Apple, FCPX and Secrecy – RedShark “Guest Author”

[Herb Sevush]

I like Redshark news for the most part, but this is one of their typical “Big Headline – No Content” articles. You’d get more new information reading one of Andreas’s old drunken rants. Since Apple already held an NDA preview at NAB, bringing up the possibility that they’re going to drop X is absurd if not dishonest.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Scott Witthaus]

I hope the secrecy is because there is someone with a strong vision of what the product will be as it grows and evolves. How is this different from other companies? And didn’t a bunch of folks see some of the coming features under NDA at NAB? Why release details early to start a debate before release? Does that show commitment?

As far as the article itself, I saw nothing of real importance or revealing. And, doing her/his “raise your hand” poll method, he/she is talking about a niche that is dominated by Avid anyway. And we all, at least most of us on this forum, have multiple editors on our systems. What was the point of that last paragraph? IMHO, this is a non-story that almost anyone could have written.

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “bringing up the possibility that they’re going to drop X is absurd if not dishonest.
“

I don’t think that was the author’s intent. My understanding is that he was saying that’s clearly not going to happen. That update may be big but it’s so small financially, for Apple’s business, it was pointless to be so secretive.

[Herb Sevush] “Since Apple already held an NDA preview at NAB”

My own guess is that he’s well aware of such but the secrecy around it but it’s pointless to Apple’s business.

Rather, that promoting new features may do better to pull in people to a product which is well behind Premiere (depends on the market in question though) and poses no financial harm in doing so.

[Craig Seeman]

It’s just an opinion piece derisive of Apple’s secrecy.

There’s a lot of focus on “high end” post in such “discussions.” It’s quite possible that in the broader market (wrongly called “prosumer” IMHO because if they’re getting paid it’s professional) FCPX may be doing quite well.

The question he’s awkwardly trying to raise is that Apple has no real financial interest in keeping upcoming features secret.

[Noah Kadner]

The author is identified a bit down the page as Clayton Moore, assuming it’s https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayton-moore-08889218

That Clayton left Apple in 2009, years before FCPX was born. So, if that’s the author, I would question his credentials as an insider with up to date knowledge about Final Cut Pro.

Also, if he’d done sufficient research about FCPX at NAB 2016, he could have learned about FCPWORKS’ hosting of Apple NDA presentations among many other examples of a healthy ecosystem. All of which would support his #2 theory much more than his #1.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “Apple has no real financial interest in keeping upcoming features secret.”

On one hand, does anyone anymore?

As Scott observes above, most folks have more than one vendor’s stuff, and the having-it-ness or not-having-it-ness has nothing whatsoever to do with something that was ever kept back as a secret competitive advantage. Competitive advantages are now at a very high level, abstractions really. Conceptual. This APPROACH works for this CONTEXT.

So really, at least since the introduction of the CONCEPT of FCPX, of the CONCEPT of a subscription-only business model, there hasn’t been a FEATURE or feature set that has mattered in (software) generations.

And ironically, the only thing that has mattered has been the ABSENCE of the feature! Do you have HD? No? Then no sale.

Now back in THOSE days, our frenemies Senator Sarbanes and Representative Oxley first strode across the land like giants, and here’s why. You can’t sell people a product that doesn’t exist. You couldn’t say “HD is coming” unless it was coming THAT QUARTER without having to set aside the FINANCIAL VALUE of HD in escrow, not to be redeemed until you actually delivered HD.

That is, you can’t “recognize the revenue” of a sale until the transaction is completed: the point at which customers HAVE this product or feature you “sold” them.

You do get a grace period of a financial quarter, so if you announce in April and ship in June, you’re golden.

And what’s the announced ship date for almost every new product announced at NAB? June.

But I can give you a specific historical example of how this worked out. Avid was at one time late with HDV support, and not being able to answer the question of WHEN it was coming was hurting sales at the lowest end of the product line. Customers were telling us they were waiting for it before they’d spend, or were choosing other products that met that need for them today.

This sparked two different avenues of research. One was, okay, are they telling the truth. LOL Are they REALLY holding out on upgrades or buying other products because of HDV? What are the other factors that are REALLY driving their decisions? And when a customer does upgrade or buy a new seat, how much are the non-HDV features worth to them?

The answer is of course that, in practice, almost every other feature in the world was worth more. Copy and paste were worth more. LOL But in fact, if you have an HDV camera today and can’t edit that footage today, no sale. (This was before there was a practical software-only transcode to DNxHD option. ProRes was still four years away.)

This research mattered because the answer had to pass muster with customer-facing product managers, sales people (who were the ones hearing that pressure directly and, via the channel, indirectly), C-level execs, lawyers, and yes, the US Department of Justice.

