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OT: Apple pulls out of NAB
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Apple’s withdrawal from NAB says more about the state of the economy in general than about the state of the pro apps.
I guess I just don’t understand then. Why is it when Avid withdrawals, it’s because they don’t have the money to go or because they’re dead or whatever else…but when Apple withdrawals, it’s because of the state of the economy? What, the economy is exceedingly worse now than it was when Avid announced their stance?
The simple fact is that the great majority of the FCP clientele are not broadcasters. For Apple’s pro apps sales, there is no great benefit when it’s chief competitor is absent and they are in a belt tightening situation. Why expend revenue to promote something, when there will likely be nothing to promote?The majority of Avid’s clientele are broadcasters, yet FCP’s isn’t? So then how is Avid their chief competitor? Why have they been showing up all these years if they don’t even have the same clientele as Avid? Why would they not be showing up now that they have a chance to steal this clientele?
What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. You’re basically saying they shouldn’t go because the people they compete with aren’t there…but the next line you say that they’re not even in direct competition due to different markets. Well which is it?
Look, everyone can spin this however they want to, but the fact remains that Avid withdrew from the event with an announcement about making more of a grassroots effort. Everyone said it was a lie, they were just in too much financial trouble, and even if it weren’t a lie, it was stupid to withdrawal. Now that Apple has done it and released a VERY similar announcement about their grassroots efforts, everyone thinks it’s not so shabby an idea.
Honestly, I don’t even care what the reasons are. Avid says it wants to get into more personal meetings with people. Is that true? Who cares! Apple says something similar. Is their reason true? Who cares! My point from the beginning was that no matter what reason Avid gave, it was stupid to everyone for them to have ever withdrawn from NAB. There’s no reason they could have given that would not have been regarded by people here as an acceptable reason. Now that Apple’s made the same announcement, suddenly people are coming up with lots of acceptable reasons…ones that Apple has never made a comment about…but people here sure are willing to make some up in order for it to be okay for Apple to do what was unacceptable by Avid just months earlier.
So you see, maybe I don’t completely understand you’re reasoning about how the two companies differ and that I’m “too caught up in the hypocrisy” to see it…but the hypocrisy was my whole point to begin with! I never cared what the reasons were. I cared that everyone screamed “THERE’S NO GOOD REASON A COMPANY LIKE AVID SHOULD MISS NAB…APPLE WOULD NEVER DO THAT”…suddenly, they’re changing their tune.
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“The majority of Avid’s clientele are broadcasters, yet FCP’s isn’t? So then how is Avid their chief competitor? Why have they been showing up all these years if they don’t even have the same clientele as Avid? Why would they not be showing up now that they have a chance to steal this clientele?”
Apple only competes with Avid for prestige. Just look at the numbers. Ask Larry Jordan for the numbers he gets on his surveys who is working in what format. There are over a 1,000,000 FCP seats worldwide. The vast majority are not broadcasters. Apple touts how many TV shows and feature films they edit, but the bottom line is that’s not who they sell the bulk of their products to.
There is no good reason for Avid to miss this show. It’s an essential show for the company that Avid is. It is not for the company that Apple is. Personally I think it’s a poor decision for both companies, much more so for Avid than for Apple. The grass roots thing may work for Avid because of its comparatively small user base, but I don’t think that’s going to help it expand its eroding market share.
I understand you’re wholly focused on hypocrisy, and clearly nothing I say is going to change your mind because you believe what you want to believe regardless of the facts facing the two companies and their completely different positions. You can be as self-righteousness as you want, but it will not change the fact that the two companies are wholly different and make decisions for wholly different reasons.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
By pulling out, Avid gives off the image of being the company for the elite. The “real” professionals. Regular Joe’s off the street shouldn’t even know what Avid is. Setting up a giant booth at a show filled with technology fans who aren’t really serious customers may have been counterproductive for them (in their minds at least).
