Food for Thought - Avid bows out of NAB 2008

[Clark Dunbar]

hmmmmm.............

November 13, 2007
Avid Technology will not exhibit at The NAB Show in 2008, the company announced Tuesday.

Until now, the editing solutions giant has had a major presence at NAB, with sponsorship of events including the popular post-production conference. The company said Digidesign, its audio division, also will not exhibit, but Avid is evaluating what other presence Digidesign will have at the confab.*

Avid will still be in Vegas in April to meet with customers and will continue to sponsor the Broadcast Education Association conference within the show. It also plans to sponsor the PBS Technology Conference, which takes place prior to NAB.*

Instead, Avid is introducing a “major shift” in the way it serves its professional customers, and is promising a “blitz” new user-community initiatives, technical support programs, highly personalized events, and innovative product announcements in 2008. Avid will offer more details on the campaign in February.

The new approach “will be designed to make it easier for customers, prospects and the media to interact with the company,” the company said. A spokeswoman said the decision not to exhibit was not based on the cost savings but rather on the company’s revised strategy.

[Noah Kadner]

That's pretty major news- could be the strong signs of Avid's dropping out of one sector or another.

Noah

[Michael Schrengohst]

A spokeswoman said the decision not to exhibit was not based on the cost savings but rather on the company’s revised strategy.

Clark - good find.....
I like the last sentence - what BS.

[Greg Voevodsky]

I hear the FAT LADY singing... Oh, it's the Apple booth with double the amount of product sales over Avid... hmmmmm. I was hoping AVID might add "Color" or some DVD authoring... guess not... I'd say they've hit the iceberg. Stock price from 60 down to under 30 in 3 years... vs Apple... not good...

[Michael Schrengohst]

RED will have more space to expand.

[Noah Kadner]

At least for once we won't have to hear the Battle of the Booth Bands.

[Sanjin Jukic]

A V I D if you read back letters is D I V A.

D I V A is getting old and tired.

D I V A slowly goes to pension.

[4kfilm]

The trouble with Avid is they abandonned Apple in the late 90s (about the time Scitex took over Immix) and went to NT-based systems. The sales of Powermacs (6100AV) needed this professional users at Avid and Immix.
Most people like me were forced to follow and hated Avid for it when they had to buy 10000 USD IBM Intellistations, but Avid Xpress DV and following versions were good products and finally they started offering OSX-versions again a few years ago (but upgrades were always limited and one had to buy new usb-dongles). Most upgrades didn't add much. The Studio stuff was a real deception.
I still remember an Apple pr-guy was still very agressive about it in 1998 when they launched the iMacDV and the following years both companies have not been taking prisoners in their mini-war.
For me DVD Studio Pro made the difference over the Daikin and Sonic products Avid offered. I'm still using Avid for editing, but I'm extremely fed up with the Sorenson Squeeze stuff etc for exporting for DVD Authoring. Although DVDit, ReelDVD and Avid DVD by Sonic are nice products DVD Studio Pro is a killer (although Apple only offers the latest version in the Finacl Cut Studio set trying in genuine Microsoft or Adobe style to force FCP onto their DVD Studio Pro customers).
I've heard some TV-people in Belgium moved back to Avid from an excursion into FCP (they don't need to deliver stuff in multiple formats including DVD etc.)
I however would like to stress that support from Avid has always been much better than the no-support policy from Apple (being a Apple-user and advocate for >20 years that hurts).

I'm afraid Avid will have to line up a few products, scrap the rest or fold them into one of the 5 core products. Then they should do something about branding and offering 1 complete Avid-product (instead of a complex bundle of Avid and third party disabled versions) on both Win and OSX (crossplatform).
Not spending a small fortune on NAB to show off to customers already complaining about overcharged and underperforming upgrades might be a good move. Who at NAB is going to buy an Avid product based on what they see at the booth? Newcomers in the market need to get exposure at NAB or IBC to get noticed. Companies with an extensive installed base can make more money by treating their existing customerbase decently.

[Tom Lowe]

Avid is a dinosaur, IMO.

[Kevin Halverson]

I wondered how long it would take for this announcement to rev up the rumor mill...

I see it was a short wait.

[Mark L. Pederson]

So over.

Adobe will own NAB 2008.

[Illya Friedman]

As a veteran of many NABs I can tell you first hand that the meetings that happen on the show floor in giant booths like Sony, Apple and Avid are generally unproductive because of the crowds of lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way.

Most NAB business is done at private functions, off the floor and outside of show hours. I think it's great that AVID is not having a booth. They probably should have stopped years ago. They don't need to get their name out, and it means they'll host better meetings and probably have a more extravagant private party. No matter your feeling on AVID or it's products, it's both naive and foolish to think that a company like AVID must or should have a NAB booth.

I.