The figure arrived at was $49. Everyone agreed, okay, in the scheme of things, that sounds about right — having or not having HDV right this second is costing us plus or minus $49.

Which leads to ANOTHER set of research. How fast can we have it, for reals? No guessing. Because however long it takes, we’re going to have to keep a pile of $49 transactions on the sidelines, which we’d really rather not do.

(Here’s how long ago this was, btw. Avid’s stock and revenue was flying high, quadrupling in the next few years, while Apple’s stock had just broken out of the single digits because of the iPod as the company was becoming derided as more focused on devices than on professionals. LOL)

The answer was, we can have it by the end of Q3.

Which led to another set of discussions. Okay, since most people don’t care at ALL about HDV, we don’t have to hold back ANY portion of those sales. We can “recognize the revenue” for 100% of THOSE sales.

Yeah, but how do we get those people to identify themselves? Here’s how. We don’t sell HDV to EVERYONE. We don’t even mention it, except to say, “If you want HDV, don’t worry! It’s coming in September! And you can reserve it now for only $49!”

Ahhhh, so you break that out as a discrete transaction! The hounds of Sarbane and Oxley are satisfied that customers are getting what they’ve paid for in an appropriate time frame, no promises are being made that aren’t being kept. Everyone is happy.

Think about it from the flip side though, and you can probably guess how fgjking LONG IT TOOK to come up with $49 and the strategy around it — except that you can’t. It took much, much longer. Much of that work was being done by product people, who combined domain expertise with customer contact in ways that nobody else in the company did. They could have been doing so much more with their time, like guiding development of new stuff, meeting with customers about much higher-priority features, etc etc etc.

THAT’s why PRODUCT people got so excited about things like subscriptions, because now they’re liberated from having to assign dollar values to features and assigning them slots in the calendar. You still need to do that at a high level to try to balance development cost and opportunity cost, resources are limited, and falling behind is too risky to sustain — but so is wobbly stuff. People will in fact stick around if your stuff is solid, and they’ll bolt if it’s not, regardless of the features.

So Adobe’s approach is, let’s keep payment moving forward, Apple’s is let’s stop charging for upgrades, Avid’s is let’s get ’em paying annually in advance via subscription OR service contract, but paying annually nonetheless.

SO WHY THE SECRETS?

Here’s why. Because in Apple’s case, that’s the only way they have left to show love to their dearest friends. Back in the old days, they might give you some product, but really, what can they give you? A phone? Some Beats headphones? If you cared about that stuff, you’d have bought it already, and you getting one more for free won’t change how you feel about Apple — so in fact, by definition, that marketing initiative will fail, every single time, because it won’t actually yield any measurable result.

That’s also why Apple doesn’t advertise FCPX or have a large public booth at NAB — those things cannot possibly make Apple any NEW money that they couldn’t have gotten any other way, so everything that they spend on that kind of marketing is by definition a failure.

So how do you get your most excitable folks excited? You tell ’em stuff.

This isn’t cynical. It’s smart. It’s also kind, generous, and humane. These people ARE special to you, so you do the one thing that will make them FEEL special, which is to treat them as if they ARE special. Tell ’em stuff.

Of course, this is all theoretical on my part. I’m just guessing, because in fact, nobody tells me stuff. LOL Ever.

But I’m surely not THAT far off, am I? Agreeing that Apple has no FINANCIAL incentive to be secretive, but some STRATEGIC ones that aren’t related to markets, but to friends. And you take care of friends using the means you have at your disposal, which in this case is very simply staying in touch.

Here, friend. Pull up a chair. Let’s talk about some things that are important to each other.

[Craig Seeman]

[Tim Wilson] “So how do you get your most excitable folks excited? You tell ’em stuff. “

But WE are the excitable folk are we not? 😉

[Tim Wilson] “Agreeing that Apple has no FINANCIAL incentive to be secretive, but some STRATEGIC ones that aren’t related to markets, but to friends.”

Common Apple, tell me your secret and I’ll be your BFF. 😉

But do they have any “special” friends anymore? Seems they don’t have “favored” journalists anymore. Anyone who happened to be at NAB got into the meeting without needing a secret password or byline.

It seems even the plugin pluggers and tutorial tooters who used to be exclusively FCP, aren’t anymore.

Heck when it comes to their other software both iOS and macOS have public betas. Of course those updates are free once you buy the dongle. But, FCPX is now POP own forever (unless they’re thinking of changing that with the new App Store Subscription model) as well.