So while they take the “high road”, the company that also makes iPhones, iDVD, and Widgets would be left at NAB with a giant booth and nothing new and exciting show off. Expectations would be unreasonably high every year and they’d get bad PR and a fall in share prices when the biggest announcement is something simple like Final Cut 6.1 featuring REDCODE support. Maybe Apple saw this coming, and decided to do the same.
Just a stupid theory of course.
Or maybe both brands are so recognizable, both Avid and FCP are so well known, having booths at NAB does more harm than good. Perhaps if you’re Apple, why attract thousands of customers to a show where they discover 20 different alternatives to Final Cut? Products many have never heard of (Edius for example). A place where Apple is nothing more than a big fish in a very big pond. Same could be said about Avid.
Sean
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The Macbook Air might be overpriced and underpowered and for the look what I have freaks but the company I work for sold 2,5 times as many of the New Mac Pro in In the 3 weeks it was available in January compared to the Old Mac Pro in December. Apple is earning quit a lot on each Mac Pro. Selling twice as many Mac Pro from January to April compared to last september to January will have a very positiv impact on their buttom line. The Mac pro is not a giftitem for chrismas but something you buy when you need it.
Let the machine work for you. Not you for the machine
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[Michael Hancock] “I posted this link because it surprised me. With Avid gone it gave Apple full rein to show everyone at NAB that they were commited to post production and were the best for your business. Without one of their main competitors there to refute that (in a booth–Avid will be there), it was a great opportunity.”
Yep, my thoughts exactly. No more “sound wars” between Avid and Apple. They had the opportunity to essentially rule that section of NAB.
[Michael Hancock] “Now, Apple is doing pretty much the exact same thing. They’re pulling from NAB but they’ll be in Vegas to meet with clients/potential clients. It sounds like they’re pulling from a lot of trade shows to do exactly what Avid announced they were doing–going straight to the customers instead of setting up shop on a showroom floor shouting answers for 5 minutes to whoever walks up and wants to punch some buttons.”
Yes, and how will you get to these client / potential client meetings? What’s the secret handshake? Who do you have to know? Where will these people be? So if you know no one at Apple, but have a facility that requires all new edit systems, whom do you contact for one of these client meetings for either Avid or Apple?
I’ve worked in booths the past two years and here’s how it typically works. Person A comes up and asks me a few questions, I do a little demo on the gear, he asks me some more questions. Then he says, “I’m the manager of XYZ facility and we’re looking to upgrade our 5, 10, 20, 50 edit suites.” I say, “Let me introduce you to the product manager and he’ll be happy to discuss the product further.” Whereupon they proceed to a quiet meeting room right in the back of the booth.
Now for every Peron A, there are about 30 or 40 others who just want to kick the tires a bit or who might just need one of the product. But Person A who has decided to purchase 5 to 50 of these products, didn’t have a contact, didn’t know much about the company, just walked to the booth to talk to a real user to find out more. This would not have happened had there not been a booth in place making it incredibly easy to access the information.
I met a LOT of people who are in town for just one day and they’re trying to hit as many things as possible to get a feel for what’s out there. You don’t do this by having private meetings where you’re trapped in a room somewhere off the show floor, maybe in a hotel suite. You do this by being able to move around the show floor easily and if you really want to commit to a meeting with someone, you go 20 feet into a private room.
Really disappointed in both Avid and Apple for dropping out of the shows (except for you lucky few who will be worthy of the direct client meetings) and basically telling us the professional community as a whole doesn’t matter. We don’t care about coming to the one place where everyone can see everything.
I wonder about all the “halo” companies who create products for Apple like BlackMagic, AJA, Red Giant, BorisFX, Automatic Duck and the hundreds of small companies who make plug-ins and products that work with Final Cut Studio. How will their sales be hurt by people bypassing the show due to Apple and Avid pulling out?
The most insane statement from Apple is that we can go to the Retail Stores to learn more about the products. If Apple wants to hire video and audio professionals to start staffing their stores, this could work. If Apple expects their standard retail employees to sell me on Final Cut Studio 2, that’s unrealistic and it’s not fair to those employees.
