Adobe announced on Thursday that it’s acquiring the company behind popular collaborative video production software of the same name, Frame.io, for $1.275 billion. Adobe says it tried to create its own collaboration software on its own, but settled on buying Frame.io because some customers were already using it in their workflows, Bloomberg reports.
Frame.io takes the frequently time consuming process of reviewing edits and footage, and makes it asynchronous and on the web, Google Workspace-style. Editors, clients, and whoever else can use the company’s cloud-based software to store and view footage, and leave feedback on edits, just by sharing a link. Frame.io also offers integrations with popular video editing software like Adobe’s Premiere Pro, Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and Avid Media Composer. The Verge is no stranger to Frame.io — our video team has been using the software for the last few years.
Frame.io will operate independently until Adobe’s deal closes, after which the company’s founders, Frame.io CEO Emery Wells and co-founder John Traver, will join Adobe. Wells will continue to lead the Frame.io team and report directly to Adobe’s chief product office Scott Belsky, Adobe says. In a statement on the acquisition, Wells adds “the Frame.io product you know and love is not going anywhere,” and says Adobe’s ownership will offer more resources, and closer integrations with Premiere Pro and Creative Cloud. Frame.io will also continue supporting non-Adobe software like Final Cut Pro, Avid, and DaVinci Resolve, according to Wells.
Not outlined in either announcement is what subscribing to Frame.io will look like in the future once the deal closes. Currently you can use a limited version of Frame.io for free, or pay $15 per month, $25 per month, or custom enterprise pricing for varying amounts of cloud storage and users. It’s not hard to imagine those plans getting seamlessly integrated into a Creative Cloud subscription at some point in the future. The Verge has asked Adobe if it plans to include Frame.io in its existing subscriptions going forward.
Adobe’s made moves to add its own collaboration features into Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Illustrator in the past, but nothing that seems quite the same as Frame.io. Buying the company could naturally sweeten the deal for anyone who’s already a Creative Cloud subscriber, while strengthening Adobe’s tight hold on the creative industry as a whole.