If they announced that the next version would make an excellent baked lasagna I wouldn’t stop all my projects to wait. It wouldn’t impact a purchase since, for many people, there’s no either/orness with NLEs anymore. There’s not even a “better wait to buy more seats” motive to avoid the non existent upgrade fee.

Not only don’t I see a business model for secrets, I don’t see the secrets impacting the open marriages we now have with our NLEs.

Apple wont even let us be friends with benefits.

[Walter Soyka]

From the article: “Final Cut Pro X had been updating on a regular basis and then it just stopped. There are two reasons this happens at Apple: either it’s about to be killed off, or there is something new and better waiting in the wings.”

I think that’s a false dichotomy. “Maintenance” (a la Apple’s productivity apps) is a completely valid third option.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Noah Kadner]

Also anyone making a living predicting Apple’s next move is destined to be mistaken- FACT.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “But do they have any “special” friends anymore? Seems they don’t have “favored” journalists anymore. Anyone who happened to be at NAB got into the meeting without needing a secret password or byline.”

I think that’s the definition of friend, though: that you want to hear what they have to say, face to face.

The thing about journalists is that they tend to be jaded. They’re the guys in the back of the room with their arms crossed. They’ve heard it all before. They’re too cool to clap.

Apple doesn’t need those guys.

Those guys used to the mediators, the gatekeepers who explained stuff to “us” because only they had access to the news, and only they understood it. But in this context, they’re old and slow and paying attention to the wrong things.

So rather than speak to the mediators, trying to break through the ice surrounding their cold, cold hearts LOL Apple is speaking IM-mediated-LY, to the hot-blooded who want to hear it.

The barrier is low enough, right? Cross the driveway, ride up the elevator, grab a cookie and sit down. Hey look! It’s Noah Kadner! LOL

Okay, not a barrier so low that you don’t still have to get to NAB, but that’s still a low-ish barrier as far as such things go. Easier than getting into Comic-Con, that’s for sure.

I like this plan a lot. It’s not secrecy for its own sake. It’s Apple saying, “Look, what we were doing before wasn’t doing anybody any good. We were putting our message in the hands of people who didn’t care all that much, who weren’t helping us ANY, and god bless user groups, but that’s a circus that takes more effort than we have the mental and spiritual bandwidth to manage.”

It might be different if Apple had a culture of outreach. They don’t. It’s like, there was only ever a couple of people in the whole history of the company who were any good at stage presentations. LOL The guy who was best at it resented his audiences. LOL Didn’t like customers even a little. And while there are clearly and demonstrably people within Apple who DO care about customers, there’s simply not a culture there of public presentations as a core value. Certainly no history of it.

So let’s get all that folderol out of the way, says Apple. “We’re not presenters. We’re not good with crowds and we know it. Sit down. Let’s talk.”

Right there, by lowering the barrier for almost everyone else, they’ve created enough of a barrier to keep out almost all of the “too cool to clap” crowd. “Harumph, if I can’t write about it, why bother going? ANYBODY can go now.”

More than anything else, I think Apple’s worst impulses are rooted in arrogance, and what they’re doing with the FCPWORKS meetings is the opposite of arrogance. These are advertised, they’re free, they’re intimate, they’re personal.

I’m still a fan of spectacle, mind you, and some of you geezers who were around to see me on stage back in the day know that I was as committed to putting on a good show as anyone in the game, EVER.

And I believe VERY strongly that a commitment to powerful, effective public presentations IS a commitment to customers. It reflects critical core values. A company that doesn’t care about giving good demo doesn’t care enough about its customers, not for my taste, and I don’t think they’re entirely trustworthy — but if that’s not who you are as a company, it’s not who you are.

It’d be great if Apple could manage both, but hey, there’s something to be said for self-knowledge and playing to what you WANT to be your strengths, which is a quiet pitch away from the hubbub.

So on that count, I think it’s fair to remove “secrecy” from the list of pathologies ascribed to Apple. And make no mistake. I think they’ve been pathological. I think they reflected the explicit, literal, clinical, criminal psychosis of their former leader, and am pleased by the process and progress of their detoxification.

Rather than secrecy, then, I think NDA presos via FCPWORKS as more of an offer of mutual respect. “We’ll tell you some cool stuff, but please don’t drag us into the circus. We’re here talking to you because we’ve had enough of that, and we bet you’ve had enough of companies who won’t tell you anything substantial.

Deal?”

Again noting that I don’t altogether approve of this being the entirety of the outreach plan, and I think Apple has a long, long list of problems that I personally find insurmountable….but in the scheme of things, I don’t see how this makes the list. Walk across the driveway from the LVCC, have a cookie, say hi to Noah, meet some folks from Apple, maybe even meet Bill Davis. That’s a pretty good morning, right?