Illya Friedman
DALSA
Digital Cinema Division
Woodland Hills, CA
www.dalsa.com/dc
(yes, I'll be working the booth again in 2008)

[Joel Kaye]

it's both naive and foolish to think that a company like AVID must or should have a NAB booth.



Yeah. AVID has been soliciting a lot of feedback from their most important customers over the past months and you can bet this is part of a new strategy. AVID has a new President and fired a lot of people... they've got plenty of assets and money so they aren't in dire need of saving a few bucks by skipping NAB IMHO.

Maybe they'll announce something dramatic...

[Graeme Nattress]

I think it was IBC 2006 where Avid just shipped a bunch of people off to a hotel and gave them a good demo in quiet surrounds. Illya's right that this is a good plan, but.....

For Avid to announce this lack of NAB without simultaneously announcing their replacement plan leads to forum speculation such as this.

Graeme

[Noah Kadner]

Just strikes me as odd. I mean of course there's a lot of gladhanding in the back rooms and at the parties at NAB. But for a *major* player like Avid to just fold up their card table sends a signal- perhaps that they are in trouble. Having a booth at NAB is really important for industry rep, as the good folks at Red can attest. :)

-Noah

[Joel Kaye]

Having a booth at NAB is really important for industry rep, as the good folks at Red can attest.

I'll agree with Graeme that they should have announced something else along with this annoucement but having a booth at NAB doesn't mean much to AVID because they are so well known. They may have another marketing plan in mind that will reach many more people that don't attent NAB.

You'd think XSI would be there though. That's a good product that should have new developments coming out all the time. XSI could keep a crowd talking. (XSI is one of the better apps to keep an all digital crowd talking now that I think about it)

[Joseph Mastantuono]

As much as I espouse final cut as the only sane solution in a post world where losts of diverse people have to work together, I think this is a very bad thing. If apple has fully taken out avid, essentially through hardware sales rather than software sales as I can imagine apple running the pro apps departments as a loss simply because they are killer apps for their hardware, then what keep Apple innovating, and for that matter, fixing the current software?

FCP has a few bugs and minor annoyances, Soundtrack pro could use a bit more sprucing up, (and bug fixes) although 2.0 was full of needed and awesome improvements, and Motion still feels like it's waiting for the next gen of graphics cards, and a few design iterations to really scream... And, well Color didn't get that much better from that monstrous headache that was Final Touch.

I hope premiere (hopefully) puts up some competition, but their idiotic licensing scheme may cost them all the college students who can't or won't afford it, and simply learn FCP because it's an easier solution. At least they have the PC, and their software doesn't suck as bad anymore from all accounts.

The thing is, the more things continue, the more I feel apple turning into the next microsoft... At least in the way that brilliant people getting hampered by their own size.

I really do hope Adobe puts on a good show...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Hmmmm personalized attention without having to fly anywhere to get marketed too. Me likes.

[GlennChan]

Perhaps Avid is being less aggressive about the prosumer side of things (i.e. Xpress), where they have some strong competition from Final Cut, Adobe Suite, (and Sony Creative Software and Edius) etc. By not having a booth, they might be missing out on talking to many of these people who might be interested in Xpress.

2- What if they had released software-only Media Composer at a similar price point to FCP? (And not have bothered with Xpress, Xpress Pro, Free DV. Especially since some students would buy MC at a discount just to learn it... like people do with Adobe and FCP.)

[Shawn Nelson]

As a veteran of many NABs I can tell you first hand that the meetings that happen on the show floor in giant booths like Sony, Apple and Avid are generally unproductive because of the crowds of lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way.

Most NAB business is done at private functions, off the floor and outside of show hours. I think it's great that AVID is not having a booth. They probably should have stopped years ago. They don't need to get their name out, and it means they'll host better meetings and probably have a more extravagant private party. No matter your feeling on AVID or it's products, it's both naive and foolish to think that a company like AVID must or should have a NAB booth.

I.

Illya Friedman
DALSA
Digital Cinema Division
Woodland Hills, CA
www.dalsa.com/dc
(yes, I'll be working the booth again in 2008)

Well that all depends on who you want your market to be. If you want to be an elitist NLE that only the few use, then definitely do private-door stuff. But, if you want to be an industry standard built upon the people, then all those students, wedding videographers and "lookylou's" are your customers. Companies like Apple and Red want to be the product of the people, it's a shame that Avid has decided not to be. While I have never been an Avid user, I think Apple need's someone to race against, lest they become complacent and this whole thing starts over...

