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FCS 3 is back on sale through Apple – via telesales only
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Is this apples “SWITCH BACK” promotion for studios to start buying fcp pro again;)
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[Scott Sheriff] “here is what I said in the FCP forum”
Excellent points. Wonder if they will fix this now. Back to ranting lol
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[Jamie Franklin] “And I would have bought one had they not EOL’d it…”
You’re not Apple’s target market for an EOL purchase.
Someone buying their first NLE or someone building a new facility has no reason to get FCS3 at this point. Someone who does not have a paramount need for an EOL FCS3 isn’t going to purchase it. This is why Apple is not putting it back in their online store. This is why Apple is handling it over the phone and through VARs.
Imagine a facility with 30 FCS seats and they need 5 more because their workload is expanding. They have an immediate and urgent need. Their options are to buy 5 seats (and computers) of something else. Not a good choice at all if you’re managing a facility. You’ve just created 5 “ghetto ” rooms if you’re and FCS facility and need these seats to integrate into a facility workflow. Avid or Premiere would be a major hinderance.
The other onerous possibility is that if the facility can’t get the FCS seats they may be pushed into an earlier decision to move to another NLE to keep a uniform congruent workflow and may even, at that point, consider switching computer platforms. This is an extremely expensive decision with potential for serious short term disruption.
On the other hand, such a facility is likely going to get a short term ROI even on 5 more seats of EOL FCS since they’re being purchased for work that already coming in. Apple and the VAR may well be selling 5 more MacPros and not losing those to HPZ800 either.
So the facility wins since it’s a better ROI at a lower cost in both dollars and time (time that would be lost by issues around training, integration, complex workflow due to cross NLE integration). Apple wins because it means they’re keeping you on the Mac a bit longer (remember Apple makes money selling computers) while they develop FCPX.
Probably the single event that caused the most ire was not the EOL of FCX but that it was done suddenly, cutting off facilities who were mid project and needed additional seats for an expanding workload.
That’s why Apple is selling FCS through the methods and channels they’re using. It’s not all meant to be a return to sales for the broader market. That’s why it’s not available online. That’s why VARs who have facilities to support are getting FCS boxes.
Apple just solved that problem although it was two months later than it should have been.
The single biggest faux pas in Apple’s approach to FCS to FCPX (and there are many other problems) was not having any understanding of the facility business dynamic. . . . And Apple’s biggest fear should be that such facilities shift from Mac to Windows boxes. Selling just a few EOL FCS and the Macs they run on, to facilities in need, keeps them in the Mac purchase mode even if they move to Avid or Premiere next year.
Additionally, while facilities might represent only a very small portion of FCS sales. they probably represent a big portion of MacPro sales.
Which leads back to my other post on MacPros and why Apple is probably rethinking what computer, coupled with FCPX will have a broader market reach and yet get the high value bulk hardware purchases that facilities make.
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[Jamie Franklin] “..AND some of us are here to vent at this disaster. Get over it. Time to let it go. You don’t have to challenge every jab”
This forum is a marketing as well as a means to help fellow workers who, on any given day, I may some day work for, or they for me or otherwise share work. You’d be surprised how much work can come from forum posts.
If potential employer or client poked around scouting to hire someone knowledgeable, one might ask do your forum posts hold up well as a representation of both your knowledge and, just as important, your character.
This is not hypothetical because I’ve had personal experience with potential clients, developers, potential employers, Googling and finding specific posts at the COW.
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[Craig Seeman] “Additionally, while facilities might represent only a very small portion of FCS sales. they probably represent a big portion of MacPro sales.”
And if the post house is on Macs and Final Cut, it’s pretty damn likely the editors will have their own personal Macs and Final Cut, and even their families.
I still don’t know why it took them two months.
Seriously?!
Also, kudos to you for your patience with people who seems to just want to rant and rave.
There’s a lot to be pissed at, but there is so much innovation and power in this app. I watched the tekserve presentation by Evan Schechtman.
Quite excellent. He wasn’t a sycophantic fanboy, but gave a very detailed, thorough, and knowledgeable examination of the whole situation.
I’m comfortably convinced that I’m not wasting my time learning and working on FCX. Clearly they made several errors in this launch, and I hope they figure out how to keep this from ever happening again.
Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
blogging at https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
meh
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[Ray Wang] “Wonder if this has to do with Steve Jobs in the backseat?
Tim the benevolent ruler?”
We may not know for sure but we are led to believe Tim Cook is excellent when it comes to managing supply chains and understanding how they impact business.
The rumor is that Jobs was major P.O.’d about how the FCPX release was handled and supposedly similar to how he felt about the MobleMe launch. That such things may have upset may well mean that he isn’t hands on for every decision. The business articles I’ve read which apparently interviewed former Apple employees indicate that Jobs was not hands on on the micromanagement level.
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[Mark Morache] “And if the post house is on Macs and Final Cut, it’s pretty damn likely the editors will have their own personal Macs and Final Cut, and even their families. “
Absolutely. Every MacPro in a facility may well mean a bunch more MacBooksPros, MacMinis, iMacs in the hands of family and friends. It’s part of the “ecosystem” think that Apple has (or normally has).
[Mark Morache] “I still don’t know why it took them two months.
Seriously?!”
I’ve mulled over this a lot. Either they were truly bonehead or there was a back room situation that we’ll never know about. What I do see is that Apple’s handling of EOL FCS to FCPX is entirely out of character with their transition and marketing history. I can’t see a single business reason for them to have changed that model unless “something else” also changed in this circumstance.
[Mark Morache] “There’s a lot to be pissed at, but there is so much innovation and power in this app. I watched the tekserve presentation by Evan Schechtman.
Quite excellent. He wasn’t a sycophantic fanboy, but gave a very detailed, thorough, and knowledgeable examination of the whole situation.”
I was at the event and I did chew his ear a bit afterwords because I wanted to hear about the business thinking he’s going through. I think his approach to this as someone who founded what is now a large facility, is very well thought out.
An interesting side note is that Tekserve said it was the highest attendance they had for any event and that includes Apple product launches. The place was packed end to end standing room. If you’ve seen that video you can imagine the reason Evan did the presentation standing in the window display as there was no other place he could fit.
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[Craig Seeman] “I was at the event and I did chew his ear a bit afterwords because I wanted to hear about the business thinking he’s going through. I think his approach to this as someone who founded what is now a large facility, is very well thought out.”
Any tidbits or insight that’s not in the video?
[Craig Seeman] “An interesting side note is that Tekserve said it was the highest attendance they had for any event and that includes Apple product launches. The place was packed end to end standing room. If you’ve seen that video you can imagine the reason Evan did the presentation standing in the window display as there was no other place he could fit.”
I was wondering about that. It seemed like a very strange place to stand. I thought they were just being innovative. “We’re in a fishbowl”. Kind of like the restaurant that has the one-way glass over the urinals so you can see out, but no one can see in.
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I’m calling it FCX. They took the “pro” out, so I will too.
I’ll reconsider after the first upgrade.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
blogging at https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
[Mark Morache] “Any tidbits or insight that’s not in the video?”
He’s going to wait about a year before he makes his decision. I think about 30 of his FCS seats (he has many more of that) also have FCPX on them. Not a single copy of FCPX is being used for paid jobs though.
He needed more FCS seats and he was able to purchase them (this was some weeks ago so Apple was already making good on that promise).[Mark Morache] “I was wondering about that.”
His facility has somewhere between 50 and 100 FCS seats so a lot of people were interested to hear what he had to say. When you consider FCS and the Macs they’re running on, this is a business that probably invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Apple post production products.
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