Tag Archives: Figma

Adobe drops support for Figma, Apple Watch sales paused, millions of accounts breached by hackers

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Welcome everyone to Week in Review (WiR). This is TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the top tech and tech-related stories from the past few days. With the holidays approaching, reporters expected a quiet week. But the opposite happened. I have no shortage of stories to write.

In this WiR, we learn that Comcast and Mr. Cooper’s customer data was stolen, electric scooter company Bird files for bankruptcy, Adobe ends its plan to acquire Figma, and Apple The report deals with the fact that the company is being forced to suspend sales by the International Trade Commission (ITC). apple watch. Also: Nikola founder Trevor Milton’s securities fraud conviction, Microsoft’s chatbot CoPilot now adding music-generating capabilities, and Consumer Reports’ impressions of Tesla’s Autopilot recall fix (spoiler: good news) We also highlight the

There are many things we need to overcome, so let’s do our best. But before that, if you haven’t already, here’s a reminder to subscribe here so you can receive his WiR in your inbox every Saturday.

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Hackers target Comcast: Comcast has confirmed that hackers who exploited a security vulnerability rated critical gained access to sensitive information of approximately 36 million Xfinity customers. The vulnerability, known as “CitrixBleed,” was discovered in Citrix networking devices commonly used by large enterprises and has been heavily exploited by malicious actors since August, Carly reports.

Mr. Cooper under fire: In related news, hackers stole sensitive personal information of more than 14.6 million of Cooper’s customers, Zack wrote. The mortgage and loan giant admitted that criminals stole customers’ names, addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers, as well as social security numbers and bank account numbers.

Adobe gives up: Adobe finally makes a huge $20 billion bid to acquire rival Figma officially dead This comes after the companies announced this week that their acquisition plans had been scrapped due to regulatory resistance in Europe. The deal, first announced last September, has always attracted regulatory scrutiny due to its size and the fact that it removed one of Adobe’s major rivals from the shadows. Paul points out.

Apple stops selling Apple Watch: Apple has stopped selling its Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches following an October ruling by the ITC over a patent dispute with California-based medical technology company Masimo. The controversy revolves around the blood sensor monitor in the latest flagship Apple Watch. Apple is appealing the ITC’s ruling.

Nikola’s founder declared: Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder and former CEO of electric truck startup Nikola, was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for securities fraud. Rebecca wrote that the ruling ended a years-long saga in which Nikola’s stock soared as much as 83% at one point, only to plummet months later amid fraud charges and contract cancellations.

The co-pilot learns the composition skill. Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, can now compose songs through integration with generative AI (GenAI) music app Suno. Users can enter prompts into Copilot, such as “Create a pop song about my adventures with my family,” and have her Suno bring their musical ideas to life through the plugin.

Tesla fixes ‘inadequate’: After the test, consumer report He said Tesla’s fixes for the Autopilot recall of more than 2 million vehicles were “insufficient.” Sean noted that while the test is not comprehensive, it shows that questions remain about Tesla’s approach to driver monitoring, the technology at the heart of the recall.

Bird files for bankruptcy: bird Submitted Under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Code, capping off a turbulent year for the electric scooter company.in press releaseBird confirmed it had entered a “financial restructuring process aimed at strengthening its balance sheet” and said the company was continuing business as usual with the aim of “long-term, sustainable growth.”

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Want a listening ear as you prepare your holiday dishes? You’re in luck — TechCrunch’s podcasts are just the ticket.

this week’s capitalthe second in a two-part series looking back at 2023, in which our staff recapped the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the long and tedious trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried, and the wild office politics of OpenAI .

meanwhile, found We focused on Charlie Hernandez and his journey building My Pocket Lawyer, an online platform aimed at giving people who can’t afford a lawyer democratic access to legal advice and guidance . Hernandez talked about why he decided to use his law degree to tackle this issue.

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TC+ subscribers have access to in-depth commentary, analysis, and surveys. You probably know these if you’re already a subscriber. If not, please consider signing up. Here are some highlights from this week.

Etsy headcount reductions: Etsy recently announced it would lay off 11% of its workforce, which comes as no surprise to those who follow the e-commerce space closely, Anna writes. She predicts that “junkification” and fierce competition will chart a difficult future.

DEI backlash: Dom writes about the dispiriting backlash against DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), a framework for creating more conscious workplace efforts to support marginalized communities in the tech sector. I am.

Figma’s rosy outlook: Anna writes that things don’t seem too bad for Figma even without Adobe. CB Insights estimates that the startup’s value is still between $8.3 billion and $9 billion.

Source: techcrunch.com

Adobe left with a big gap as $20 billion Figma deal falls through

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Adobe and Figma ended their $20 billion takeover dream this morning after regulators signaled tough times ahead. Figma still receives a $1 billion stipend as part of the deal, and as co-design lead, he should stand up well.