[Sanjin Jukic]

Official AVID press release:

Avid Announces Major Shift in 2008 Strategy in Response to Customer Feedback (http://www.avid.com/company/releases/2007/071113_customer_avid.html)

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

i have used avid editing softwares within the last 10 years . i think it was
amazing editing softwares and hardwares in the begining especially thise golden years 1996-2001 ..when they did most workstaion enviorements based on MAC's.
but after that they have gone moving very slowly regarding to faster and longer steps that tv and cine Techonlogy they have did.
i do remmember the stupite Mojo ,, it was one of the signs..
its FCS AGE:w00t:

[Joel Kaye]

FCS

Final Cut is old code now too. The "studio" isn't much of a studio yet. I'm giving Adobe the edge on a purely software level. And going forward you know Adobe is a dedicated creative application company whereas Apple is an iTunes and iPhone company now. Nothing wrong with that - it's more profitable. Can you believe Color hasn't been updated in 6 months? Do they only have one guy working on it? Face it, the pro application arm of Apple gets very little love these days.



Over the past few months, we’ve been collecting data from all of our constituents, and the findings have been clear – we need to connect with users in new ways,” said Graham Sharp, vice president and general manager of Avid’s Video division. “As a result, we’ll unveil a series of initiatives in 2008

Wow. Maybe Steve Jobs should consider something like that.

[Michael Schrengohst]

I think the NLE editing race has shifted gears and
I think it is more of a race to the "finish", as in
software like Scratch. Just having "editing"
software won't cut it anymore. Look for more
integration as evidenced by the Apple and Adobe
bundles.

[Ramesh Jai]

The worst invest I ever made in my life was paying $25,000 for an Avid system. Best investment - FCP.

Avid vs FCP is almost like Film vs RED.

[planet e]

As a veteran of many NABs I can tell you first hand that the meetings that happen on the show floor in giant booths like Sony, Apple and Avid are generally unproductive because of the crowds of lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way.

Most NAB business is done at private functions, off the floor and outside of show hours. I think it's great that AVID is not having a booth. They probably should have stopped years ago. They don't need to get their name out, and it means they'll host better meetings and probably have a more extravagant private party. No matter your feeling on AVID or it's products, it's both naive and foolish to think that a company like AVID must or should have a NAB booth.


hm, now there's an attitude that says more about Dalsa than it does about either Avid or Apple...

there's a one-way ticket to the publicly-traded stock cellar for you. Dalsa's stock price has been on a one-way slide for the past four years, down 66% from its 2004 peak. too bad i can't short international stocks...(not really though, there's been US shorts a-plenty lately....)

from Dalsa's 3rd-quarter annual report:

"In the third quarter, Digital Imaging revenues were $22.6 million, down almost 17% from the third quarter of 2006."

...and the report blames the shortfall on the strength of the Canadian dollar, good one.

on the face of things, maybe Dalsa should think about how it can better serve the "lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way"...seems like RED stands to make a killing in this demographic.

the company's public mission statement: "To grow profitably the revenue of our company to $500 Million dollars by end of 2010."

reality check: it's actual 3rd-quarter 2007 earnings: revenue of $39.8 million for the quarter ended September 30th, 2007, and a net loss of $0.8 million or $0.04 per share, diluted.

dang, Dalsa better get crackin' on those big closed-door deals and extravagant private parties! 2010 not so far off....:weight_lift:

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm not sure what to make of the Avid announcement... To me it just says that their current business model isn't working for them, no surprise there. It will be interesting to see what these new initiatives are. Either way, the days of grossly overpriced NLE solutions are rapidly coming to an end. Adobe and Apple saw to that. I'm hoping the next market to be commoditized will be the high-end finishing, color grading, etc..

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

The worst invest I ever made in my life was paying $25,000 for an Avid system. Best investment - FCP.

Avid vs FCP is almost like Film vs RED.

Totaly agree with you its far so far distance between them

[M Most]

hm, now there's an attitude that says more about Dalsa than it does about either Avid or Apple......
on the face of things, maybe Dalsa should think about how it can better serve the "lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way"...seems like RED stands to make a killing in this demographic.

You clearly are unaware of the fact that for Dalsa - a very large company - the digital camera is a very small fraction of their business. It also doesn't necessarily make sense to cater to the lowest profit part of any industry, not if you actually want to survive as a business over the long term.

[Ethan Cooper]

I think the NLE editing race has shifted gears and
I think it is more of a race to the "finish", as in
software like Scratch. Just having "editing"
software won't cut it anymore. Look for more
integration as evidenced by the Apple and Adobe
bundles.

Avid through the years has always just bought up companies who made software or products that could benefit them and then re-packaged these products or hardware under the Avid brand... maybe it would be a smart move on their part to do so again with Scratch. Wonder what the asking price would be?
________
Chargeback insurance advice (http://www.insurance-forums.org/chargeback-insurance/)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

maybe it would be a smart move on their part to do so again with Scratch. Wonder what the asking price would be?

That would be a smart move by Avid, if they handled such a thing right. But if Assimilate and their SCRATCH software could be bought, I actually would prefer it be bought by someone other than Avid.

[Ed Watkins]

It also doesn't necessarily make sense to cater to the lowest profit part of any industry, not if you actually want to survive as a business over the long term.

