Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Sina Science and Technology News Beijing time on October 13 morning news, it is reported that Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will launch a graphic and image design software called "Designer", which will provide a free version, as well as a high-end version, and be included in Microsoft's "Office family bucket".

Microsoft's design software is aimed at another dominant design software in the industry, "Canva", which boasts 100m monthly active users. Canva, which is based in Sydney, Australia, was valued at $40 billion in a financing deal last year, making it one of the most highly valued private technology companies in the world.

However, it is reported that at the beginning of this year, due to inflation, recession and other concerns, the share prices of software companies plummeted, and Blackbird Ventures, an early investor in Canva, adjusted its valuation to $25.6 billion.

Earlier, Microsoft launched a membership-based charging model for Office office software. In order to prove that membership is worth it, Microsoft has been adding new software or features to the package. Earlier this year, Microsoft raised the price of some office software packages for corporate users.

In the global office software market, Microsoft Office is undoubtedly the ruler, and many companies are challenging its dominance. The most powerful challenger is Google.

Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google's cloud computing business, announced on Tuesday that the number of paying members of Google's online office software "Workspace" had increased to 8 million, compared with 6 million in April 2020.

Canva is preparing to complete more office functions like Office. In 2021, the software launched a demo development tool similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. In August, the company acquired a document editing software to challenge Microsoft's powerful Word.

Canva said it currently has 55000 paying teams using its office software from major companies such as Amazon, FedEx, Pepsi, Pfizer and Salesforce.

A Microsoft spokesman said the Designer software was originally aimed at ordinary individual users. But in fact, the design software is also of practical value to users of companies, government agencies and schools, and these markets are also Microsoft's key customer base.

The spokesman said that after the launch, if the feedback from users of Designer software is good, the company will promote it to a wider market, including employees.

At present, the global economic environment is not good, some companies are starting to take measures to reduce operating costs, such as reducing the number of software suppliers. Media comments pointed out that if Microsoft adds a graphic design software to Office's existing membership package, some users may give up Canva.

During the earnings call in July, Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, said that when it comes to digital products and services, Microsoft has an unparalleled advantage over its peers when it comes to helping companies do more with less money.

Whether it affects the relationship with Adobe in the field of graphics and image design, American Adobe company is also a heavyweight manufacturer, the company launched a free "Adobe Express" design tool, including a large number of templates and picture materials. If Microsoft launches free design tools, it will also become a competitor and challenger to Adobe.

At an event held by Bank of America earlier this year, Jonathan Vaas, vice president of investor relations at Adobe, said that many beginners in graphic design will use Canva and become Adobe users when they get familiar with it.

It should be pointed out that Microsoft and Adobe are close partners, and the two companies are engaged in more than 30 software product integration cooperation.

A Microsoft spokesman said that in the future, Adobe will still be an important strategic partner of Microsoft, and Microsoft's consumer-oriented design software will not affect the relationship and cooperation between Microsoft and Adobe in any way.

Software usage Features in an official blog post, Microsoft Vice President Liat Ben-Zur said that in Designer software, users can use templates to quickly design and process to generate pictures that can be used on social media.

Just last month, Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and chief operating officer of Canva, said that for Canva users, social media is the biggest platform for them to publish and share design results. However, O'Brett also stressed that Microsoft is not a competitor to Canva, the company's main competitor is Adobe.

According to reports, OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company supported by Microsoft, has launched a software called "Dall-E 2". Microsoft Designer will be integrated with this artificial intelligence software, which can automatically generate design patterns by entering some text.

In addition, neither Microsoft nor OpenAI wants anything unfit to be published in Designer blueprints. Microsoft executive Benzer said that OpenAI will use a large amount of data training results to filter images generated by Designer and delete pornographic and violent images. In addition, according to the latest research and development of Microsoft, Designer will be able to generate more varied and diverse patterns.

A Microsoft spokesman said that at present, individual users can add a waiting list to get a preview version of Designer for subsequent releases. Once all software development is over, Microsoft will launch a free version and add a high-end version of Designer to two membership packages (Microsoft 365 personal Edition and Microsoft 365 Home Edition).

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