The grievance adobe, I bought a web application when spent 20 billion

Unexpectedly, ADOBE, who has always been stubborn, actually spent 20 billion US dollars (about 141.3 billion yuan) at once, bought Figma, and became the largest acquisition in the company's history.

How big is it?

According to public data, there are 56 acquisitions in Adobe history, of which 16 have disclosed the amount of acquisition. The money spent on Figma added more than $ 200 million than the other 15 companies. Not only that, Adobe also paid the price of US $ 30 billion in market value.

It is worth mentioning that Adobe's revenue in 2021 was $ 15.785 billion. In other words, Adobe's annual revenue is not enough to buy a Figma. From the perspective of outsiders, Adobe has a kind of energy that breaks the boat this time, leading to a decline of more than 20%of its stock price.

So, what makes Adobe buy FIGMA at the expense of such a big blood?

01

Adobe see Figma

Many people heard that Figma for the first time may start with this "sky -high" acquisition. Prior to this, Figma was only popular in the designer circle, and its popularity was far less popular than Photoshop.

However, Figma, which was officially launched in 2016, was sweeping the design community at a speed of "crazy wind and rain". The valuation of 20 billion US dollars in 2020 and a valuation of $ 10 billion in 2021. On the design tool selection website UX Tools, Figma has won five classified champions including UI design, prototype, Handoff, design system, and even versions.

In the fans, Figma is known as the "next -generation design artifact" and is one of the "most revolutionary" graphics editing applications. In one sentence, the future of the design circle belongs to Figma.

Figma's success is inseparable from two core insights: universal and synergy.

The traditional design process first needs to download the design software to the computer and install it. When teamwork and delivery to Party A's works, each time you need to save the file to the local area, and then send it to the other party. Every time it is stored is careful, and I dare not restart the computer easily after stuck. If the software is not installed on the other computer, you must first export into a picture or PDF format. It can be said that a small computer has held the lifeblood of the project.

Figma is completely opposite. It is a completely browser -based application. There is no need to download and install, and all operating systems. Whether it is Windows, MacOS, Linux, you can operate directly when you open the browser.

All projects are stored in the cloud, and you can also view it anytime, anywhere on your mobile phone. When needed, throw the shared link directly.

Another popular feature of Figma is online collaboration.

We must understand that the design is only part of the designer's work content. During the entire product design process, the designer needs to communicate frequently with the product manager/project manager (PM), developer, Party A and other demanders, and repeatedly modify and adjust the work. This process is often very headache. Designers have to carefully mark the details of the font, font size, high, jump special effects and other details on the design drawing, and then open the software, modify the files, and click to save it. "Change) ..." It passed to the version of the control server and notified relevant personnel to review and wait for new opinions.

Tedication and waste of time.

In Figma, PM can give comments and developers in real time, developers can directly view and copy the code of design elements. Designers can immediately change new needs, and the effect can come out at the time. A project can invite up to 500 people at most, support up to 200 people at the same time. The 200 mouse moved on the screen, and it was very exciting to think about it.

Microsoft, Twitter, GitHub, Google, Airbnb, Uber ... These well -known foreign companies are also well received by Figma. Not only are they really in use, but they also develop plug -in for Figma.

However, in the fans, Figma is known as the "next -generation design artifact" and is one of the "most revolutionary" graphics editing applications. In one sentence, the future of the design circle belongs to Figma.

Obviously, Adobe, which already has many design tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign, is agreed with the above perspectives. It is not just the Figma product, but also the "future" represented by Figma.

02

Acquisition Figma at high prices, both helpless and inevitable

The Adobe of the design world almost monopolized, but its position in the design world is constantly challenging.

In 2016, on the list of the UX Tools website, Sketch surpassed Photoshop to become the most popular design tool for designers.

The volume of the Sketch installation package is only 4%of Photoshop, which provides a $ 99 option for one -time buying, and the buyout version can be used all the time. If you don't spend money, you want to use Photoshop, even if the subscribed price paid is $ 239.88.

In order to cope with the challenge of the rising show, ADOBE launched XD in 2016. After several years of development, the market share is now only 35%of Sketch. Because I couldn't see the improvement, Adobe was obviously insufficient when promoting XD. On its official website, XD said that XD was "the best alternative to Sketch". Sketch responded directly on the official website: I will tell you why the designer chose Sketch without adobe XD.

Figma is even better. Not only do you need to download and install, but even provide basic functions for free, only charge professional users and business users. Analysts predict that Figma's revenue in 2022 will reach $ 400 million, and some of the revenue directly grabbed Adobe's business. Even because of historical reasons, many companies are still buying ADOBE products, but because they are not used, they have purchased Figma.

It can be seen that the acquisition of Figma for adobe is a helpless choice. But behind the helplessness, there is also its inevitability.

In 2013, ADOBE ushered in the largest business adjustment in history, announced that it has completely abandoned the Creative Suite kit that has been sold for 10 years and has a top growth, and began to fully turn to the cloud subscription system, which caused great controversy at the time.

