Canva

[jackamus]

Hooray! With the extra resources now available to Serif perhaps the developers will be able to stop the nodes and handles of object disappearing when you move a guide and also develop a perspective drawing feature.

[kirloi]

Happy day to the team no doubt. You earned it! Freaking nightmare to the user base.

Although today and the days forwards i know everyone from the team wants to reiterate how good it will be. Guys, really? Tell me a awesome app who was bought by a 3rd party who didn’t became dog dodo? That’s an incredible amount of naivety. If you sold it you don’t own it, if you don’t own it you don’t make any sort of decision. Period, canva for me is even worse than adobe for they are the “cheap knock off”

Hopefully v2 will last until new team with the same passion can built something without needing “more funding” . 
 

Thought affinity will be like blender. Guess not. But again, congrats to all the team, to ash for being able to do it. Was a long journey and true, you guys didn’t quit. 
hoping to see what the rest of v2 will bring until canva f:;)&&& everything.

 

P.s. Affinity users were a niche population of people who cant afford software and dont like subscriptions or subscription type mega companies. The moment you change that, the user base you built will leave.

[animositysomina]

1 hour ago, Sam Neil said:

I must say this was a shock but not a good one - Canva also bought SMARTMOCKUPS.COM which was amazing and now they are shutting it down - I do hope this is not the case with Affinity.

Canva have the cash and resources and do make the final decision which is a shame. All this companies say at the beginning no no we will be independent but in reality that will not be the case.

This is always the case, that big corpos will pull off their marketing lullabies, but at the end we all know the sad truth that's about to come.

[BertD]

7 minutes ago, Hadriscus said:

Time to look for a new home ! Open source alternatives are not where I'd want them to be (otherwise I wouldn't be using Affinity!), but they're building up in strength & versatility. Inkscape has some rough edges but is a very, very capable vector program. Krita is unequalled at painting. Gimp isn't ideal right now but they're nearing a "modern" 3.0 release, let's see how that goes. Graphite.rs is young but veeeery promising. I don't really have a Publisher alternative to offer, though.

Farewell ! it's been nice.

I've tried Scribus before for some projects before Publisher came out, seemed capable.

[Matterdor]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

There are genuinely no plans for us to remove the availability of our apps to purchase as a perpetual licence. I will say it is possible in the future there may be an optional way to have them via a Canva subscription plan (which could also include other integrations with Canva / cloud services which you would not get with the perpetual version). But it’s very early days and there isn't a firm plan on that.

I honestly think you'll all be pleased with the outcome of this. With the additional financial backing we have no pressure at all to release a V3 anytime soon, so can be 100% focused on ploughing all our efforts into free V2 updates for the foreseeable future - and we've got some great updates in the works. 

Realise this announcement has come as a surprise and I understand the feeling of uncertainty which is brings, but I do think it's all very positive for the company and our customers. 

I am by no means a power user. Completely the opposite. I am a software developer that likes to have some graphic and design tools to mess around with. I bought 4 license of all of the Affinity 1 Windows products for myself and the rest of my family and bought 4 Affinity 2 Universal licenses when it was released. We hardly use the software but I believe in the licensing model, and want to support the company because it's invaluable to have affordable competitors to companies like Abobe. I don't need the software and would leave in a heartbeat if the licensing model switched to subscription.

With the amount of money that is being reported. It would take something like 30 years to pay off the purchase price. No venture capital company is going to allow that. I can only really see 2 paths forward:

1. Canva purchased the company to use the IP inside of their existing systems. The risk here is that the Affinity Suite itself starts playing second fiddle.
2. The revenue from the Affinity suite needs to increase significantly. That can either happen by changing the licensing model to a subscription one, increasing the price, or increasing the number of users. Or some combination of those.

They could opt to do a combination of both of these. Neither a subscription option or a slow death of the products are very appealing to me. I hope I am wrong but right now I am not feeling too confident. Almost all venture capital companies are interested in terms like APE (Average Revenue per Employee) and ARR (Average Recurring Revenue) and subscriptions are what make those numbers tick.

[donka]

Will this mean there is a chance of seeing Affinity on the Android platform - thinking Samsung tablets?

[Johannes]

The only non-disadvantages I see so far are

 

• Canva is a private company and has no stock market pressure
• Development could now be faster for more apps

[mausedesign]

What happens to the perpetual license model?

[KenKelly]

Maybe time to go back to the drawingboard, with rotring pens, Letraset, Cow Gum and artwork ready for negatives.......🥴

[Sam Neil]

2 hours ago, Sam Neil said:

I must say this was a shock but not a good one - Canva also bought SMARTMOCKUPS.COM which was amazing and now they are shutting it down - I do hope this is not the case with Affinity.

Canva have the cash and resources and do make the final decision which is a shame. All this companies say at the beginning no no we will be independent but in reality that will not be the case.

This will be the fate of affinity soon... Another victim of Canva!

[Thomas Bohn]

5 minutes ago, Johannes said:

The only non-disadvantages I see so far are

 

• Canva is a private company and has no stock market pressure
• Development could now be faster for more apps

How long do you think this lasts, with the amount of acquisitions recently Canva looks like it will make itself more presentable to future investors and when the company is public nothing matters except the shareholder value. So I don't have much hope for Canva in the future.

[BertD]

6 minutes ago, Johannes said:

The only non-disadvantages I see so far are

 

• Canva is a private company and has no stock market pressure

 

Yet...

 

https://www.startupdaily.net/topic/business/canvas-early-investors-are-getting-closer-to-a-1-5-billion-payday/

 

They'll float.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Johannes said:

• Development could now be faster for more apps

 

Well, as Ash said. Because of all of this there's no pressure to come out with a V3 soon and they can concentrate on everything they planned for V2. I'm thinking V2 is the end of the road.

 

 

[jussi]

everything and everyone is moving into cloud-based solution with subscriptions. sometimes I wish, the internet was on modem line again ..

[CliveH]

It seems more than premature to be talking about switching to other (non-subscription) products when we don't know what the future will hold.  I prefer perpetual licensing but in the end you have to evaluate what something is worth to you.  I have a universal licence but also an Adobe Photography Plan because the (under £10/month) is worth it to me for access to Lightroom (I use Photo not Photoshop for more in depth editing).

What surprised me a bit is the use I make of Designer and Publisher.  I'm a photo enthusiast so bought Photo initially but with access to the full suite I make use of it to design posters, produce a printed book etc.  I don't use these every day but they are useful when I want them and I happily paid the price to get them.  As an amateur user though it would never be worth it for me to pay a subscription at Adobe level for access to equivalent products.

I wish all the Affinity staff well and hope that they continue to develop affordable products for many years to come.  If the business model does turn to subscription in future then I will consider at the time whether it offers me good value for money or not - and if not then I will sadly have to give up.  But, for me at least, it is about value and not just the principle of perpetual or subscription. 

[esto]

7 minutes ago, Johannes said:

• Canva is a private company and has no stock market pressure

'Canva has made several acquisitions in the past but is building up to an eventual public listing in late 2025 or 2026'

https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0

So it appears Canva is padding out its portfolio. I think we can all guess what might happen once investors get their public exit...

[tudor]

5 minutes ago, Matterdor said:

The revenue from the Affinity suite needs to increase significantly. That can either happen by changing the licensing model to a subscription one, increasing the price, or increasing the number of users. Or some combination of those.

If they will succeed in integrating Canva with Affinity it's going to be a boom in sales for both Canva and Affinity. I work with business clients and they require branded editable templates for all kinds of graphics, from social media graphics to brochures and presentations. Some of them already use Canva. I look forward to the day when I'll be able to make a template in Affinity, push it to Canva and have it editable there. No more "could you please send us the source files?" headaches.

[GRH]

22 minutes ago, Hadriscus said:

Time to look for a new home ! Open source alternatives are not where I'd want them to be (otherwise I wouldn't be using Affinity!), but they're building up in strength & versatility. Inkscape has some rough edges but is a very, very capable vector program. Krita is unequalled at painting. Gimp isn't ideal right now but they're nearing a "modern" 3.0 release, let's see how that goes. Graphite.rs is young but veeeery promising. I don't really have a Publisher alternative to offer, though.

