Avid delisted from NASDAQ

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James Steele
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Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by James Steele »

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BKK-OZ
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Re: Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by BKK-OZ »

'...While there are other very capable software audio packages available, Pro Tools is truly a universal standard when it comes to any audio job done on a professional level....'

Maybe that should read '...was truly a universal standard...'.


...also just stumbled across this article on Create Digital Music.

'Avid Delays Financial Reporting, But Promises Brighter Future, Including Pro Tools and Sibelius'
Cheers,
BK

…string theory says that all subatomic particles of the universe are nothing but musical notes. A, B-flat, C-sharp, correspond to electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and what have you. Therefore, physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these strings. Chemistry is nothing but the melodies we can play on these strings. The universe is a symphony of strings and the mind of God… it is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
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Michael Canavan
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Re: Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by Michael Canavan »

Great article, or more honestly I think he nailed the issues very clearly. I wondered when hearing this why Avid was publicly traded in the first place?

Is MOTU that last old school DAW to not be publicly traded? Cubase is owned by Yamaha, Logic - Apple, Cakewalk/Sonar -Roland…. another feather in MOTU's cap IMO.
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Re: Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by frankf »

The last paragraph resonates with me:
"The Avid saga is just another example of a technology company in a small market that’s based around creative professionals. A company like this has no business being public in the first place as it’s growth will be capped by the market size sooner or later. A public company is more beholden to its stockholders than its customers, especially when things go bad, which is a bad recipe when it comes to the entertainment industry."
Forbes 2/27/14


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James Steele
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Re: Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by James Steele »

frankf wrote:The last paragraph resonates with me:
"The Avid saga is just another example of a technology company in a small market that’s based around creative professionals. A company like this has no business being public in the first place as it’s growth will be capped by the market size sooner or later. A public company is more beholden to its stockholders than its customers, especially when things go bad, which is a bad recipe when it comes to the entertainment industry."
Forbes 2/27/14
Totally!! I had a conversation with a higher-up at a rather large company after they decided to buy back stock and take the company private again. I asked him about it, and he explained that publicly-traded companies are under such pressure to always be generating revenue for shareholders, making decisions with long-term goals in mind (sometimes at the expense of short term gains) just isn't possible. Being private allowed them more flexibility in pursuing strategic goals that won't show IMMEDIATE financial results.

The price-gouging of Avid/ProTools was driven by the need to generate a rate of return necessary to please shareholders, despite creating a certain level of resentment among its user base.
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Re: Avid delisted from NASDAQ

Post by Shooshie »

They've been sitting on their numbers because the numbers make them a target for hostile takeover. Just raise enough to get the controlling share of the stock, then you own Avid. Take the 48 million (or how much they really have) for your prize. Then sell Sibelius, ProTools, Avid, and the hardware branch as separate entities for $10 million apiece, divide up the spoils with the remaining shareholders (but you get about half of it), and call it a good day's work. Then retire and let the customers whine and cry in their beers.

That's the way it's done in the world of Wall Street, and Avid has lost its growth. It's of no use as a publicly traded company, but it is a great acquisition at a bargain right now, probably pennies on the dollar, with a tremendous payoff for the motivated leveraged buyout sorcerer.

I predicted this day long ago, before Avid and Digidesign were even the same company, when I saw that I could do everything in DP for about a $5000 investment that people were paying $75,000 for at the time in Pro Tools, and even at those prices they had track limitations that didn't come close to half what DP could do even then. Faster and faster Macs meant that Digi's days were numbered, but they have held out remarkably well because of their entrenchment. Price eventually got them. They had to justify selling systems for 10s of thousands of dollars that even shareware Native DAWs were challenging in simplicity and capability. Since going public, those prices have had to drop by orders of magnitude; not at all what shareholders wanted to see.

Believe me, the founders saw their way out. A public offering probably made them rich, and they got out of it before the buyers learned enough about how things work to realize that Digi was a cooked goose before they even bought it. They had to sell to bedroom studios and try to get paid upgrades out of everyone. That's not growth! That's stagnation for a public company. A private company can survive on upgrades. But a public company has thousands of owners out there expecting either a share of the profits or growth of the stock price, or both.

Well, others have said it better than I, but this kind of thing happens to companies. Avid is entrenched, so it probably will never go out of business, but it will be a different kind of company when it emerges from all of this. It still makes some of the finest audio recording software in the business, but maybe people will at least come away from this realizing that Avid's not the only player in the pro world.

Shooshie
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