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A new poll
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If they had released a FCPS 4, I’d be happily editing on it, rather than spent the $2K on switching to PC and Premiere CS5.5.2.
I’d still think Craig was hooked on some sort of drug that made him incapable of actually answering the question, and that gives him an inability not to use the word Thunderbolt in a posting here.
DBK
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[David Roth Weiss] “Had Apple simultaneously released FCPX and the fully functional 64-bit FCS 4 most were expecting, how many of you would be paying attention to this forum?”
I’d be happily cutting away, thinking about my next thunderbolt equipped Mac, and like before, only visiting the COW forums for occasional advice when stuck. Best thing about this debacle for me has been meeting everyone here and having some excellent conversations. That and losing my Apple fanboy blinders. As painful as it’s been, I’m open to NLE platform possibilities I never considered before. Adaptation… it’s a way of life.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
“Given the R&D resources I can’t imagine such a scenario”
But who determines the resources. We are constantly hearing about how successful and rich Apple is as a company. What would stop them from putting more resources into development if they wanted to? They didn’t seem to mind developing iMovie and FCP Legacy at the same time, why couldn’t they have continued development on Legacy while X was getting itself ready?
Announce X as iCut, the replacement for FCP Express, and a concept product that would show the direction they were taking Legacy. They could have done that. They chose not to, but it isn’t a crazy idea.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jamie Franklin] “Instead of “we do that too” they would be better served saying “we do that too and more”…instead of “you do what we say, or get out of the way””
Nope.
If you’re alleging that this is apples way – history has already proved you’re misunderstand things.
In a system where there’s little or no choice, that may be true, but in an environment where there IS choice, any company that says something that upsets the majority of their customers, will lose.
Clearly Apple believes that there are more people who will eventually understand and appreciate “their way” via FCP-X than there are in the class of customers whom they will lose due to the change.
And so far, history has shown their thinking to be right much more than wrong.
Past that, we’ll see.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Herb Sevush] “But who determines the resources. We are constantly hearing about how successful and rich Apple is as a company. What would stop them from putting more resources into development if they wanted to?”
Apple uses software to sell hardware and, once evaluated, probably saw little financial advantage to sustaining both with respect to hardware sales. ROI wasn’t there by their standards my guess. Keep in mind you have to factor in the lack of MacPro sales and the cost of distribution as well as technical support. Also, as I personally believe, that there may have been licenses costs they didn’t want to pay anymore. Just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should from their business perspective. Basically I think there was no business sense for them to sustain development.
I’d point out that Avid doesn’t make much money on Media Composer. They too make their money on hardware such as Unity and Isis. While people may be happy with Media Composer development, it may not be a sustainable business model given their financial history going back a number of years now. The MC sales really only helps if it moves more of their heavy iron.
Apple, on the other hand, sells computers (amongst other things) so it makes good business sense to develop a new NLE with the goal to push computer sales. Could FCS 4 been that product? Maybe, but I have to think they looked at the picture and saw further development of FCS relative to generating computer sales, as a money pit given the outside code base (and I think licensing).
Of course they could have started from scratch but worked to maintain a “traditional” NLE interface. This though, was a design decision.
I think it would have been a logistical nightmare with significant costs and little ROI to develop two code basses even in transition. OTOH keeping the old product alive sans major upgrades might have been less so. Apparently even that wasn’t a worthwhile financial proposition to them given the feature weakness in FCS in the market. They probably compared that to the number of new Mac system upgraded they though FCPX would generate (but didn’t because there was no strong motive to purchase new systems given the current feature set).
Apple may well have been in a “no win” situation so the went for the “long pass” on a long term solution (assuming FCPX develops the feature set that motivates more Mac sales to Pros with deep pockets).
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[Craig Seeman] “Of course they could have started from scratch but worked to maintain a “traditional” NLE interface. This though, was a design decision.”
In fact that’s exactly what they did. The evidence is in the program itself:
My hunch is the design decision to scrap legacy UI/compatibility was driven primarily by marketing and finance and that the fork happened around the time the mass firing of the Pro Apps team was announced in the press.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[Bill Davis] “Clearly Apple believes that there are more people who will eventually understand and appreciate “their way” via FCP-X than there are in the class of customers whom they will lose due to the change.
And so far, history has shown their thinking to be right much more than wrong.”
In the consumer space, absolutely true. In the enterprise/professional space, not much.
The big irony of course is that if they had followed the path suggested by DRW, not only would they have likely regained industry leadership in the existing pro market, they would have set the stage to transition with that leadership intact. Instead, because of the botched nature of this release, they’ve not only dumped ten years of code legacy, they’ve also dumped ten years of earned trust and respect in the professional/ enterprise-class market. It will be very difficult for them to regain that trust.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “Instead, because of the botched nature of this release, they’ve not only dumped ten years of code legacy, they’ve also dumped ten years of earned trust and respect in the professional/ enterprise-class market. It will be very difficult for them to regain that trust.”
You can argue that it was “botched” all you like – and I know you’ll find a whole lot of support.
But I still think that’s a narrow “top down” view that best fits the narrative of the “class” of facility users who weren’t there in the beginning for the original FCP – and who may be more ticked off because (and this is my personal feeling only) Apple’s actions have annoyingly pointed out issues of continuing weakness in the entire industryl. If I’m wrong, shops will just switch programs, take it in stride just like a major upgrade, and keep moving on.
Let’s all face it, if the editing industry was healthy and robust, this would be a blip. But instead, our industry is pretty rocky. (That post about Video Post Production Houses being among the top ten “dying” business categories was tres scary, no?)
So it’s change on top of upset.
You can take as many “alternate paths” as you like. But if when you get to the city gates, and find that everybody’s packed up and moved on, the path you took to get there is NOT really the issue.
If this is even only partly true, the important thing is for ALL of us to rethink our assumptions as much as we can. Because change brings not just disruption, but opportunity as well.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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According to your analysis Apple will walk away from the entire video business the moment they decide it isn’t generating enough ROI. All of which goes to show why it’s a fools errand to build your companies work flow around a company not committed to your business. If Avid fails it won’t be for lack of interest in the video business, and if I was an Avid user I could live with that.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
“You can argue that it was “botched” all you like – and I know you’ll find a whole lot of support.”
Including Craig and Jeremy, so it’s not just the whiners that think it was botched.
“If I’m wrong, shops will just switch programs, take it in stride just like a major upgrade, and keep moving on.”
There’s nothing “just” about switching programs, it’s a costly and time intensive pain in the rear. But yes, this is what they will be doing. What do you think they’re going to do, open up a Starbucks?
“Let’s all face it, if the editing industry was healthy and robust, this would be a blip. But instead, our industry is pretty rocky. (That post about Video Post Production Houses being among the top ten “dying” business categories was tres scary, no?)”
Large general purpose post houses have been dying off for over ten years. This does not mean the post industry isn’t healthy. Most good editors I know are working and doing fine. Ask someone producing reality TV if the post industry is dying. People are always crying out that the sky is falling, but I haven’t stepped on any clouds lately.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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