Microsoft Employees Love Figma, and It's Testing the Company's Cozy Relationship With Adobe 51
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft and Adobe have been friendly bedfellows for decades. Microsoft's dominant PC operating system has been the gateway for Adobe to reach millions of business users with its design software. The companies' CEOs even attended the same high school in India, and both moved to the U.S. in the 1980s for graduate school in computer science. They share a common bond over the successful transition from desktop software to the cloud. But inside Microsoft, an emerging challenge to Adobe is catching fire and raising questions about the future of one of the tech industry's most intimate relationships.
Figma, a San Francisco-based startup that celebrated its 10th anniversary in August, is being used by tens of thousands of employees inside Microsoft and, for many, is at the heart of their daily work. The number of users has steadily increased in recent years, though neither company will say how many of them are editors with paid accounts. The cloud-based design software came in the door in 2016, when Microsoft acquired mobile app development platform Xamarin and brought in a 350-person team that, months after the deal closed, would become Figma power users. The product has since become so central to how Microsoft's designers do their jobs that Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research, said Figma is "like air and water for us." It's also used by engineers, marketers and data scientists across Microsoft.
For Figma, getting traction inside big companies, particularly within Microsoft, has required going head-to-head with Adobe's competing XD program, and winning its fair share of deals. That doesn't mean the market has completely flipped, or that Adobe is being fully supplanted. "We're still heavy on Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and XD," Friedman said. Adobe and Microsoft have worked together for more than two decades. In addition to Adobe gaining ubiquity by distributing across Windows machines, the two companies have been syncing their products in desktop, cloud and mobile computing, with over 50 integrations listed on Microsoft's website. Penetrating that alliance has not always been smooth for Figma.
In 2016, Microsoft acquired Sunrise, a startup with a popular calendar app. The Sunrise team relied on Figma and continued to use it after the deal closed. Sunrise co-founder Jeremy Le Van said his employees were among the lucky ones at Microsoft. He said some Microsoft staffers weren't able to use Figma because of the business relationship with Adobe and were stuck using products such as Photoshop and XD. Despite executive resistance in certain departments, some designers snuck out of the Adobe ecosystem to use Figma anyway, said Le Van, who stayed on as a design director at Microsoft until 2018.
Figma, a San Francisco-based startup that celebrated its 10th anniversary in August, is being used by tens of thousands of employees inside Microsoft and, for many, is at the heart of their daily work. The number of users has steadily increased in recent years, though neither company will say how many of them are editors with paid accounts. The cloud-based design software came in the door in 2016, when Microsoft acquired mobile app development platform Xamarin and brought in a 350-person team that, months after the deal closed, would become Figma power users. The product has since become so central to how Microsoft's designers do their jobs that Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research, said Figma is "like air and water for us." It's also used by engineers, marketers and data scientists across Microsoft.
For Figma, getting traction inside big companies, particularly within Microsoft, has required going head-to-head with Adobe's competing XD program, and winning its fair share of deals. That doesn't mean the market has completely flipped, or that Adobe is being fully supplanted. "We're still heavy on Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and XD," Friedman said. Adobe and Microsoft have worked together for more than two decades. In addition to Adobe gaining ubiquity by distributing across Windows machines, the two companies have been syncing their products in desktop, cloud and mobile computing, with over 50 integrations listed on Microsoft's website. Penetrating that alliance has not always been smooth for Figma.
In 2016, Microsoft acquired Sunrise, a startup with a popular calendar app. The Sunrise team relied on Figma and continued to use it after the deal closed. Sunrise co-founder Jeremy Le Van said his employees were among the lucky ones at Microsoft. He said some Microsoft staffers weren't able to use Figma because of the business relationship with Adobe and were stuck using products such as Photoshop and XD. Despite executive resistance in certain departments, some designers snuck out of the Adobe ecosystem to use Figma anyway, said Le Van, who stayed on as a design director at Microsoft until 2018.
apple really dropped the ball with there hardware (Score:2, Offtopic)
apple really dropped the apple really dropped the ball with there hardware over the years.
apple biggest issues are the very high disk and ram markups. The 2013 mac pro Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop did not need the dual video card setup no there needed an tower with room for disks / one video card.
I Gotta Say... (Score:3)
I've got to say that this is not a big story and I struggle to care in the least. I've never heard of Adobe XD, prior to this. And, I detest like the appification of the desktop, so it's all useless nonsense to me.
Now, if Microsoft were making a move against Acrobat, you'd have my fucking attention. A move against PhotoShop? That would indeed be BIG news.
But this story? This story can Figma ballz.
Re: (Score:3)
I went to the website and a brief guess after scrolling a ton (I hate scroll pages that change as you scroll...grrr)....it appears to be some sort of collaborative shared vector tool for drawing, but with group access?
That's what this is all about?
Re: (Score:2)
They screwed up the joke. It was supposed to be Ligma
MS employees need to grow up (Score:4)
When you work for a company, you use the tools that everyone else does. I used to work in a place that used Microsoft Office. Now I work in a place that uses Google Docs. Both have their good points and bad points but in the end it's just a tool and when you work with other people you need to all work together and not whine about using your favorite tool.