I think Sam Walton (of Wal-Mart infamy) might disagree with you there.
(Not that I like Wal-Mart or shop there, but that strategy seems to work for him)

Plus can we stop bashing Film Students? One day they too will be useful members of society. :usd:

[Joseph Mastantuono]

As a veteran of many NABs I can tell you first hand that the meetings that happen on the show floor in giant booths like Sony, Apple and Avid are generally unproductive because of the crowds of lookylou's, film students, wedding videographers and wannabes that get in the way.

Most NAB business is done at private functions, off the floor and outside of show hours. I think it's great that AVID is not having a booth. They probably should have stopped years ago. They don't need to get their name out, and it means they'll host better meetings and probably have a more extravagant private party. No matter your feeling on AVID or it's products, it's both naive and foolish to think that a company like AVID must or should have a NAB booth.

I think you have a point, but I still think that in a world where perception is king, to seemingly bow out of the public space seems dangerous to me. Yeah, sure who cares about the wedding videographers and lookylous who can't afford your system, but among those are all the college tech managers the video guys, the students and the industry trackers who are all watching these shows from the floor or, more and more, from home.

These people, may not drive the industry, but they do drive public perception, and the fringes of the industry are only going to get bigger and bigger. I do see that it simply might not be worth it for avid to even court those customers, and to become more of a specialized service style company.

[Noah Kadner]

Not to mention it's the big event of the year for all of your sales staff and sub-distributors to have an anchor to assure their clients that the ship is not sinking. Don't see how this can be spun as a good thing for Avid other than the cost savings.

Noah

[planet e]

You clearly are unaware of the fact that for Dalsa - a very large company - the digital camera is a very small fraction of their business. It also doesn't necessarily make sense to cater to the lowest profit part of any industry, not if you actually want to survive as a business over the long term.

well, duh, i'm completely aware of that--!

their semi business props up their camera business. it's obvious. doesn't take more than a glance at their home page to figure that news flash out...

but you've managed to miss the point entirely...that it could easily go the other way, with a little attitude adjustment and a tweak to the ol' business model, where the product developers were so small-minded that they could not even begin to IMAGINE a consumer market for their products. they still can't, clearly....

meanwhile, i've never heard jim jannard thumb his nose at a wedding videographer or a film student, and the payback is obvious. one of my all-time favorite jim moments was way back when some dude chimes in on reduser.net wondering, "is this too much camera for my home movies" and jim replies, "you're a man after my own heart." that's why jim is the shizzle and Dalsa can't tell the difference between the 4K camera stuck in its orifice and a hole in the ground....

Avid, to get back to the subject, if you take the time to read the initiative, is re-trenching to extract more money from deeper pockets, rather than going after new customers or finding new pockets. that's a perfectly normal business model, and i wish them well with it. their earnings are flat (Dalsa's are down 16% year over year from third-quarter '06, by comparison), and this strategy could be a good base from which to stimulate growth and re-build their core business. it could be a great turn-around play, actually, to re-trench and re-build because they're profitable and have a great client list. it will be interesting to see what they do and how that works for them. tough sledding with a Hollywood strike providing a headwind....

i trade stocks for a living. well, i make videos as well, but the opportunities in trading stocks outstrip the money i can make doing creative stuff. so i look for opportunities. it's my job to know what a company does and how well it does it. i look at Avid, i see the possibility of opportunity. i look at Dalsa, and i see a stock price which is staring down the long barrel at $5/share, the point at which institutional coverage of it will drop the stock, and it will be naked. it's a good enough business, that some smart person should buy it up and take it private again.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Catering only to the high end of a market, isn't any smarter. When looking at the price of a product (like software), you have to wonder... Is it better to sell 100,000 copies at $100 or is it better to sell 1,000 copies at $10,000? Catering to the higher-end with fewer customers will eventually leave you hanging out to dry. It's not only about revenue, but about marketshare and product familiarity and awareness. There's too much competition today for Avid to continue with their current encapsulated business model. They need to find new avenues to promote their product and drive peripheral products like plug-ins and add-ons that will further boost demand and sales for their core products.

Avid has become a slow moving dinosaur. This NAB announcement shows that they realize something isn't working. But to what extent are they aware of this and how are they going to fix it? Multi-tier pricing for editing solutions has become a relic of the past. Avid should have paid attention to other markets who used the same type of marketing plans... Look at enterprise computing and what happened to SGI. ...SGI still hasn't fully learned their lesson, they just don't get it. It will be interesting to see if Avid "gets it" before it's too late.

[Sven Seynaeve]

I would rather like to see a real move from Assimilate, lowering t
he red price at about max.25000, even a similar price to iridas would be realistic. This should be enough for a software only version, cause we have to purchase the hardware anyway if we want to end up editing with our reds.

