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we’re gathered around a very small pond.
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craig, why are you and i the only visionaries on these forums. i really think most people are so thick they can’t see the writing on the wall. by the sound of it they all want to continue working on clunky old towers loaded with cards for this and that, working with software that hasn’t changed in years except for small upgrades in suites that only get rebuilt once every 5 years. i really don’t understand the resistance to change. it’s like that all want to keep on driving old gas guzzling hot rods from the 60’s in the middle of a fuel shortage. new machines make the need for all that extra hardware obsolete. if software is optimized to use the hardware that exist in iMacs and mac minis and aware i say it “iPads”, then we won’t need all that extra crap. already the latest top end mini runs circles around the towers of just 3 years ago…the same old towers that most of the old guard are still using, filled up and maxed out with all new guts to get them up to speed! maybe its a left brain/right brain thing but i cant help but think the dinosaurs used the same type of logic! i can see the hate mail…denial is the first symptom of unwillingness to adapt!
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so what you’re really saying is their greed and poor management are the real problem. they tried to take advantage of a situation and karma is now biting them in the ass…it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you sell your product for too cheap then you won’t make any money no matter how many units you ship. i believe the same thing happened in the us automotive market years ago and forced the top 3 into the brink of foreclosure.
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[tony west] “Randy Ubilos, who created Premiere Pro left and ended up making FCP X
He must have thought Apple was going to be the last giant standing or why jump ship.”Your history is a bit off. Ubilos developed the original Premiere, not Premiere Pro, which is a completely different application and different UI. He went to Apple at the point the team was hired away from Macromedia and when it was questionable if Apple would even survive.
Remember that if you are a software developer – not an NLE developer specifically – then Apple is probably an interesting place. You work on more than just “pro” products. For example, a number of other developers have moved around to consumer apps, OS, iOS, etc. So staying at Apple – or not – has very little to do with a specific NLE or the pro-NLE marketplace.
I suspect Ubilos gets more cudos inside Apple for iMovie than anything to do with FCP or FCP X, because it’s more visible to the general market and probably drives more computer and device sales.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I guewss that if you and steve where on the Titanic you would be saying
“It wont sink, it wont sink its part of the white Star line and they are commited to its passangers, don’t worry something will happen”
RC
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[Oliver Peters] “While that is true, it mainly applies to their hardware-based system. You can buy full-blown Pro Tools software (not just the LE or M versions), which will run on most third-party audio hardware, for a few hundred bucks.”
But that’s not making Avid enough money just as Media Composer upgrades don’t make Avid enough money. Avid makes money selling hardware and they’re not doing very well at that these days.
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[Craig Seeman] “But that’s not making Avid enough money just as Media Composer upgrades don’t make Avid enough money. Avid makes money selling hardware and they’re not doing very well at that these days.”
I don’t disagree and I don’t have a solution. Clearly if you scale down the income, you have to scale down the expenses. The trouble is that they’ve been pushed into a race to the bottom pricewise.
Others, like Autodesk and Quantel, have managed to stay at the upper end of cost but have restructured so that income covers operational and R&D costs. In Autodesk’s case, they have deeper pockets from the CADCAM world and pretty much own everything 3D, so it’s science and video games that pays the freight and allows the Media and Entertainment division to do well (I think). Quantel worked a leveraged buyout by management, employees and venture capitol years ago and built a company around that.
The much broader question is whether a mid-sized company can even survive in this current software world. Seems like the options are only large, commodity-driven companies (Adobe or Apple) or small, focused, niche operations (Quantel, Autodesk, Red, etc.).
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Mac computer sales have been going up.
Avid on the other hand has been taking on water for years.Thunderbolt across the entire the entire line is brilliant. It makes power far more portable than PCIe cards. I’m all for a 12 or 16 core “MacMiniPro,” a hefty GPU and 3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports. Every Thunderbolt device can walk around the facility rather than buying redundant cards that can’t be used even on higher end laptops. Apple has learned how to “commodify” and be profitable. I think you need to follow their financials.
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Maybe avid should go the editshare way. giveout the app and sell the hardware.
Richard C
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[Craig Seeman] “I’m all for a 12 or 16 core “MacMiniPro,” a hefty GPU and 3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports”
I think you are being REALLY optimistic. Apple has yet to make any software that takes advantage of more than a quad-core machine. Plus performance on the quad CPUs is very good. A machine like you describe is probably more niche than a current Mac Pro. I’m not sure about slots for GPU because of the length, so that really means something custom. I doubt NVIDIA would be on board for that. Intel or AMD only. Maybe. 3 or 4 T-bolt? Maybe two. We’ll see.
As far as Mac sales being up – that’s driven by laptop sales.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Sorry I should have said Kim and Craig on the titanic
RC
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