Re: (Score:2)
Adobe XD, prior to this
Wait, wait, wait, are you suggesting that XD is a product, and not a smiling dead face emoticon?!??!
Moderately confusing (Score:5, Insightful)
At first I thought it might be some document renderer, like Acrobat or the "print to PDF" utility. Then, halfway through the second paragraph, there's a mention of editing, "cloud-based design software", and "mobile app development". Still a little fuzzy.
In the third paragraph, there's a comparison between Figma and "Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and XD". The fourth paragraph talks about how some MS designers want to use Figma, but "weren't able to use Figma because of the business relationship with Adobe and were stuck using products such as Photoshop and XD". I guess this means it's for making scalable, graphical elements for GUIs or something?
So, a few hundred words later, I still don't know what Figma is, what it gets used for, and who the intended audience is. (Yes, I can search the internet, but one might expect the summary to make it clear for us poor mortals, preferably in the first sentence or paragraph.)
Re:Moderately confusing (Score:5, Interesting)
Figma and XD are for designing UIs and UI flow, producing data (including code hooks) that development platforms with GUIs can ingest to drive presentation to the user. Probably supports basically any platform, outputing to html/swift/(other native platforms?) .. also seems convertable to react/vue/etc
They fit most naturally into the mobile/web space where cross platform development savings make most sense, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also supporting being bolted onto native Windows applications .. I'm not sure about that.
Although I'm sure we've all seen windows applications that look "pretty mobile-ish", it really depends what your product is, whether it makes sense or not to develop a distinct user experience for Windows using MS specific UI - if you have one.
And it's "cloud based design software" meaning the editor runs in the browser. I can hear the groans, but at least being web client/server based, software like this tends to lend itself more towards supporting work done in teams, concurrent editing, revision tracking, etc etc. And outputting to HTML is a major use case, so the editor running in your target client platform (ie, the browser) makes a whole bunch of sense in that respect as well.
Re:Moderately confusing (Score:4, Interesting)
The way the world is going, it won't be long before everything, including the backend, databases, storage, and even the computer hardware itself, is hosted in a browser.
It will just be browsers, all the way down.
re: everything hosted in a browser (Score:2)
You might be right, but I really hope not. I still have problems at least weekly with users trying to work with browser-based applications who struggle with issues requiring clearing cache and/or cached credentials to get them to work properly again.
Ultimately, a browser is a great "all purpose graphics/text layout display tool" for visiting any of millions of possible web sites out there. But you can make a dedicated app that's going to use less system resources and be more stable and reliable. Just becau
Re: (Score:2)
The way the world is going, it won't be long before everything, including the backend, databases, storage, and even the computer hardware itself, is hosted in a browser.
It will just be browsers, all the way down.
When everything's a browser, nothing is.
Re: (Score:2)
I get that your comment is more tongue in cheek than anything, but it's a fascinating cycle to me about how we divvy up the work we make computers do and how it impacts what we perceive as "ours" and "not ours" and the notion of what we control.
The browser is today's most ubiquitous thin client platform. Browsers are rendering engines + compute engines to support whatever light logic is required to drive the view layer.
Consider Chrome OS, which is a logical outcome of this.
It makes no sense to host database
Re: (Score:2)
I've read the summary twice and am still a bit confused about what Figma is vis-a-vis Adobe.
That's because the "reporter" doesn't know either
Re: (Score:2)
As TFS makes clear, Microsofties are supposed to use Adobe XD for reasons such as connections and therefore. But many of them prefer to use Figma instead because Xamarin. That's all you are supposed to need to know -- why this insistence on knowing what it's for?!
(For a similar experience, go to HPE's web page and try to discover what HPE GreenLake is. You'll get an excess of buzzwords, but no explanation that it's everything-as-a-service, probably because they don't want to scare customers off.)
more info pls (Score:2)
not gonna read TFA... 'Figma' ?
is this somehow related to the recent 'ligma' craze the younger crowds are so fond of?
either way, get off my lawn!
Re: (Score:2)
Argh, stop it!
First I had to DDG "Figma" because the summary sucks (which is unfortunately typical). Then, thanks to you, I had to DDG "ligma" because I had no idea what that is either.
And my takeaway is that "ligma" is a "figma" of one's imagination...
Re: (Score:2)
unlike me, at least you didn't have to learn the hard way
Gabbo! (Score:2)
So much talk of Figma with no mention of what Figma is.
(I see now that it is a project design tool, but I had to web search it like a cave man!)
Re: (Score:3)
Figma is... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe "great" makes him look like a corporate shill, but the rundown on what Figma actually *does* was appreciated, since the article couldn't be bothered to tell us.
