DOJ Preps Antitrust Suit To Block Adobe's $20 Billion Figma Deal (bloomberg.com) 21
The Justice Department is preparing an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Adobe's $20 billion acquisition of startup Figma, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: A case is expected to be filed as soon as next month, although the timing could slip, said one of the people, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss the confidential probe. The deal needs approval from several antitrust authorities and the merger agreement allows for a possible extended regulatory review with an outside completion deadline of March 2024. Adobe had a meeting with the DOJ yesterday, according to another person.
The deal also faces an antitrust review in the European Union after the bloc's antitrust watchdog said it had received requests from national regulators to look into the deal. The UK Competition and Markets Authority is reviewing the merger as well, and the three jurisdictions often coordinate on their investigations. The antitrust division, which has taken a more aggressive approach to mergers under President Joe Biden, is concerned the deal -- one of the largest takeovers of a private software maker -- would reduce options for design software used by creative professionals.
The deal also faces an antitrust review in the European Union after the bloc's antitrust watchdog said it had received requests from national regulators to look into the deal. The UK Competition and Markets Authority is reviewing the merger as well, and the three jurisdictions often coordinate on their investigations. The antitrust division, which has taken a more aggressive approach to mergers under President Joe Biden, is concerned the deal -- one of the largest takeovers of a private software maker -- would reduce options for design software used by creative professionals.
Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad to see that happening. Adobe needs all the competition it can get.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Bad! Figma is not competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is that's also grounds for antitrust, just trying to buy your way into a new market sector because you already dominate so many adjacent ones.
I think it's fine to say some companies are large and powerful enough that just about any medium to large aqusition should carry far more scrutiny.
Adobe is free and clear to invest that $20B into developing a product that covers the market areas they want to compete with Figma on. The purchase does a double whammy, they get the product and they eliminate the top competitor all at once. Of course that requires long term planning, investment in people and infrastructure as well as a steady and innovative leadership so they'd rather just throw their war chest around and all the executives and shareholders can clear some fat returns. .
Re: (Score:1)
Adobe does indeed have a rival product - Adobe XD.
It's some way back of Figma and Sketch in the market, and Figma are pulling away from everyone else.
Not sure why this was modded down. It is just a plain statement of fact. Adobe does have XD, and it is certainly used by many.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, to me that makes the point even stronger. Theyre getting outpaced by a smaller company so they are just going to throw money at it rather than invest to improve their own and compete.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you fix the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to link to a paywalled site could you at least give a small two or three sentence description of what exactly "Figma" is doing that makes Adobe want to buy it and why the DOJ is looking into it? Not knowing what "Figma" was I had to spend the past several minutes googling around to figure out that Figma is an interface design tool used by small businesses to build web apps, Adobe wants to buy it because it is a direct competitor to their Adobe XD tool and Figma is starting to eat into Adobe's existing market share.
You could have contributed to open source apps (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
90% of the people using Photoshop or Illustrator are just trying to get work done, they don't have the skill or time to "contribute" to Open Source apps.
I am not saying that supporting those apps isn't a good thing because it is but don't blame and shame the people who have a workflow and deadlines for using the best tool for their job. It's petty and dumb and makes open source projects just feel like they are run by sneering neckbeards.
The open source apps have to give them a viable alternative to switch
Re: (Score:2)
Two things GIMP could do to really increase usage are:
1) Make resynthesizer a hell of a lot easier to use, it has instead recently gotten a hell of a lot harder. It is never going to be content-aware fill, but it will do a good percentage of the jobs people commonly use that for. There is a Krita plugin for Stable Diffusion (which I haven't tried yet, because you need Krita 5, and the fastpak version is not working properly etc etc.) which is going to come along and provide that kind of functionality here p
Perfect! (Score:2)
Soon to be announced: Adobe Figments, their custom Figma clone.
Figma won't be able to benefit from the merger, but they'll suffer as Adobe swallows their market, and it won't stop Adobe from entering a space that they clearly think is worth at least $20 billion...
Hmm... (Score:2)
If startups have no hope of getting bought out by a big fish with a big cashout, what is that going to do to the incentive of starting up a startup? Not sure that this antitrust policy is so smart.
Re: (Score:2)
going to do to the incentive of starting up a startup
Maybe eliminate the mindet and culture of starting a business for the sole purpose of getting bought out by the big players?
Maybe people who do startups can do it because they love the work and have a product they really believe in and the goal should be to have a successful business that is in and of itself a success. Maybe if Figma stays independant they can continue to grow and actually compete with Adobe on some other products, with this that future possibility is effectively snuffed out.
There are no "
Figma... (Score:2)
... arse.
Adobe does have a Figma competitor (Score:1)
Adobe XD (Experience Designer) is their UI/UX tool. It started first on Mac, then about 8-12 months later they made a Windows 10 version (it supposedly required API's only found in Windows 10). The Windows version initially started out a few versions and updates behind the Mac version. There was always a features gap for awhile which was very annoying! Within about 6 months to a year, all of the features were finally on par between the Windows and Mac versions.
It's a cool program. Lots of neat features for