I still can't understand why complex software as 3dsmax, Maya, Nuendo and such sollutions can sell their software from 2000 up to 7000 for complete versions. And most important , they let you choose the hardware and even have an extensive support for all those gear, testing it all themselves.
They have a far more complete userbase, betatesters, good fora, and their software is still more complicated as far as i know, cause with every video sollution i've ever worked with I already found things that should be easy and doable if you work on it everyday , very simplistic implemated and not worth the price you're paying for it.

Anyway, i'd rather hate scratch becoming an avid product or digidesign, because their pricing and strategy sucks big time as far as I've experienced. They might have good working sollutions as everyone mentions, but everytime
i ended up in productions using avid or protools, i had bad experiences with stability and end quality.

Their are a lot of people from belgian television who won't agree with me,
but as far as i can find some better tools that get the job descent done , i'll be laughing at them because i won't have spent that amount of money in equal valuable systems, and my clients don't care anyway, they just want their product being well done.

[Zack Birlew]

My problem with Avid was that they had the best editing software, Xpress Pro, for the longest time, yet they let Apple creep up on them with this FCP Studio business and they didn't respond at all, except for their surprisingly lame Studio-"me too"-bundle. Then they made Media Composer but didn't offer any sort of information on it (ie. what makes it different from Xpress Pro?) for an uncomfortably long time. Then Apple released FCP Studio 2 with Color and everything and absolutely killed. What did Avid have? Liquid Pro! What!?

Too many products, no information, and little innovation. What is most apparent is little to no hype. Apple makes large events out of new products. Avid has one page ads in the back of video magazines.

Also, as far as reputation goes, all I've heard about Avid is "bugs, bugs, bugs", "Why isn't my motherboard compatible?", "Is it my videocard?". If they were going with PC, they would have to make sure that every single peice of hardware is 100% compatible with the software and fix it immediately if a bug was found. If Avid wanted recommended systems, they should have sided with Apple Macs. (Talking about the lower end Avid stuff, I know the Adrenaline and Symphony things are their own systems)

Now, don't get me wrong, I think Avid can come back and stomp FCP tommorow if they wanted to. I think they just need to figure out what their business plan is going to be, which is what it sounds like they're taking time off to do. Until then though, I'm on FCP Studio 2.

[wshultz]

I think Avid no longer has the ability to stomp FCP tomorrow or any other time. Years ago you had to pay an arm and a leg for a system and then you were stuck. To upgrade meant thousands of dollars even just to add a few codecs. I know of a few "small" production houses who felt buying those $25000 systems was the worst mistake they ever made because they couldn't afford to upgrade. 30% of the original cost every time they did an upgrade was too much.

My associates at a large cable company just completed transitioning from their multiple Avid systems to new FCP systems. Their complaints were lack of support and too much proprietary hardware at high costs. Their comments after new Macs and FCP2 was they wish they'd done it sooner.

[Noah Kadner]

Avid was built on the paradigm that folks would be willing to pay a very high premium for the privilege of editing digitally. These days only the high end post houses and big budget film editors still insist on it as 'the standard.'

Noah

[Ethan Cooper]

I'm a FCP guy who was trained on Avid, cut my teeth on Avids, and came to realize that FCP was where I needed to be for a price/performance standpoint. I got my former employer out of their $100,000 (circa 1990's) Avid systems and into FCP when we needed to go HD back in 2003 - 2004, and although he was a die-hard Avid guy who grumbled about FCP all the time, he didn't switch back. How could he?
The bottom line was that FCP could do almost all of what his Avids could do at a fraction of the cost, and he wasn't tied to hardware that was aging and being phased out with no economical alternative for upgrading.
In my mind, this is when FCP really took hold in the market. It's ability to work in HD on a budget at a time when working in HD on an Avid meant another $30,000 to $40,000 upgrade to an already aging system was the breaking point for the company I worked for and I'd venture a guess, many other companies like us.

Now the question remains, what will Apple do with their status as the leader in the lower to middle tier of the market? This of course supposes that Avid is conceding this segment of the market, but bear with me here. Once the innovator becomes the top dog, generally speaking bad things happen. Watch for a competitor to arise in the next 5 years. I'm not sure who it is yet, but you betcha when I see someone come along who reminds me a lot of what FCP was about 4 years ago, I'm buying stock... especially if I see Apple making the same mistakes that Avid did, namely, attempting to dominate an entire market and moving their focus from their core customers to a segment that they just can't compete in. We'll see.

By the way, my former boss, the Avid guy, he always used to tell me, "just wait, Avid will step up and take Apple down, they're too good, too many people know them, they'll come up with something..."
Maybe, just maybe he was wrong. I'm all for Avid doing well, but I really think they need to focus on the high-end user.
________
Honda Dream E (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Honda_Dream_E)

[Greg Voevodsky]

Maybe Avid and Dalsa need to move to California where the best tech, people, and innovation are. Oh, and don't forget the money. The VCs live here for a reason as well as a few billionaires and a few thousand new google millionaires who have money to spend on their dreams like Tesla's electric sports cars and Red Cameras.