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Re: Figma is... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Whats the foss equivalent of this figma thing
nedit
Re: (Score:2)
MS-Access's niche (Score:3)
What's sorely lacking in MS's toolkit is an MS-Access-like tool that's web-based for smallish CRUD apps. MS's "Power-Platform" is supposed to be that, but doesn't cut it for many reasons. With MS-Access you could mix low code and high code depending on need, but PP doesn't offer the second. MS-Access wasn't perfect, but scratched a niche not being currently scratched.
Re: (Score:2)
Because smaller companies that get into bed with Microsoft run the risk of being eaten. Oracle/Microsoft would be a bloodbath.
Not that this wouldn't be a good thing.
Re:Took a look at "Figma" and almost vomited (Score:5, Insightful)
This "smarter-than-thou, your IQ must be at least this tall to ride my UI" attitude is why no year is the year of Linux on the desktop.
The thing that Steve Jobs understood back in the early 80s that the OSS community has yet to learn is that *user experience is extremely important*. Computer science-minded folks love to focus on algorithmic efficiency, but if you give most people in most use cases a choice between an application that performs some batch task twice as slowly, but is twice as easy to use, there's going to be no competition - everyone will choose the slower, easier to use application. Too often, FOSS apps serve exactly the opposite use case - focusing on speed performing some critical operation, but with no attention paid to making sure normal people can use the application without taking a college course or three.
Even when we open source developers get it right, we get it wrong. Ubuntu's UI, with close and cancel buttons in the top right of modals where exactly nobody expects them, etc.
When FOSS developers start putting user experience first, *then* the commercial software vendors will have to step up their game to real competition. For now, it's a stagnant competition where everyone's choices are dictated by whether they'd prefer ease of use or technical features.
Re:Took a look at "Figma" and almost vomited (Score:4, Insightful)
However, there is a trend in the world today to make everything "easier". As a base state, people are stupid and lazy, so let's give them a tool that does your whole job.
So that's how we got all these web "frameworks" (google "best web framework" to go down that rabbit hole). There's dozens if not more....BUT what happens from there is that way more people can do XYZ but everything they produce looks like it came from the same designer. So every dummy downloads X (XD? Figma?) and ooooohhhh look, I made a thing fly across the screen, just like every website you've been to lately. Looks good when you show it to the boss. This isn't new, we all remember Powerpoint. (speaking of vomiting)
The eternal question: Why do we need ______? Because more people can get more work done with less actual knowledge. So employers save money... just get a high school student to do it for 10/hour. Eventually, it just becomes a battle of which framework is more popular, and it's a race to the bottom.
The internet proves it's just easier to steal ideas than it is to come up with them, but the corollary is that for the average lazy dummy, you can just buy glitzy conformity that everyone recognizes as "professional". Even at $50/month for Adobe Shitshow, that's pretty cheap to not have to think or be creative. Ironic that it's called "Creative Suite"?
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, Gronk like banging rocks together.
I can't remember who said it but it went something like this "Windows is easy to learn, but hard to use. Unix is hard to learn, but easy to use." I believe there are always trade offs and no interface is a panacea. I wouldn't want to do digital painting with a command line tool, but I wouldn't want to do systems programming with Figma/XD, either.
Re: (Score:2)
The eternal question: Why do we need ______? Because more people can get more work done with less actual knowledge.
Indeed, the whole reason why we have computers, right?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This "smarter-than-thou, your IQ must be at least this tall to ride my UI" attitude is why no year is the year of Linux on the desktop.
Linux has been my, and my non-techy wife's desktop for twenty years now. Maybe you're doing it wrong?
The thing that Steve Jobs understood back in the early 80s that the OSS community has yet to learn is that *user experience is extremely important*.
Great. Pity he didn't do anything about it on the desktop.
Even when we open source developers get it right, we get it wrong. Ubuntu's UI, with close and cancel buttons in the top right of modals where exactly nobody expects them, etc.
The problem is not the side they're on (WTF does that matter?) but that close and minimise are together, which is such an obvious design blunder that you would think that, say, Steve Jobs wouldn't have made the same mistake. Yet, there we have it on every Mac.
Luckily those idiots in FOSS design let you customise this and I have close in the top-left c
do i have someone to blame now? (Score:2)
Can I blame XD and Figma for the horrible, flat, no hints, so seamless i can't tell the difference between labels, text and UI elements, shit UI that has taken over the mobile space and is moving much too quickly into the desktop ?
or do i just have to keep yelling at clouds ?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not even going to pause yelling at clouds long enough to answer that.
Inconceivable! (Score:3)
Figma, a San Francisco-based startup that celebrated its 10th anniversary in August
"You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means." If you've been in business for a fucking decade, you're not a startup.
Re: (Score:2)
... If you've been in business for a fucking decade, you're not a startup.
That depends. If you:
-- have been in business for a decade
-- almost nobody has ever heard of you
-- were burning investment faster than generating revenue
-- required acquisition by a big company in order to save your sorry ass
Then arguably, you're a startup!
Top Tier Slashvertisement (Score:1)
The purpose of this article seems to be making you aware that Figma exists, and curious to try it.
Not surprised Adobe makes Figma (Score:2)