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Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This is good news! It was looking like Figma would be killed off.
If anything, Adobe XD would get the axe, not Figma. Figma is the industry leading design software for UX work. No way that would get killed.
Adobe had already announced that they were sunsetting XD with the announcement of their Figma aquisition, as Figma is much more successful and filled the same space. I guess now the question is whether they decide to reverse course and revive XD now that they won't be getting Figma
They 100% will revive it. They only removed it because they were confident to buy Figma.
But Figma would be boundeled with other Adobe tools and would be harder to access.
Adobe products can be subscribed to à la cart.
But who knows, Adobe might have left their licensing model alone. It was very successful.
And that said, Figma’s licensing is shady as fuck once you get into organizational licenses. I’d honestly prefer Adobe’s model from an enterprise perspective. Figma gives organizations free tools for years, then starts charging for them once a company has adopted them. And admins can’t block the adoption of tools they know Figma will eventually charge for.
Do you know why Adobe got so scared of it then? I though it's because Figma was easier to access and was stealing their users. If Adobe has better licensing what's the benefit of using Figma?
Adobe arguably has less shady enterprise licensing, but not better individual licensing.
That said, I would argue that the main reason Figma has become the tool of choice is because Figma was able to move quick and build out useful features faster than Sketch or Adobe. That’s what put them in the lead for UX tools.
Their bate and switch licensing shenanigans are a new thing, and something that came after they secured market dominance. The shady enterprise licensing stuff is a way to milk existing customers for more money.