If you've ever tried collaborating on design files, the file only living on the web is a feature. No merge conflicts or other issues. No sending the same file back and forth with new revisions.
Abstract for Sketch is nice, but having to help a designer resolve merge conflicts is annoying.
So one way corporations try to solve that is using groupware/collaboration software such as MS Sharepoint. Users are then supposed to "check out" the xlsx file and then check it back into the "document library". But the process is so cumbersome that very few companies and users have 100% discipline to do that. This also doesn't let multiple users edit at the same time.
The new generation of cloud-first-collaboration-as-1st-class-UI services (like Figma) don't have the multiple conflicting docx/xlsx issue because sharing the work is the baseline normal usage. Figma doesn't try to bolt on the collaboration behavior to 30-year old software and file formats like MS Office.
You're thinking in terms of badly designed technologies you are familiar with.
I'm talking just about a solution to the problem at hand:
Instead of storing files on servers controlled by a 3rd party company (and calling it "the cloud"), you store the files on servers that you control (and don't call it the cloud).
I didn't say anything about share point or how the files are to be stored.
This can be a feature builtin to figma or any application that is "cloud native": all you need to configure is the server address.
>I'm talking just about a solution to the problem at hand:
>Instead of storing files on servers controlled by a 3rd party company (and calling it "the cloud"), you store the files on servers that you control (and don't call it the cloud).
I guess I can't tell if you're talking hypothetically or giving a realistic alternative that designers can use today.
Is there a "local corporate web collaboration" similar in features to Figma that designers can use today? The comment I replied to, you said "this _is_ solvable" (present tense) instead of "this _can potentially be_ solvable" (hypothetical future UI collab software installed on internal corporate server that doesn't exist yet).
That's why my interpretation of a present tense solution is something like Adobe XD files (".xd") saved on a shared corporate server... which reproduces the the chaos of multiple xlsx/docx files.
EDIT reply to: >I'm talking about a solution that the creators of Figma could have engineered.
I think you're losing track of your advice in this subthread because that statement about Figma really has nothing to do with the previous recommendation you made: >If you're a company, this is solvable by making the files live in a server the company controls.
While I somewhat agree, in my experience in practice the “just run it locally” approach results in software I need to use a clumsy and slow VPN to access, runs on servers that are either wildly over or underpowered, is constantly going down for maintenance, and never gets updated beyond essential security patches. The org I work for recently switched from on-prem Jira to cloud Jira, and the cloud version is a breath of fresh air by comparison.
I’m sure some IT departments are better at this than others, but in my experience most of them aren’t great at it.
Abstract for Sketch is nice, but having to help a designer resolve merge conflicts is annoying.