Most people think that ADOBE is too risky, and the most savvy analyst in Wall Street also believes that the result of this is only to further squeeze Adobe's existing 13 million customers. However, ten years later, Adobe Create Cloud users doubled more than double.

Adobe's transformation is also regarded as a "textbook" as an enterprise transformation.

However, although the service is placed in the cloud, users still need to download bloated software to the computer to use. At this time, Figma appeared.

Figma's starting line is farther than Adobe. The initial concept of the founder and CEO Dylan Field is to make a completely running cloud design software. In the 2012 chat with an investor, Field talked about the WebGL technology that had just emerged at the time.

WebGL implemented the functions of 2D and 3D graphics in the browser, and at that time, only 20 years old FIELD determined that it was time to make the design software migrate from local computers to the cloud.

Compared to the transformation of ADOBE, the concept of Figma is more advanced. Even the most forward -looking investors at the time were a bit drumming. After all, the browser opened a multi -point tab computer fan at that time. Add the graphic design of this energy -consuming beast.

However, ten years later, Figma's success was also proved.

Obviously, the acquisition of Figma has become another gambling in Adobe history. Similar experiences, similar concepts, and complementary abilities, Figma has become the best successor of Adobe.

However, Figma has been ashore, but Adobe is laid off.

03

Three problems facing Adobe

Although Adobe has repeatedly emphasized the optimistic expectations for the acquisition, there are two questions that need to give ADOBE to the answer.

The first question comes from the capital market. Investors are concerned about whether this transformation is too risky compared to ten years ago? With Adobe plus Figma's current profitability, this is more than buying and selling.

The second question comes from users, that is, adobe food and clothing parents. The user cares about that Figma has been acquired, can they still maintain their current reputation in the future? And this is the key to the first question answer.

Unlike the attitude of both buyers and sellers, the designer group's attitude towards the acquisition can be described as "hate" and "sorrow". A radical users shouted "Figma is dead!" In the Figma Community Forum, "Figma is dead!" Even Adobe's employees felt "disgusting" and resigned angrily.

Most of the designers are worried that Figma, which has been collected by ADOBE, will be reduced to one part of another Adobe family bucket.

In the eyes of users, Figma and Adobe are exactly two extremes: Figma light spirit, Adobe bloated; Figma trendy, Adobe ancient board; Figma is close to the people, Adobe is arrogant; Figma is popular, Adobe can only be angry.

Designer Xiao Fu said that he was worried that Figma would not only use it for free in the future, but may even introduce a series of paid strategies. In his opinion, this is Adobe's "heir family".

Regardless of how Adobe submits a test paper in the future, Figma is also facing a problem other than business. Due to the existence of the US sanctions list, in March 2022, Figma announced the ban on Chinese enterprise users, and large manufacturers such as DJI and Huawei were disconnected. Immediately afterwards, China's local competitors announced that they supported the introduction of Figma files.

At present, disconnecting Chinese companies does not have a substantial impact. Figma also made it clear that "temporarily" banned the access permissions of the account, and all the files under the account were retained. However, the US sanctions list is not eliminated a day, and this issue will become a sword hanging on Chinese companies and Figma heads.

It can be said that the disconnection of Figma has not received any benefits, and it also gives Chinese local competitors a rare room for development. ▲ Picture: From IT Orange

The "Blue Lake", which was highly hoped by Sequoia Capital, has received 5 rounds of financing of nearly 2 billion yuan, becoming the most financing Figma Chinese competition. In addition, Blue Lake also launched a coordinated product design tool MasterGo in 2018. Lanhu said that its core users are designers, so products pay more attention to the beauty of interface and interaction, and believe in "face value is justice."

Gao Ying Venture Capital, Lanchi Venture Capital, SIG Hainan Asia, and Source Capital have bet on the younger product "instant design". The founding team said that the positioning of the instant design is not the Chinese version of Figma, "but an independent product that is not inferior to Figma."

Wanxing Technology, which mainly provides consumer software, intelligent hardware, and Internet of Things home security solutions. After acquiring the old domestic online prototype production platform ink knife in 2020, in 2021, the online design collaboration platform "PIXSO" was incubated within 2021. , Recently, it has just received a financing of nearly 100 million yuan.

Although it is called "Figma's apprentice" by the media, the same type of software in the same type obviously does not want to be labeled "Figma's domestic replacement". Whether it is to emphasize the designer's adjustment or the attributes of product manager, it can be seen that each team is trying to create a differentiated characteristics, hoping to find a path that is more suitable for Chinese users and its own development.

Figma represents the direction of the future design platform, which is the vitality and cohesion driven by openness, clouds, and good community atmosphere. If China wants not to leave the team in the future, it also needs to develop similar products that are sufficient to compete with Figma.

Since Figma is ahead, Chinese developers are going to cheer.

Author ｜ Wu Di

Edit ｜ Hu Zhanjia

Operation ｜ Chen Jiahui

Produced ｜ Zero -state LT (ID: lingtai_lt)

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