No Avid at NAB

[Marianna Montague]

From the Press Release

” The company also announced that it will not have an exhibition booth at the 2008 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention, but plans to be in Las Vegas next April to meet with customers. ”

Just making sure this is clear.

Marianna
marianna_montague@avid.com
813-493-6800

[Terence Curren]

Dang Marianna, you’re fast! 😉

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Marianna Montague]

Yep… I been up since 6:30 EST, walked the dog and had a massive amount of coffee. I am raring to go…….

xoxo
Marianna

[Mike Herod]

AVID says in their Press release thet they will “shake up the industry” in feb 2008.

Well here’s what they have to do:

Cut prices 40% across the board.
Add the best of the Pinnacle platform…background rendering…burn a DVD from the timeline…resolution independence for stills.
Add 3rd party hardware support…ie AJA & Blackmagic
Redesign the 90’s interface.

if they don’t they will be a fond memory in 5 years.

Mike

[Peter Corbett]

We do pretty high-end stuff with (cough) Premiere and Decklink HD. If Avid could port to Decklink it could be a deal-maker for me. (and ditto for dropping those prices…)

Peter

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
http://www.php.com.au

[Ben Rojas]

Agreed! They’ve got a lot to do in a short time… Let’s see if they’ve got the stones to do what needs to be done. First and foremost, they need to open up and play nice with others… Hey Discreet and Quantel did it! If nothing else, it’ll be fun to read all the armchair quarterbacking for the next 12 months ;o)

BenR
Senior Editor
VTA FL
http://www.VTA.com

[Tim Kolb]

Avid has some very clear advantages in the NLE marketplace, particularly in workgroups and simultaneous asset utilization, etc. I think they’ve lost quite a bit of ground in the boutique business over the years from simply not keeping the competition in their sights for a number of years.

Avid is really a group of businesses, much like Discreet was at the time of the demise of *edit. There are multiple product lines and multiple markets. The futures of the traditional Avid business vs the DigiDesign audio business vs the M Audio and Pinnacle pro/consumer businesses, not to mention Softimage 3d and Sibelius, may start to diverge depending on the strategy of the management of Avid going forward.

My guess after looking at the last four quarters or so for Avid would be that some of these things may end up sold to create cash and narrow the company’s focus.

The knee-jerk assumption would be that Avid would shed divisions that aren’t pro editing related, but my impressions of the staff cuts over the last year is that division was hit hard. I always thought that Avid’s support was at least as important an asset as the equipment itself, and an important competitive advantage for Avid. With the staffing cuts, lower-priced products (support like Avid provides costs serious money folks), and eroding marketshare in single or multiple system shops without shared asset management, I think that it will be extremely challenging to maintain the level of support that Avid customers appreciate.

“Avid will be in Vegas” may be an interesting statement in that I wonder if Avid will be in Vegas as part of another manufacturer’s portfolio?

I know…blasphemy…but the cost-cutting I’ve seen at Avid seem like short-term stock price bolstering (look at the most recent quarterly report) but long term, it looks like some of these cuts will affect the company’s ability to continue to do business under all these brand flags.

…just some chin scratching.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net

[Scott Thomas]

I work in a broadcast TV station. The Avid products we own and use are MediaStream servers for program and commercial playback and a Thunder HD clip player. This announcement I’m sure is making the management a bit concerned. If Avid wanted to narrow the focus of their NAB presence to just broadcast related hardware like servers and newsroom systems, then I could appreciate that, but this would make we wary of their commitment to the future of those products. The fact that our chief engineer came all the way to the other side of the building to let me know the news I think says something.