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AVID History
I found this post, looking up Dave P. Aucoin (ex AVID) on google. Does AVID treat you like this today (or for the last 15 years ?) –
It appears to have been writen by Basil Pappas, currently an editor for CBS Network in NY. It makes me VOMIT that AVID used to be a great company, and turned into what it is currently today.
start quote –
“Boy did you. But in those days, Avid did everything possible to help you, and
they listened intently.My favorite Avid History story is my very first Customer Support phone call, in
October 1989. I took
delivery of my system, on a Mac IIx with 4mb of RAM, TOTAL. After being
cautioned about not logging more
than 20 clips in a bin, I proceeded to put many more than that and my bins took
20 minutes to open and then
immediately crashed the system. This was before the Attic was invented. I call
Avid; at the time only 7
people worked there. It was a Saturday morning. Bill Warner picks up the phone,
hears the problem, and tells
me that I have a memory problem. Instead of telling me to add RAM, he decides
to send me an entire NEW Mac,
with 8mb RAM, the maximum! WOW! He tells me that he had to have someone (Dave
Aucoin) physically jump over a
chain link divider in the hardware storage area because it was locked up for
the weekend, gets the CPU and
hires a courier to drive the thing from Boston the NYC, where it indeed arrived
5 hours later, along with a
new version of software, NO CHARGE. Thank you, Bill.The next time I called with a sequence that wouldn’t play, Bill Warner sent a
fellow named Steve Reber down
to personally debug the beta version, then a pre-release of version 1.0. In
walks the first software
engineer I ever saw, and rewrites some code right then and there. The sequence
played. Thank you, Steve. We
miss you. Another call about hooking up a printer, and Eric Peters answers the
phone and spends the better
part of an hour walking me through it. Thank you, Eric.While we’re on the subject of history, I think my most formative moment was my
first training session. In
walks Tom Ohanian, looking sharp in a suit and tie, and spends the entire day
teaching me the system.
Grazie, Tom. I was hooked. It didn’t take faith any more, I KNEW I could cut on
this thing, and I KNEW this
company would back me up. -
7 Replies
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Great post, Bob.
Avid only sells beta versions now, man. I remember when assurance was such a no brainer it was just part of the deal. Today, should you call at 500 bucks a pop, you get a pimple-faced kid all like “hmmm well, that otta work.”
yes. yes it should.
I’d like to know which Avid CEO purchased so much stock on Apple.
Nobody sells more copies of FCP today than Avid.
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So you would like Avid to sell software that they’d need to rewrite on site for me in order to perform?
Good story, though.
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Not sure what that means, man.
I’d rather em just go ahead and sell so we can gain some sweet tools to bill with. Their current CEO has vast experience with mergers so let’s cross our fingers… -
It is a good story, but wouldn’t you expect that level of service from a business with just seven people? At that early stage any problems could potentially be company killers unless they responded quickly. How many systems were in existence back then?
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about ten.
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Alan Miller and Basic Pappas worked on the very first Media Composer sold. Serial # 0000000001
Michael
Michael Phillips
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Yes, I did write that account of the early days, working with AVID on the first systems ever made. But I did NOT write it with the intent to slam the company and I find it it unacceptable that it is used here, out of context, to support the OP point of view. The fact is, I know I could pick up the phone today if I had to, and get a similar level of support.
Basil Pappas
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