But it could be a different story for Adobe. They knew that the product they offered to compete with this company, XD, was not very strong, and they really wanted this company. They sought to use their corporate influence to seize advantageous aspects of their core creator businesses by acquiring market leaders.

But ultimately, the regulatory hurdles proved too much for them, and after more than a year of back and forth in regulatory meetings, both companies realized it wasn’t going to happen and decided to exit. decided.

Adobe put on a brave face their official statement, but I can’t help but be deeply disappointed with this result. “Adobe and Figma have shared a vision to jointly redefine the future of creativity and productivity, and we continue to leverage the huge market opportunity and mission to change the world through personalized digital experiences. We remain in a good position to do so.”

It’s not clear that Adobe could be in such a strong position without Figma, but it’s certainly true that Adobe is willing to pay a hefty price to have it under its wing. They were never able to convince regulators that this was not a blatant power grab by wealthy corporations to use their economic clout to take over the market.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s chief executive officer for competition, has made it clear that she believes this is just such an attempt. her official statement. “By merging these two companies, the proposed acquisition would end all current and stop all future competition between the two companies. Our thorough investigation shows that this We found that this could lead to higher prices, lower quality, or less choice for customers.”

Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, says this is a major setback for Adobe, forcing it to return to its design collaboration tool, XD. “Adobe realized that in a world of Generative AI, the value is not in content creation, but in coordinating the work of content. This deal takes Adobe back two years and expands the reach of this important market. “This will give us an incentive to revamp XD to cover this,” he said.

Adobe General Counsel Dana Rao told TechCrunch in October that the company has largely dismantled its XD team and is fully committed to meeting its product needs with Figma. “We tried to get in there [collaborative design] I used XD but it failed. We abandoned the product. Basically, our annual revenue never exceeded $15 million to $17 million. “I think he’s down to five full-time employees, but they continue to work according to their contractual requirements,” he said. “So if we’re going to get into the product design space, for us it’s going to be acquiring Figma,” he said at the time.

On the plus side, the company now has a lot of cash on hand that it wouldn’t have had had the deal gone through, and it could probably put it to better use in a post-generation AI world. Brent Leary says. Co-founder and Partner of CRM Essentials. “This deal was announced before ChatGPT, and the world has changed dramatically since then. And this could mean that Adobe could take back his $20 billion and adjust and shape the content creation process post-ChatGPT.” It might actually work better because of its gender,” he said.

Wang said the company may also consider acquiring other collaboration startups such as Milo, web flow or invision, which raised $476 million, $335 million, and $356 million, respectively (according to Crunchbase data). None of this would make him a perfect successor to Figma, but perhaps he could give the company a head start in the collaboration space without the kind of scrutiny it received in the Figma acquisition attempt. Sho.

Figma, for its part, hasn’t stopped since this deal was announced, moving forward and planning as an independent company. In fact, this startup has employed 500 people since September 2022. Additionally, we have developed new features including tools. For developers And we have a generative AI layer on top of the popular FigJam whiteboard tool.

John Lilly, an early investor in Figma, said he was enthusiastic about the company remaining independent. “This team is a very special team. Over the last 10 years, they have completely changed the way design works. And this market for designing products is much larger and growing faster.” Lilly told TechCrunch.

If he’s right, that’s exactly why Adobe wanted to buy the company. Now, with Figma continuing to operate on its own and a startup full of the same potential it had before the acquisition was announced in September 2022, Adobe will need to rethink its design collaboration strategy, and perhaps at this point You basically have to start from scratch, not in the position you were in.

Source: techcrunch.com

European Regulatory Challenges Lead to Cancelation of $20 Billion Adobe and Figma Acquisition Plan

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Adobe finally makes a huge $20 billion bid to acquire rival Figma officially deadThis comes after the companies announced today that their acquisition plans had been scrapped due to regulatory pushback in Europe.

The deal, first announced last September, has always attracted regulatory scrutiny due to its size and the fact that it removed one of Adobe’s major rivals from the shadows. Ta. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Take a closer look at the transaction For the most part in 2023, news has not yet been filed to prevent the deal from happening. Appeared Before the weekend, Adobe and Figma had met with the Department of Justice in a last-ditch effort to avoid legal action.

Regardless, both companies were already facing significant headwinds in Europe. In late November, the UK announced that the proposed acquisitionharm innovation”, following similar findings in the European Union (EU), which announced a similar course of action in August.

The core of the concern is that Figma is the “clear market leader” in interactive product design tools and acts as a “constraining influence” on Adobe in the digital asset creation tools space. was. Therefore, if Adobe acquires Figma, Figma is a “valid competitor.”

in Today’s blog postFigma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field said the “co-decision” was reached because the two companies were unable to convince regulators of the differences between their products and businesses.

“This is not the outcome we were hoping for, despite spending thousands of hours with regulators around the world detailing the differences between our business, our products, and the markets we serve. We no longer see a path forward for regulatory approval of this transaction,” Field said.

This is a developing story.Please update the latest information.

Source: techcrunch.com