Adobe Systems has announced that it has acquired Aviary, the photo-editing platform and developer of mobile SDKs for the delivery of creative apps.
Aviary's popular software development kits are designed to allow developers and companies to build photo-editing capabilities into their own apps. Many developers already use Aviary's SDKs across mobile platforms, gathering millions of users for Aviary-powered apps. Last year alone, Aviary saw 10 billion photos processed through its associated apps and services.
Aviary has partners including Yahoo/Flickr, MailChimp and Walgreens and is thought to be exactly what Adobe needs as an accelerant to its scheme to make its Creative Cloud a platform for third-party apps. It will also work as a business instrument to reach many iOS and Android developers who are already using Aviary's toolkit.
"The acquisition accelerates Adobe’s strategy to make Creative Cloud a vibrant platform for third party apps, through a new Creative SDK," Adobe’s press release states. The new Creative SDK will give third-party developers access to Adobe APIs, and allow them to tap into Adobe software features to add to their own apps.
Functions such as accessing files stored in the Creative Cloud, extracting elements from PSD files, integrating Adobe's 'Touch Slide' software, and cloud image-editing services including Content-Aware Fill and Upright will be made available as Adobe plans to offer a beta version of the Creative SDK in the coming months.
Creative on mobile
The acquisition, according to Avairy CEO Tobias Peggs, stemmed from when Adobe acquired Behance 18 months ago. The Behance office is said to be very close to Aviary's and after much discussion, "It became even more obvious that we should join forces, accelerate combined efforts and better serve even more app developers and even more people wanting to be creative on mobile."
The purchase was completed for an undisclosed amount. According to TechCrunch, Pegg confirmed that the entire Aviary team will be joining Adobe. Adobe's VP of products-community and head of Behance Scott Belsky also wrote in a blog post, reassuring that Adobe is "ensuring no interruption to Aviary’s developer community" whilst promising to add additional components and services for developers to incorporate in their apps.
"Aviary was founded to bring creative freedom to the world," said Avi Muchnick, Aviary’s co-founder. "We're excited to join Adobe and tap into their incredible wealth of creative technology and supercharge our collective SDK offering. Together, we will help nurture the next generation of third party creative apps."
