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Baselight for FCP?
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[Walter Soyka] “Adobe does sell Premiere Pro a la carte; you could also get it via subscription licensing instead of perpetual licensing, either alone or in a suite, if you so choose.”
I stand corrected, was that part of their recent licensing change? I could swear PPro was only in the bundle the last time I shopped it.
[Walter Soyka] “Adobe is proof that you can succeed in the industry as a software-only developer, if your offering is compelling enough. Autodesk is another (looking at their 3D and CAD apps moreso than turnkey Smoke/Flame systems).”
That still aligns with my main point. Both Autodesk and Adobe make most of their money away from NLEs. Then to be economically viable, Smoke costs $15,000 and Adobe has had to tighten their upgrade pricing (while laying off 750 employees). For an indie Mac-only NLE to float, it would almost certainly have to cost many FCPXes to be economically viable.
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “I stand corrected, was that part of their recent licensing change? I could swear PPro was only in the bundle the last time I shopped it.”
I’m not sure — I think it’s always been available on its own, but its value prop isn’t nearly as compelling as a standalone product as it is bundled with Photoshop, Illustrator, Audition, After Effects, and Encore for about double the price of just Premiere.
[Andrew Richards] “That still aligns with my main point. Both Autodesk and Adobe make most of their money away from NLEs. Then to be economically viable, Smoke costs $15,000 and Adobe has had to tighten their upgrade pricing (while laying off 750 employees). For an indie Mac-only NLE to float, it would almost certainly have to cost many FCPXes to be economically viable.”
I do agree with you. There are some who are willing to pay what it costs for their niche-within-a-niche products, but they need to have a really compelling reason to do so. I think you’re right on that trying to build a low-cost, general-purpose NLE from the ground-up is a fool’s game.
I also think that FCPX’s price is artificially low. If we pick up the monetary jokes from yesterday, Apple are currency manipulators, keeping the price artificially low to make their product more appealing.
For anyone looking for FCP7’s spiritual successor, Premiere Pro is really close.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I also think that FCPX’s price is artificially low. If we pick up the monetary jokes from yesterday, Apple are currency manipulators, keeping the price artificially low to make their product more appealing.”
FCP’s price has always been artificially low in that sense. The joke has long been that FCP is cheap, but you need a really expensive dongle to run it (a Mac).
[Walter Soyka] “For anyone looking for FCP7’s spiritual successor, Premiere Pro is really close.”
Exactly. It is as close as anyone is ever going to get to FCP8, but it runs a heck of a lot faster on Windows (or more accurately, on the commodity PC hardware Windows lives on). I really wish Adobe had a reason to port it to Linux. Maybe Windows 8 and Metro will give them a reason, but I doubt it.
Best,
Andy -
$2500. Today. Possibly more, but I’d have to believe in it’s viability.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Andrew Richards] “A lot of editors wanted FCP8, but without Apple subsidizing development with Mac sales, how much would it cost? $5,000? $10,000?”
I might put up the 10K if it was an investment in a co-operative company making the software, and not just a license.
At the demise of *edit a number of edit*ors started putting together just such a co-operative and approached Autodesk about buying *edit. After stringing us along for a few months they refused to sell, to us or anyone else, not even to Pinnacle who was apparently interested at the time. All of which explains my abiding love for Discreet Autodesk.
With a few million Legacy seats in play, I’d guess a fairly large co-operative group could be put together to license UI and other property rights. I’m quite sure Apple would never sell.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “$2500. Today. Possibly more, but I’d have to believe in it’s viability.”
Yep, me too.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “[Herb Sevush] “$2500. Today. Possibly more, but I’d have to believe in it’s viability.”
Yep, me too.
“There’s two maybe’s.
There’s no way Apple would sell. Hate to be a humbug, but Aindreas is correct. FCP as we know it is dead.
Someone would have to untangle KGCore which is now what, 15 years old? 20? And what would the new engine be? Can’t be QuickTime, so you’d have to build/borrow/license another one.
I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but who’d want to?
If you’re looking to keep an FCP Legacy workflow, PPro is for you as has been mentioned. Plus you get many modern benefits on top of that.
It’d probably be at least a few years before it was operational.
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[Walter Soyka] “Coupled with Apple’s how-low-can-you-go pricing, I can understand why someone might want to think twice before funding development.”
Walter,
If Apple is anything like all the other large companies I’ve worked with — including a few who went through formal “efficient assortment” and similar pricing initiatives that are commonly used by large firms to develop price points) — I don’t think the $299 price for FCP-X is a “how low can they go” deal at all.
I imagine that they looked at all the typical pricing metrics before they set that price. They looked at how much development, sales and maintenance overhead they needed to cover – calculated likely sales verses profit metrics – and settled on a price that met their goals.
The big driver was their ownership of the “end to end” supply chain represented by the iTunes store. THAT is the huge Apple competitive advantage that makes a modern price like $299 for a sophisticated piece of software like X possible.
Believe me, I’ve done enough “supply chain” videos to understand something about how large scale pricing works. Apple can make PLENTY of margin on $299 if they come in at the point on their proposed demand curve where features and price present a compelling “buy” decision for the largest group of customers.
No product – at the high or low end of any line – can escape this. As price falls, costs and demand must BOTH be balanced. The companies that do this best, are those that establish a superior value proposition – and win in the long run. Part of that is definitely the ephemeral “product superiority perception” that is causing pro editors so much grief – and that clearly is something Apple has long used to maintain margin.
But over time the bigger game is actually a lot simpler. If they don’t present that value proposition constantly, the demand will fall off. The massive question with X is will there be enough users who’s features it matches to replace (and even exceed) those who it loses at the (special ist) end. (sorry, i’ve finally learned to split that word since it always trips the “spam” filtering by containing an evil string of interior letters!)
Apple feels that $299 is the right price point for X. I suspect they’ve got that right. It’s a LOT less than they used to have to charge – but enough in an all electronic distribution “end to end” revolutionary system that quashes most of the cost of sales – that leaves plenty of room for generating profits.
Win-win, IMO. But definitely not a “how low can we go” strategy at all, IMO.
“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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[Andrew Richards] “Aye, there’s the rub. Who in the Post business isn’t particularly price sensitive?”
Plenty of folks. for someone who’s just signed a deal for 26 episodes of a TV show – I suspect the problem isn’t “how much is each seat.” but much more – how fast can you get me up and running and can you assure me it will work perfectly right out of the gate.
Horses for courses.
“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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[Andrew Richards] “That’s the key- how much would you pay for it? The business model du jour seems to be “software for cheap, hardware required”.”
This is interesting to me.
Hardware was something that the more you made, the cheaper it was to make it – but only up to a point. It functioned via classic economies of scale. Buy 10 motors they’re relatively expensive. Buy 100,000 – you get a huge break on the price per unit.
Software, on the other hand, has hefty fixed development costs. But after those are met – the costs profile drops to maintenance and re-development plus distribution costs.
Apple (via the iTunes store) pretty much slashed distribution costs in orders of magnitude.
And even without that,, – selling more software will potentially leverag much more pure profit than hardware models could hope to – since the costs of sales scale virtually rather than by having to buy assemble, and ship more stuff.
I wonder if, like modern computer printer manufactures – the (hardware) computers will be someday be kept artificially cheap – simply to drive the sales of the high-profit (software) ink.
Interesting to think about.
“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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