I could go on, but I’ve said much more in my blog.
https://blogs.creativecow.net/node/421Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
Hi
As a low-end-broadcasting user of FCS, what I hoped Apple would have announced they were about to ship after NAB was:a) Final Cut Server – ie FCP’s Media Manager totally fixed and made bomb-proof with an internal asset database, AND fully integrated into a scalable external databased media storage solution, and
b) Apple Xnas – a state of the art lower end (lower cost) shared storage solution, NAS rather than SAN, that would allow us smaller edit facilities access to a shared storage solution that we can afford, and manage without expensive specialist support.
c) Also QuickTime needs to be updated to fully cope with clip management and databasing in a MXF-metadata world. I guess this is part of the problem in getting FCServer to market, as the preservation of metadata is crucial to server management of assets. Timecode was a tape-based solution which is inadequate in a tapeless workflow – I mean VITC hasn’t even made it into QuickTime, we’re all working in Tape Counter mode 😉
d) Lastly DVD SP brought into the Blu-ray era, but fully, with control over the whole navigation interactivity of the new format. And with the DRM nonsense reworked to be of benefit to a small corporate edit facility, not just for Hollywood production studios.
If Apple can’t deliver on all (or any) of that then they might as well dash my hopes now by not appearing at NAB 😉
One of the guys on the CatDV developement team said of the delayed delivery of Final Cut Server, “Apple thought that by getting nine women pregnant they could produce a baby in a month, but it don’t work like that…”
In the end the healthy delivery of the offspring is all anyone really cares about, so if it isn’t to be this spring, so be it. 🙁 -
I think the desire for massive trade shows is dwindling everywhere. Smaller events held by maybe one vendor seem to be on the rise.
I’ll bet cash money we’ll see some other big names drop out in the next few weeks!
-Simmie
1 MacPro – Kona 3
2 G5 – Kona LH
2 G4s – Cinewave
xbox360, Wii, PSP, PS2
https://www.speak.co.uk -
[Stuart Simpson] “Smaller events held by maybe one vendor seem to be on the rise.”
Yeah the Road Shows. I hate these as it’s just well choreographed event by one company and you spend 1/2 or a full day just seeing their dog and pony show. At least at NAB you can watch all the dog and pony shows in one place on one day.
I guess I have to rethink my plans now. I was going to NAB to demonstrate products, but not sure if I’ll go now. Seems the show isn’t all that important anymore.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
It’s just weird to me because when you talk to the majority of Final Cut users, they’re never shy in saying how Final Cut is taking over Avid’s business in the broadcast and feature world. “The BBC just switched all their Avid’s to Final Cut”…”X movie is just one of the many new films being cut in Final Cut instead of Avid..expect that trend to continue” (not exact quotes, but you get the picture). Those are the TYPES of things said, and they’re said often.
So one would think that because Apple is trying to get more into that business, it makes more sense to be there, especially when they can make so much more headway now that their competitor isn’t there. In that way, I don’t see how Apple isn’t even stupider than Avid for not going. Avid’s already got an established client base in that arena…when you’re the underdog and you’re trying to get business, aren’t you supposed to push a little harder than those already established?
I understand that the two companies make decisions for two completely different reasons…but for the reasons I just stated above, doesn’t anybody think that Apple is more stupid than Avid for pulling out and missing this opportunity to clench the only part of the market that Avid is still pretty far ahead in? Of course not, which is why I brought this thing up in the first place.
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Walter makes some good points further down in the thread that I agree with. Do I think Apple is more stupid for not going? Probably not. Simply because I think it’s more essential for Avid to go, as a company, and to try to reach out for new customers. Avid is the underdog. They may have the entrenched position in a specific market, but it’s a dwindling share. Should Apple be there? I think it should, but for the company Avid is I think it’s much for important for them and for how they are perceived in their core business.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop”
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