[GlennChan]

Avid, to get back to the subject, if you take the time to read the initiative, is re-trenching to extract more money from deeper pockets, rather than going after new customers or finding new pockets.
They are moving into new markets... they have some new products with playout servers + media asset management. e.g. for large news organizations that work off of a shared pool of media.

2- SGI:
The problem with SGI is that their RISCproducts strengths eroded as technology changed and there were compelling commodity alternatives to their product. Since then, they've managed to restructure their business around their new products and pulled themselves out of bankruptcy (which I don't think is an easy feat!).

There was no way they could lower the pricing on their product and sell a significantly higher volume. Their processors are not something that would work as a commodity product.

3- Apple is making the wrong moves in targeting the high-end market, if they are even trying to do that.

If you look at when Final Touch got bought out, people who had support contracts suddenly were in the dark (silly Apple corporate policy). This is not how you should treat high-end customers. They really need support... otherwise they are screwed by bugs (and FT had plenty of those). And they should have continued to offer $$$$ support contracts to high-end users, which need the support and are willing to pay for it (four figures is nothing when your suite has six figures of equipment in it... and all the alternative color grading solutions are five-six figures). But they aren't offering that anymore.

Shake:
It was a good product used a lot in high-end facilities (originally starting out as a $10,000 program). Now discontinued (though it has a nice fire sale price). Apple now seems focused on Motion (or some successor to that), but that's not a program that is geared towards high-end work. It looks like they want to make an easy-to-use special effects program geared towards the desktop crowd (i.e. Motion).

This is just my opinion. :)

[Michael Schrengohst]

"Shake:
It was a good product used a lot in high-end facilities (originally starting out as a $10,000 program). Now discontinued (though it has a nice fire sale price). Apple now seems focused on Motion (or some successor to that), but that's not a program that is geared towards high-end work. It looks like they want to make an easy-to-use special effects program geared towards the desktop crowd (i.e. Motion)."

Motion is not easy to use. I use AE as I find Motion very frustrating to use.
Motion has some nice eye candy effects but Apple really needs to
either compete with AE or just stick to editing.

[wshultz]

If Avid had bought Final Touch would it have gone up in price?

[planet e]

They are moving into new markets... they have some new products with playout servers + media asset management. e.g. for large news organizations that work off of a shared pool of media.


hmm...Avid, as I said previously, may make an interesting turn-around play. They certainly have the resources and the steady cash flow and the clients to do it. And they have already declared their intent to "shake up the industry"...it is definitely not too late in the game for them to do so...their numbers support the possibility. It will be interesting to see what "shake up the industry" means to them...especially in light of the absence at NAB--it seems a little challenging to shake up an industry when you're a no-show at the trade show.

Apple has definitely shown some signs of growth fatigue, and they are releasing more trickle/crippleware than they used to, which is never a sign of health, when an innovator resorts to selling deliberately crippled products to prop up growth.

[Lexicon]

Apple has definitely shown some signs of growth fatigue, and they are releasing more trickle/crippleware than they used to, which is never a sign of health, when an innovator resorts to selling deliberately crippled products to prop up growth.

I think it's more of a loss of direction for them. They have ridden the iPod for the last few years and kinda blundered their way through everything else. Their supposed Mac Revolution they have been touting for years hasn't happened and probably never will because once you get beyond what you see in front of you, there isn't much to their products apart from expensive crappy support from the company. If an iMac is the best they can offer to a PC user as an alternative, then they seriously need to go back to the drawing board or fire their latte junkie designers. Their software seems to be okay but they need to ditch their age old mantra of "We'll change it when it just doesn't work anymore!".

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If an iMac is the best they can offer to a PC user as an alternative, then they seriously need to go back to the drawing board or fire their latte junkie designers. Their software seems to be okay but they need to ditch their age old mantra of "We'll change it when it just doesn't work anymore!".

I think their current hardware line is good, they just need a few more offerings to fill the gaps. IMO, a small mini-tower to fit the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro is a much needed product. The mini is a great idea, with a lot of potential, but they need to get serious with it and put some real power in that little box. ...Although, the current rumor mill is saying that the mini is being discontinued.

Apple's biggest roadblock to mass acceptance is going to be their hardware. I'm not saying they need to be completely open, but they need more flexible offerings with more frequent updates.

[Chris Nuzzaco]

I spent years cutting on Avid before going full time as a DP. All I can say is that I got a TON of calls direct to my personal cell phone during those years soliciting user feed back. I've never had any other company do that, and yes, I let them know everything I hated, liked, etc...

And I saw some of those things get fixed in later releases. Can't help but wonder what they have up their sleeve.

