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Avid laying off 120 people
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I’m not sure what you mean about rolling the dice, being dishonest or lying. What’s wrong with releasing new versions? The great thing about forums is that the early adopters take the risk, report on problems and then updates are released.
http://www.MediaCircus.TV
Media Production Services
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada -
jerry,
Your experience mirrors my experience. First Avid? Ver 4.0 on a Mac Quadra in 1993. I think it cost $60K.
You can certainly give AVID credit for “developing” the NLE, but I don’t think they’ll be around to see
the “democratization” of the NLE. That honor has to go to Apple. Harvard MBA’s will be studying this story arc in classes for years to come. Title: “How to take a world class brand and screw it up”.I do see them morphing into a “server company” as Terry Curren suggests.
I’m thrilled that my original, simple, factual post generated such a dialogue. Meanwhile, I’ll stick with our 100+ seats of FCP and X-SAN, thank you very much.
Mark
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[Scott Carnegie] “I actually have brought this up to Avid before, since I rarely hear their name mentioned on podcasts like the DV show and Digital Production Buzz and it sounded like they might look at a sponsorship of some kind. perhaps I will bring it up again. As I mentioned in another post in this thread, I think that marketing is where Avid falls short.”
Like Avid itself, there are some people that follow these shows — but their actual counts are quite small (and even DV Magazine is getting down to a pamphlet size, with few advertisers) compared to Creative COW.
Their conference moved to Pasadena this year because it had shrunk so small over the years that it could no longer justify the costs associated with the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Conversely, The COW has well over 2 million monthly unique visitors but unfortunately, Avid thinks an iPod show with a few FCP people scrambling for a place in it is more important than a site that has two million+ unique people each month that ARE actually interested in video. Go figure.
I think that Avid has so marginalized themselves that they will continue to lose marketshare until they get down to only the ones that demand “Avid heavy lifting abilities.” But hey, even companies like Bunim-Murray (who were once staunchly Avid-based) are now using FCP systems and they have mighty heavy workflow demands — so at least some of even Avid’s most truly core market focus have found ways around them.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
Interesting thread. The big point that many are missing is that in the physical universe, things change.
Remember in the 90s when Apple was “dead”? Doesn’t look that way anymore. What happened? Things changed. Jobs came back and was the right guy at the right time. They took a couple risky shots with the iPod / iTunes combo that paid off in spades.
But it wasn’t and still isn’t FCP that saves Apple. The entire ProApps division could close tomorrow and Apple wouldn’t even notice it happened.
And as for service, who helps you at Apple when you can’t get video out of your Kona / Decklink to a Panasonic deck?
That’s one call at Avid and they do help. Do you pay for that? Yes. But you have to ask what your time is down time is worth. If your time is cheap, then don’t worry about it. If on the other hand your time is worth something, then the value added in the Avid proposition is worth something.
I have both FCP and Avid in my company. I can troubleshoot them both but FCP causes me many more hours of downtime trying to handle arcane issues than Avid does.
I have been one of the world’s loudest critics of Avid in the past, (just ask Tim Wilson), but I have seen the company turn around in the last few years. I agree that it might be too little too late, but then again… it might not. Remember Apple in the 90s, people were shorting Apple stock like crazy back then. oops!!!!
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Yes, all of what you say is correct, Terry. Well, except that Avid has no Steve Jobs.
No, FCP did not save Apple and it is true that the entire Pro Apps division could disappear tomorrow and it would barely scratch Apple’s future.
While Apple innovates and “opportunizes,” growing market share and launching new products — even going so far as to change the company name to reflect the new reality — Avid misses opportunities and draws back into its shell. But hey, it did go to Macworld and it did change its logo — kind of reminds me of when Media 100 changed their logo from a professional looking one to that of what the users called “Satan’s Eyeball.”
Avid reminds me of the Apple of Gil Amelio, not that of Steve Jobs.
But hey, that’s just me.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
I’m not saying I would buy Avid stock at this point. But I wouldn’t short it either. Could go either way which is a better outlook than I had as little as a year ago.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
I would agree that Avid’s new team is faring better than the last two teams of the last few years.
But in fairness, I think the move to pitch Media Composer at Macworld (even at the new low price point) is far too late in the game to be anything more than a “Hey, let’s try something totally different” marketing play — but one that is doomed to fail, in my opinion.
That said, they have been doing other things that have made far more sense than many of the plays made by their recent predecessors.
Like Tim Wilson, I don’t think the lay-offs were a bad thing — other than for the people directly affected — and that they likely were being too conservative with the layoffs. Sometimes, surgeons cut away parts of the body to save the life of the patient — and Mike Cohen films the whole process. ;o) As you said in your first post of this thread, Terry, markets and things change.
When I saw the Macworld play, I almost laughed out loud, except that it was so pathetic.
I have said it before and I will say it again: I don’t believe for a second that Avid is going out of business. In fact, I think that they will live long into the future. As long as Adobe, Apple and Sony build the low and middle grounds in this industry, there will always be room for companies like Avid and Autodesk, meeting specific needs of specific customers willing to pay for them.
But will Avid find its future at Macworld? Now that is something that I will bet against.
Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom] “Avid reminds me of the Apple of Gil Amelio”
*Shutter*
Yeah…I worked at Apple at that time and was SURE that the company was going under. Stock was at $8 and I didn’t buy it.
Avid was a bit worse, as they just didn’t think that they were going to go under. They were COCKY, and if people went “Hey, I need this minor upgrade to that I can multiclip more than 4 angles,” Avid techs would reply “well, that unlock code will cost you $20,000.” And if you couldn’t afford it, they would reply “If you can’t afford it, why are you using Avid?”
Terry…get me over there to manage your FCP systems. I have darn little downtime with ours over here. Only issues are with HDV, but that it the format and the DECKs fault. Can’t get that to work on the Avid all that well either.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “They were COCKY”
I think Shane nailed it there. One of the reasons I never had the remotest warm-and-fuzzy feelings about Avid.
Pride goeth before the fall.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Shane Ross] “get me over there to manage your FCP systems”
You have no idea what you are saying. It is one thing to manage FCP systems in a closed environment. It is another thing to manage FCP systems that see many different projects from different people with different formats in different states of confusion every day.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca
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