Scott Witthaus
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Apple Final Cut Pro X Coins
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Walter Soyka] “Put another way, if revenue flattens out after you make all the easy perpetual license sales, how do you start it growing again?
I don’t think the answer is to assume a zero-sum game and initiate a death spiral by raising prices on your current users — charging more and more money to fewer and fewer users until you lose critical volume. I think the answer is to attract new users, and to develop and market new offerings to your existing customers, no matter what sales model you use.”
I think we are saying the same thing. I think right now, with the FCP7 death well behind us, Avid and Adobe are scrambling for the same users. You are correct, growing the customer base is the main focus, but that will probably come at the expense of the competition. I have no doubt in my mind, however, that subscription users will see a rate increase in 12-24 months. And I think it would be very foolish in a business sense for Adobe or Avid to say that won’t happen. MHO, of course!
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Mitch Ives] “The file I downloaded is 11.1b1. Is this a beta or is it a final release?”
Wow, I hope this is beta, because the playback glitches make it un-usable as an editor right now.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
Avid and Adobe are in an interesting place. There is a balance on how much they can increase the subscription prices. And, without a doubt in my mind, the prices for Avid and Adobe will go up.
If revenue flattens out after all the hard-core users switch over to subscription, how to you start it growing again? Raise prices, or cut expenses. In Avid’s case, they are cut to the bone already. So the question for them is, will everyone be willing to pay $350/year for Avid? $400? What is the tipping point of price where people say ‘the hell with this’ and move to X or R11 or Edius…
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
I don’t think so. At least not for the last three years. I would doubt a company in a profit would have so many changes as Avid did.
I watched the 17 minute investor relations video from the CFO and it seemed he danced around any bottom-line figures about a profit. Through cost cutting things look better, but not from a huge jump in actual sales. I really don’t think the FCP7 EOL made more than a blip for Avid. Adobe won that race.
I think they are on a good course, but their cash position is way down (historically) and it looks like for the first time in a while they have debt ($5million). The 2014 numbers will be more interesting as there will be a surge in revenue based on the new subscription model that Avid is forcing it’s loyal users.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
“He added that Adobe had harvested a lot of the “low-hanging fruit” in shifting its existing customer base to the cloud, but the challenge now was to convince the more “resistant” customers, such as small businesses and individuals.”
Here is the challenge. I watched Avid’s quarterly report (where they finally reported results over the last two years) and the challenges are the same. The subscription model evens out the revenue flow, but how does it make it grow?
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Andrew Kimery] “IMO if anything big is missing from Apple’s post ecosystem right now it’s a multiuser environment to compete with the offerings from Avid and Adobe.”
Do they really need to? There is so much more visual content out there to deal with. Why try to fight for the long-form broadcast and film niche? X is plenty good for short-form broadcast and pretty much everything else. Maybe they will just let Adobe and Avid fight it out for that niche? Granted the niche is high profile, but still a niche. Just musing here…
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
Have had no problems. But I do only update one Library at a time.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
Content is king. Acquisition, edit, share. Apple knows what it’s doing. Software like FCPX and iMovie (and Premiere and Avid, for that matter) are just tools in the content loop. Look at Avid Everywhere. It’s no longer about selling software, it’s about managing content. Same with Adobe Anywhere. Control the content.
Besides an iPhone that shoots 240fps, would anyone be surprised if Apple creates or buys a higher end camera for the start of the content loop?
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Shawn Miller] “I’m really interested to see what integration will look like between Resolve and Fusion.”
That’s an simple one. It was called Avid|DS. And Avid foolishly refused to support it, develop it and market it. Instead they decided to stay firmly in the middle-ground of post. Baffling.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Oliver Peters] “I’m not sure whether Resolve would have correctly handled the lack of timecode anyway.”
I was kidding. X did just fine.
I will certainly add that to the Feedback.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter