They probably didn’t need to sell (but who knows) but an offer of a buyout at a 20x multiple (based on the Bloomberg report) when the core business faces competition from Adobe and Canva, not just for core features where depending on context, Serif can do quite well, but also in the burgeoning AI-assisted space, where Serif has zero ability to compete (and AI is a big part of Canva and Adobe’s plans, whether certain vocal users like it or not), is compelling.
As a longtime user, this move makes me sad because I know I’ll lose some good tools to an inevitable subscription push (I also have Adobe CC and Canva subscriptions that I use for very different tasks so I’m not completely opposed to paying for a sub, but I certainly won’t pay Adobe prices for Affinity), but I can’t fault the company from wanting to exit, especially when the climate is what it is for the tools they sell.
Let’s put it this way, I can’t imagine them doing better than this.
I was a professional photographer until late last year.
Photoshop’s new AI tools are an absolutely incredible timesaver. Jobs that would have taken 30+ minutes (and probably wouldn’t look great) can now take 30 seconds. It was kind of amazing watching the perception shift online in photography groups from “AI is evil!” to “Wow, this is really helpful.”
There’s no way they could keep competing, even if they tried to take something off the shelf like Stable Diffusion and integrating it. Without some sort of subscription they’d need to have people run it locally, and that’s really only feasible with high end Nvidia cards too. I suppose the initial plan might be to add tools like that, have a separate subscription for that, and boil the frog to a full subscription.
Absolutely agreed. And your observation is the same I’ve seen with many of my artist friends. Everyone went from “fuck this Firefly shit” to “I need all of this yesterday.”
Canva already uses AI in really smart ways and if they can extend that approach into Affinity and have the two products compliment each other, that could def be a value-add for Canva users. But the more I think about it, the more I think this was the only thing Serif could do and although I sympathize with angry Affinity users as one myself, I think we have to acknowledge that Affinity’s chances of survival as a perpetually licensed product were basically over, acquisition or no acquisition, at least if you look out long-term.
> Serif can do quite well, but also in the burgeoning AI-assisted space, where Serif has zero ability to compete
I think you've hit the nail on the head. AI tools will become essential and if you haven't got the resources to compete in this area you're likely to fade into relative irrelevance.
And at a 20x multiple probably a steal for Canva too given what this deal will give them - even without raising prices / going to subscription model.
They probably didn’t need to sell (but who knows) but an offer of a buyout at a 20x multiple (based on the Bloomberg report) when the core business faces competition from Adobe and Canva, not just for core features where depending on context, Serif can do quite well, but also in the burgeoning AI-assisted space, where Serif has zero ability to compete (and AI is a big part of Canva and Adobe’s plans, whether certain vocal users like it or not), is compelling.
As a longtime user, this move makes me sad because I know I’ll lose some good tools to an inevitable subscription push (I also have Adobe CC and Canva subscriptions that I use for very different tasks so I’m not completely opposed to paying for a sub, but I certainly won’t pay Adobe prices for Affinity), but I can’t fault the company from wanting to exit, especially when the climate is what it is for the tools they sell.
Let’s put it this way, I can’t imagine them doing better than this.