Apple Employee’s Remark

[Craig Seeman]

I seem to remember the same thing about Avid around 2000 when they announced they were dropping the Mac version . . . and they then backpedaled. Of course that was key to the ascendancy of Final Cut Pro as Apple would not longer put their trust in third party products as a primary mover of Macs in any market segment.

[Andrew Stone]

I’m trying to remember the sequence of events around AVID dropping Mac support. I think that was after FCP had been out for a bit. Regardless, I really do not intend to be drawing comparisons to AVID in what I am talking about.

I am talking about companies that have a corporate mindset. Suppliers, vendors that come on board go through a careful internal vetting process in these large companies. A supplier or vendor gets goofy, they are gone in the blink of an eye and a good portion of the video industry, the film industry is in fact very corporate in the way they operate. They have to as the supply chain is huge and the product is in many ways ephemeral and fraught with huge amounts of risk in the production process. Unlike say traditional manufacturing. We all know this. So when a company that supplies an essential tool to the supply chain says, out and out and without warning, “we are no longer selling you the product, even if you want it, things go sideways fast especially when millions of dollars are at stake, completion guarantees and other insurance matters.

Most (not all) here in forum land aren’t exposed to this world at all but you can bet high placed people are tearing new ones in people very high up in Apple and given the CEO’s placement as the head of Pixar, I am sure he has received more than a few phone calls and even visits in the past 48 hours.

Think about other software companies that develop software for big business. Microsoft as an example. They go out of their way to make sure their software development structure doesn’t leave big business stranded by EOLing software without years of notice. Final Cut Pro had become part of the big business of television and the film industry and Apple killed it in a press release without advance warning. Corporate thinking machines don’t let vendors “get it right” after they gored the client.

This to me is the real story and the area for concern.

Steadicam – Camera Operator

[Craig Seeman]

I was a senior video engineer at a production company that produced network programs at the time Avid made than announcement. They were as abrupt as Apple IMHO. It did create havoc for purchasing decisions they were about to make.

Apple’s biggest mistake is not keeping FCS3 available (ideally at a reduced price) while FCPX matured. The only rational reason for pulling it so quickly is that it’s supportable under Lion. Even then new Lion Macs in theory could have been wiped and and Snow Leopard installed to keep systems going for the mean time.

[Andrew Stone]

Craig we are essentially coming to the same conclusion but with different points. Pulling FCP/Studio is the tragic mistake of Apple out of this whole episode. The repercussion of this move will take years to undo, if they choose to continue with serving the pro market say 5 to 10 years from now. Just like as you have mentioned with AVID. How long did it take for them to recover and they had to change their business model in order to gain market share again?

Steadicam & Camera Operator

[David Roth weiss]

[Andrew Stone] “Think about other software companies that develop software for big business. Microsoft as an example. They go out of their way to make sure their software development structure doesn’t leave big business stranded by EOLing software without years of notice. Final Cut Pro had become part of the big business of television and the film industry and Apple killed it in a press release without advance warning..

This to me is the real story and the area for concern.”

Exactly Andrew, ten years of building goodwill with a base of 2-million customers blown in a single day.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Craig Seeman]

Sadly I agree. In many respects they repeated Avid’s mistake. They pulled an NLE that businesses rely on. While I think FCPX has potential, it won’t be ready as a replacement for some time.

Businesses are gun-shy especially when they see their software/hardware infrastructure thrown into high risk. It damaged Avid for a long time even though Avid back peddled. Even if Apple put FCS back up and committed to support it for another year while FCPX is readied for professional use, the damage may already be done.

It’s ironic that Apple’s own secrecy hindered both developers and VARs, ensuring that even the third party support to add needed features wasn’t there at the time of release. It’s hard to fathom how bad an otherwise successful company’s decisions have been in this market.

[David Roth weiss]

[Craig Seeman] “It’s ironic that Apple’s own secrecy hindered both developers and VARs, ensuring that even the third party support to add needed features wasn’t there at the time of release.”

If I remember correctly Craig I think I told you before the release that drivers, plugins, etc. would be a problem initially. Didn’t we discuss that?

In any case, neither of us had any idea it would be this bad…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Craig Seeman]

[David Roth Weiss] “If I remember correctly Craig I think I told you before the release that drivers, plugins, etc. would be a problem initially. Didn’t we discuss that?”

Yes and generally I’d expect that. When I found though that Noise Industries had access though while Core Melt did not, I realize that Apple was deliberately excluding some developers.

It’s one thing for a company to get it’s product out the door before third party developers are ready but it’s another to deliberately withhold information from developers so they can not start development until after the product is released.

I has assumed that Apple would be assisting developers so they’d be underway even if they weren’t ready at the point of FCPX’s release.

In essence, Apple was guaranteeing they’d be releasing a product without support. If that’s the case, it’s a self defeating business position. I can see no strategic reason for it.