MOTUnation.com

Posted: **Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:53 am**

Avid has joined "the race to the bottom" to compete with Apple and their low-priced offerings. FCP is a real threat to Avid's pro line, which is likely why they bought M-Audio and Canopus ... to compete in the wildly popular prosumer market.

MLC is likely correct about it being about market share and profits.

Posted: **Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:55 am**

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Something is bothering me a little about this acquisition, as well as the acquisitions of Opcode, eMagic, and other small companies being bought out by the bigger ones etc.

Upstarts (Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were upstarts once!) cannot hope to develop an application or device that has any chance of competing with the big boys. Their marketing resources are just too powerful. If you do produces a competitive product, they will either see that you go out of business, or buy you themselves JUST to put you out of business.

People who actually DO "think different" (and for all that I don't use Sibelius, my understanding is that it DOES think very differently from Finale) don't stand a chance in promoting their ideas as we are force fed the globally available and distributed products by the companies with the $$$ and power (READ influence) to place those products in the glossy magazines and sexy ads.

Innovation is driven by sales and accountability becomes non-existent. That is why we still have bugs in our programs, vaporware and unsupported applications and hardware. The people who actually invented much of this stuff are mostly out of the picture.

Two icons remain as far as I am concerned. Bose and MakeMusic. My experience with tech support and csr svc with both companies is par excellence. Apple came close for a while, but since the iPod and iTunes, csr svc and loyalty to the consumer base has dwindled.

Bottom line; The CEO's do not have the end users at heart, they have the shareholders and their pensions at heart. THAT is what drives acquisitions, not some nice guy wanting to integrate notation into Pro Tools.

Wow...I so disagree with all of this.

People start businesses to make money. Upstarts are no different than big business. They are in it for the profit. Owners of companies have three ways to get their money out: go public, get acquired, or pay a dividend. Sibelius took option 2. Make Music took option 1. Emagic took option 2. No one uses option 3 in technology related businesses.

If you look at Emagic as an example of what will likely happen to Sibelius. Most of the developers are still there at Apple. Logic is a far far better product than it was. Would it have been as good if it was not part of Apple? I don't know but I doubt it.

Sibelius as part of Digidesign/Avid makes very good sense to me to make Sibelius a much better product longer term. Possibly an acquisition by another company would be just as good, but it seems Avid is in the best position to be motivated to make it work for them.

Posted: **Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:50 pm**

Maybe next we'll see Yamaha/Steinberg buy MakeMusic/Finale?!!!

Hopefully the new kid on the block, Notion, will be able to compete against a more powerful Sibelius.

Posted: **Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:57 pm**

dbudde wrote:Sibelius as part of Digidesign/Avid makes very good sense to me to make Sibelius a much better product longer term. Possibly an acquisition by another company would be just as good, but it seems Avid is in the best position to be motivated to make it work for them.

Sort of like Opcode and Gibson?

Posted: **Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:41 pm**

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
dbudde wrote:Sibelius as part of Digidesign/Avid makes very good sense to me to make Sibelius a much better product longer term. Possibly an acquisition by another company would be just as good, but it seems Avid is in the best position to be motivated to make it work for them.
Sort of like Opcode and Gibson?

Not at all. Gibson is not, has never been and will never be a software company.

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:29 am**

dbudde wrote:Gibson is not, has never been and will never be a software company.

To quote from Gibson's web site:

"Gibson Audio is being established as a convergence company that will design and develop audio products at the point of convergence between cutting edge digital technology and traditional consumer electronics."

This statement, combined with the purchase of Opcode, makes me think that there will be sortware coming from Gibson soon. It's a market where money can be made.

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:32 am**

arth wrote:
dbudde wrote:Gibson is not, has never been and will never be a software company.
To quote from Gibson's web site:

"Gibson Audio is being established as a convergence company that will design and develop audio products at the point of convergence between cutting edge digital technology and traditional consumer electronics."
This statement, combined with the purchase of Opcode, makes me think that there will be sortware coming from Gibson soon. It's a market where money can be made.

There's a lot of background on that story that leads me to believe that Gibson probably never will make software, and if it does, that it will be insignificant and quickly disappear from the market.

I just hope that Gibson doesn't ever buy MOTU. The guy running Gibson seems to make purchases of that nature based more on his own ego and the feeling of respect that he thinks it will bestow upon him than upon a sound business plan that he can stick to and make work even as it passes through the necessarily hard times that are associated with launching new or redesigned software.

But I'm just a dumb onlooker. What do I know?

Shooshie

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:26 pm**

arth wrote:
dbudde wrote:Gibson is not, has never been and will never be a software company.
To quote from Gibson's web site:

"Gibson Audio is being established as a convergence company that will design and develop audio products at the point of convergence between cutting edge digital technology and traditional consumer electronics."
This statement, combined with the purchase of Opcode, makes me think that there will be sortware coming from Gibson soon. It's a market where money can be made.

A lot of non-software companies sell software. This does not make them a software company. Big difference. A company that only sells software will live or die on the success of their software. Gibson will not be impacted one bit if their software products are dismal failures. So in their case, there is no real motivation to be successful at it. When push comes to shove (and it will come to shove), management will always favor their bread and butter business.

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:03 pm**

MIDI Life Crisis
Posted: 06 Aug 2006 05:48 pm Post subject:
. . . . products by the companies with the $$$ and power (READ influence) to place those products in the glossy magazines and sexy ads.

Coming from the guy with an avatar of a painted girl with a snake wrapped around her nipple! LOL LOL!

MOTUnation.com

Try this on your piano... Digidesign buys Sibelius!