[Lexicon]

I think their current hardware line is good, they just need a few more offerings to fill the gaps. IMO, a small mini-tower to fit the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro is a much needed product. The mini is a great idea, with a lot of potential, but they need to get serious with it and put some real power in that little box. ...Although, the current rumor mill is saying that the mini is being discontinued.

Apple's biggest roadblock to mass acceptance is going to be their hardware. I'm not saying they need to be completely open, but they need more flexible offerings with more frequent updates.

The Mini was definitely their worst product ever and back when I worked retail a few years ago, I only had one customer ever get one. He was probably the definitive modern artist/hippie with dirty clothes and long hair. Kinda the image PC people had of Linux advocates from reading the hype articles but to get back to the point, I never liked the design because it just didn't have anything behind it hardware wise. It was basically a poor man's Mac with no legs to stand on. Since the Mac is pretty much a stale gaming platform due to Apple's choice of keeping video hardware limited on all it's offerings it's not going to get the acceptance it needs to be a legit alternative until consumers get a machine that is at least comparable in some aspects to the MacPro. It doesn't have to have a 3.5 Ghz quad-core but I think what Apple really needs to do is put out an SFF mini-tower with a lower-end quad-core that would be a great alternative to the MacPro tower, perfect for Mac gaming, and digital content that home users work with. With the Penryn chips, it would be a great offering for the latest games. Unfortunately, the way it has always gone with Apple and game developers is that Apple will routinely beg them for advice or suggestions on how they can move into gaming but Apple never actually does anything beyond that.

[SalaTar]

Avid through the years has always just bought up companies who made software or products that could benefit them and then re-packaged these products or hardware under the Avid brand... maybe it would be a smart move on their part to do so again with Scratch. Wonder what the asking price would be?

And Adobe,(to bad they didnt get KeyGrip, before apple) Apple(living of others code ,still), and Autodesk(dead and ...well dead) hasnt?

[Illya Friedman]

hm, now there's an attitude that says more about Dalsa than it does about either Avid or Apple...


Obviously If I'm posting a personal opinion, it's just that. Not that of my employer. I post where I work so my personal bias is made obvious.

My opinion about trade shows is not without substantiation either. I have friends that work at Sony, Panasonic, Avid, Apple, Canon, Fujinon and other large NAB/trade show participants. The number one gripe I hear from all of them at the large shows is the quantity and quality of the average both visitor. That's not saying that there aren't a few decent (if not good) film students and lookylous; but unfortunately for this business there are a lot of people who can spoil the party.

There's plenty of different reasons for attending a big show. It makes perfect sense for a start-up (like RED), it's good for building attention. If you've got a specialty use product (not something designed around a CE model) and already have the attention of nearly everyone in your core group, and you have dedicated and loyal customer base (like AVID), I question the need for a mammoth booth, or a booth at all.

I've worked all size booths. And in my opinion, you're most fortunate to have a booth just a little off the beaten path (although not middle of nowhere), you end up with people visiting who have sought you out rather than those who stumbled by. The people who seek you out get more 1 on 1 attention and generally all their questions answered.

The other problem with the large booths are crowds. I know plenty of people who are the exact clients Sony and Apple would want in their booth, but they end up skipping out, or making extremely quick visits because they can't stand the giant crowds. Those are the people who go to the after hour events anyway.

There will always be multiple products with the same basic purpose designed for different segments of this industry. For example, even if you can perform the same function in FCP, how is comparing it to Quantel box a fair comparison?

Comparing different market segments on rudimentary function alone is like asking why all the people who drive BMW don't trade in their rides because KIA just built a car that will get you from point A to B for half the cost.

I.


Illya Friedman
DALSA
Digital Cinema Division
www.dalsa.com/dc

[Joel Kaye]

A Creative Cow editor has just editorialized that the potential 2 million AVID would have spent at NAB would be much more wisely spent in other ways. He goes on to predict the continued devaluation of NAB (as opposed to the devaluation of AVID)

[planet e]

My opinion about trade shows is not without substantiation either. I have friends that work at Sony, Panasonic, Avid, Apple, Canon, Fujinon and other large NAB/trade show participants. The number one gripe I hear from all of them at the large shows is the quantity and quality of the average both visitor. That's not saying that there aren't a few decent (if not good) film students and lookylous; but unfortunately for this business there are a lot of people who can spoil the party.



My point is that you and your friends don't know who those people are--this is all assumption based on what? When I'm done outfitting my 2 RED cameras in their entirety, I'll have probably dropped around $100K or so...let's just say, hypothetically speaking, that Avid attracted 10 more people like me to their user base--voila, their financial statement would be in the positive growth column instead of the negative growth column, which is where it stands now. And moving your company from the "less than" to "greater than" year over year earnings column creates a BIG difference in perception in the public market eye. And based on the anecdotal evidence of reduser.net, I'm betting there are probably at least 10 more just like me in RED's original reservation base of 1500. At least!

