means that the deal will not go through for at least a year or more, so Adobe can delay paying. They can also, intentionally, perform poorly in court to let DOJ get an easy win and avoid paying Figma.
In my opinion, the only losing party in this story is Figma. Adobe gets a chance to back out and DOJ gets a chance at an easy win. I am surprised FTC didn't jump on this, considering they are looking for wins, after their weak lawsuit against Meta's acquisition of Within.
More likely that Figma will instead use that extra $1B to fund for an IPO to make it up for this blocked acquisition.
Market Tanks, valuations tank (to reasonable levels or perhaps still slightly inflated levels but not as crazy as before)
Generative AI brings a new threat (and new potential acquisition targets in the near future)
Adobe: How do we get out of this (now) bad deal? .....Oh wait..
DOJ: Preps anti-trust suit
... now Speculating....
Adobe doesn't really contend strongly the anti trust charge. Pays $1B or so (saves $19B for future acquisitions)
Figma......some dreams crushed, but I guess $1B is not too shabby
My biggest gripe with Figma is the fact that you can only use components from the same file, unless you're paying (and even then you have to use a team, even if you are the only member, then create a project and add the file with the components in the project, enable sharing of the components, and make sure your second file is in the same project... not exactly a seamless experience, in a UX prototyping software of all places).
Shall you decide not to pay and give up to only using components from the same file, good luck organizing it neatly, since you only get 3 pages.
(I can't reel off a list as I don't do design day to day any more but I used to and I was a fan of apps that had exactly this approach.
Just today they announced that they won't be funding SC2 esports anymore, and it is just yet another chip on their long defaced corporate image from my side of view
In what way? None of his existing businesses operate in even remotely the same market as Twitter.
I don't think was real possibility but was at least floated even it was to give something for partizans to chew on.
Consider Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, which were acquired at what proved to be bargain prices. The founders came to regret the transaction, while Mr. Zuckerberg appeared prescient.
Although it may appear to be a challenging and lengthy path for Figma to achieve the acquisition premium on its own, I am of the belief that it is a more attainable goal than it may seem.
Moreover, it is worth noting that Adobe not only has the potential to be disrupted, but it is in fact in need of it. The company has been met with widespread criticism for various reasons, and as such, it presents an opportune market for Figma to capitalize upon.
isn't the way this works as follows?
- bigtechco buys smalltechco
- merger happens for a few months, drama, layoffs, etc.
- doj sues
- judge/supremes block
i don't understand why things work like this -- seems strange.
i did read how the supremes decided a long time ago that mergers/acquisitions were always good and right as long as prices went down or stayed low-ish temporarily -- that was the fiction they created, anyways.
and what's the pre-suit meeting about.
DOJ: hey, stop this.
ADO: no.
DOJ: ok, then we filing suit.
ADO: ok.
DOJ: that's it?
ADO: yes.
DOJ: u sure? we really gonna do it..!!???
ADO: yeah, we know, thanks.I won't forgive them for all the lies that they spun with the allegorithmic acquisition
Do you have a favorite link that gives more insight on why you want it at the top?
- it's free and open source
- it can be self-hosted (for fun or because you're working on something way too secret): https://penpot.app/self-host
- its' file format is based on open standards, no vendor lock-in: https://help.penpot.app/user-guide/import-export/
Since 1967
Unless you’re asking why a small fee would hurt a small company. In that case my understanding is that acquisition talks really stall the business and defocus the company for a non trivial amount of time, not to mention that you’ve given a rival deep insights into your business that they can then use to go after you.
The US now only has three nationwide cellphone networks so there are lots of concessions that can reasonably be demanded. (They should have never allowed the number of carriers to be consolidated down to three, but that's another story).
Affinity is looking pretty attractive now too after hearing about it today.
I cut my teeth on Macromedia Fireworks and Dreamweaver but all Adobe did was run them into the ground.
Affinity Photo is a pretty good Photoshop replacement, but I'm still waiting for them to release a Lightroom replacement.
Lord knows someone needs to start eating Adobe's lunch. They've had a stranglehold for too long.
Where I work we dropped Adobe Pro because of the subscription model and switched over to FoxIT
I’m not saying Adobe’s looking at a similar collapse, but trends can be misleading.
Procreate is f**king amazing.
The combination of the 12-inch (or, in my case, Mini) iPad (with PaperLike screen protector), Pencil 2, and Procreate is awesome.
They acquired Macromedia dreamweaver back in the day and killed it. RIP to a fallen hero.
Prior to moving to Figma 100% of the time, my current agency, and prior agency, were using Sketch. Adobe products were secondary. Others in my field have reported largely the same. Most of the time people simply don't want to change what's familiar and works, regardless of how much they are paying or who they are paying.