Farewell ! it's been nice.

Scribus is quite capable, it is at version 1.6.1; version 1.7.0 is in the pipeline and available as a beta.

Pageplus X9 is still superior in many ways to Affinity Publisher

[GRH]

15 minutes ago, KenKelly said:

Maybe time to go back to the drawingboard, with rotring pens, Letraset, Cow Gum and artwork ready for negatives.......🥴

Ah the good old days, maybe I should get my comping stick out, I think I can still read upside-down mirror and tie page cord tightly.

[Ian Tompkins]

We’ve all seen this type of acquisition before, and no amount of marketing copy will dissuade the well-founded fears of this community. Unless Serif has strong guarantees from Canva in writing, it’s pretty obvious that they will become a lemon for the parent company to squeeze until there’s nothing left. That’s almost always the outcome.

Canva is awful software. If I’f known Serif would be owned by Canva eventually, I never would have purchased a V2 license. This is a pretty big betrayal of our trust.

[esto]

Quote

 

“This has happened in a ridiculously short timeframe, [...] Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams contacted him through LinkedIn about six weeks ago, Mr Hewson said, and began talks.

[...]

On the first day of talks “we put what we thought was a very fair offer on the table,” Mr Obrecht said. “They agreed. We didn’t end up needing to negotiate on that.”

 

https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0

Deal done in six weeks? Serif management took the first offer, on the first day of negotiations?

Either this was rookie hour, or someone wanted out, fast.
 

[GRH]

1 minute ago, Ian Tompkins said:

We’ve all seen this type of acquisition before, and no amount of marketing copy will dissuade the well-founded fears of this community. Unless Serif has strong guarantees from Canva in writing, it’s pretty obvious that they will become a lemon for the parent company to squeeze until there’s nothing left. That’s almost always the outcome.

Canva is awful software. If I’f known Serif would be owned by Canva eventually, I never would have purchased a V2 license. This is a pretty big betrayal of our trust.

Canva have bought the company, it is theirs to do as they wish. If I sell you my car and get you to agree not to put cheap tyres on it and not go faster the 30mph, and you do, what can I do about it -  tell my mum? No company is going to allow itself to be handcuffed in any way when they buy a company lock, stock and barrel.

[Johannes]

The worst thing

The worst thing is that with subscription models you can be locked out of your own creations – even for political reasons #AdobeVenezuela. It's extortion. 
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20904030/adobe-venezuela-photoshop-behance-us-sanctions

And once you've subscribed, it's even harder to switch to another software company because you have to be subscribed to open old documents.

So never, never, never subscribe if file formats from other software companies can't be fully read like .indd .afdesign .afphoto .afpub!

I stayed on Adobe CS6 for years for this reason and I will never subscribe if there is even the slightest suspicion that I could be locked out of my own work, even if I have unsubscribed.

[Bit Disappointed]

You should remember that Serif Software is not a movement or revolution, but fundamentally very traditional graphic software with very old principles and some Stone Age algorithms, which probably were not oblivious to the fact that now AI has overtaken them at 500 km/h while the programs fundamentally lacked several manual tools, output formats, and accessibility features even 10 years after Affinity was introduced as new products in an already old company at that time. Serif has neither been able to match traditional software nor AI integration in pace or technologies with few exceptions.

Unfortunately, Serif Software's dispositions - and lack of dispositions - have brought us all here. I believe it's about survival, and the naive eagerness when the offer finally comes. What I know, that's what happens. When it has happened. We'll see.

[Tickedon]

5 minutes ago, esto said:

https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0

Deal done in six weeks? Serif management took the first offer, on the first day of negotiations?

Either this was rookie hour, or someone wanted out, fast.
 

If a reasonable valuation was £400m and someone puts £800m / $1bn on the table, I think most people would bank that and then start looking at the other terms - as implied in the article. 

A great result for the owners and many Serif employees. Probably less good for UK Plc and, eventually, users like us.

[rabbithawk256]

It happens again, and again, and again, and again..
It's the start of platform decay.