[Gavin Greenwalt]

A Creative Cow editor has just editorialized that the potential 2 million AVID would have spent at NAB would be much more wisely spent in other ways. He goes on to predict the continued devaluation of NAB (as opposed to the devaluation of AVID)

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/lindeboom_ron/Avid_NAB.php

It's what I thought from the first moment that I read the headline. This is going to be good for avid and bad for NAB.

Not to mention there are a lot of people complaining that "AVID IS TOO EXPENSIVE. I spent XXXX cajillion dollars on an Avid system so now I buy FCP".

Well if you think you can build a suitable hardware solution yourself... buy Composer software and install it on your computer. The price-point between media composer and FCP is pretty much the same. Avid isn't putting a gun to your head to buy the hardware option anymore.

99% of Avid's customers probably don't attend NAB. Probably a majority of people get their news from the interweb. Conventions are almost always the domain of small publishers and manufacturers who people don't go *looking for*. Comdex had the big names but at least 80% of the floor space was from budget Taiwanese companies hawking their "as seen on TV" style gadgets.

For a large company like Avid or Panasonic NAB is IMO irrelevant.

Edit: I don't know what on earth is going on with my posted link... teenink? What's REDuser doing? Is the REDuser database merging with Facebook? Here's the correct link:
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/lindeboom_ron/Avid_NAB.php

Edit Edit: Augh!!! it's doing it to my other link now too!

Edit Edit Edit:
[Ehch Tee Tee Pee - Colon - Slash Slash]library.creative[REMOVE THIS BLOCK]cow.net[SLASH]articles[SLASH]lindeboom_ron[SLASH]Avid_NAB.php

[GlennChan]

Gavin, the can't-make-links-saying-creative-cow problem was noted before. Use tinyurl.com links for now...

http://tinyurl.com/2hukwk

[Illya Friedman]

My point is that you and your friends don't know who those people are--this is all assumption based on what?

This is not assumption. When you work the booth, it's your JOB is to interact with the visitors, every single one. You answer question, and if you're good, you try to help the person by asking questions of your own. You find out who they are, and what their potential application is, if they are trying to integrate the product in to an already established workflow...etc. Not until you work a booth at NAB do you find out how many potential clients/press and the like are out there compared to armchair experts, IT component salespeople, amateur bloggers, employment recruiters and totally non-technical first-time feature-film writers that attend NAB. Sure it's possible that any of these people who have never, ever heard of AVID before, could drop $50K on a system. But having a massive booth at NAB is an awful lot of money to spend on long shots. Most exhibitors are smarter than that, and do not go to the show with the intention of writing that kind of business.

I spoke with a rep for a large camera company at HD Expo last week who told me this story. The rep's company had a booth with a shooting gallery which included a particularly hot, under $15K camera. On Thursday a wedding videographer decided it was personal demo time, and spent almost 2-hours playing with the camera. Several people who had stopped by gave up waiting for him to finish; and when those who were waiting asked for a turn, the videographer became rude. Finally the booth rep explained to him the concept of sharing, and then literally he had to forcefully say to the attendee "step away from the camera."

It's tough for the big manufacturers because you only get a limited amount of time with each person, there's a lot of people, and there's lot's of exhibits competing for attention. NAB has grown a lot over the years, but I wouldn't be too surprised if you start seeing more companies giving up the booths, just like AVID. Ask yourself this question, would you rather wander the booths and compete for attention with hundreds of people, or would you rather go to a smaller function in a Vegas hotel where you get more attention, fancy swag and drinks?

I.

Illya Friedman
DALSA
Digital Cinema Division
Woodland Hills, CA
www.dalsa.com/dc

[Phil Bates]

I've been watching this closely, and Apple is now no longer listed as an exhibitor for NAB. I expect this to be only a temporary, I can't imagine them bowing out. The old Avid booth is still open. Perhaps Apple is using this opportunity to negotiate.

Phil
www.artbeats.com

[jbtvguy]

We all know that NAB is something that we attend partly to assemble information and partly to get to Vegas on the company dime. By skipping this year, Avid and Apple are messing with our paid boondoggle! They have to know this, but there's likely a little embarrassment for both of them since they haven't introduced anything really important to us in the last year. I mean, Apple introduced FCP2 last year, which was great. This year we got a really skinny little computer a few weeks ago that does marginally less than my current, slightly thicker computer. Whoopee. And say what you will, you can get a lot done on the show floor and with appointments you made ahead of time with vendors. I've been going to the show for 20 years (I think I've been 18 times) some years spending $1/4 million or more on decisions based on meetings at NAB. It's nice to have seen and touched all the stuff, talked to engineers and made sure it all works with all my other stuff before laying down that much scratch. And it's nice to hit Blue Man or Cirque along the way, too. Long live the show!