This is truly wretched. Cakewalk devs are some of the smartest, nicest, most knowledgable people in the business. There's no doubt they'll do well wherever they go from here (Great C++ devs aren't exactly a dime a dozen these days). 
 
I don't know what "acquisition strategy" Gibson is referring to, but it seems to be an oxymoron. Judging from the recent non-starter song-writing iToy release and the non-port Mac OS port of Sonar, I'm guessing Gibson's goal was to have a cross-platform DAW solution to synergize with their pro audio brands. But if this guess is correct, it represents an epic failure of due diligence on Gibson's part.
 
I wouldn't bet my life on Microsoft buying Cakewalk even at a firesale price. Microsoft's core business today is cloud services. Its only creative applications are basically exhibitions of these cloud services. There's a better chance of Paul Allen buying the company, as he's into music and was the founder of Submersible, which made drum loop library products. :D In all seriousness, this announcement most likely indicates that attempts to sell off the Cakewalk division have already failed. Gibson would not have otherwise devalued the product with an announcement such as this.
 
I join Craig in recommending Studio One. It's been a DAW where I've been spending most of my music production time, and it gets a lot of things right. There's a Black Friday 50% off sale on it going on now. 
 
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am very grateful to Cakewalk for having been there. For all I learned about arranging, producing, and mixing music on its products and at its events. For all I learned about the process of building consumer software in my two long-ago years as a beta tester. For the excitement in trying out the next great new feature, the next new instrument, the next update.
 
Thank you!

Brandon Ryan [Roland]
This is just devastating news. Cakewalk and SONAR have been so intertwined with my life for so long, it's hard to imagine. I met my wife on a Cakewalk business trip, eventually leading to a family with two beautiful children. I've spent countless hours in SONAR, filling proverbial buckets of creative blood sweat and tears, over the years. I'm sad for all the users (myself included) around the world that have made their musical homes in Cakewalk and SONAR over multiple decades - hell, since the last millennium. And I'm so deeply sorry for all my dear friends and former colleagues at the Bakery. The perception that the Cakewalk crew are talented, hardworking, earnest people who do this out of love as much as livelihood is exactly right. I can attest to that personally.

It is so good to see you here. Thank you for posting your thoughts about this. I have missed you. It is very bad news for all of us but its considerably worse for those with CW. I see all the very hard work they and you have put in through the years as being discarded with no regard for the huge talents the people of CW brought with them. 
 
I was wondering for awhile how much saturation the DAW market could take. There are simply too many DAWs for the limited number of potential users. This situation seems due to forces beyond CW's control and the effort has gone nowhere.  
 
As difficult as it seems I was thinking for awhile now if CW would find it harder to continue. It has been such a cutting edge program for so long. 
I am so sorry that it is this news that brings you back. I wish it were for much nicer reasons. 
 
 

How stupid.  Why buy an established industry-leading audio software company with thousands of loyal customers just to kill it?  At least have the decency to try to sell it and keep it going. I'll think twice about buying anything from Gibson or any of its subsidiaries ever again as a result of this.

Seemingly left hanging with Roland VS 700 & now this is happening - my Momma always said if you can't say nothing good; don't say nothing at all - so I  am going to be quiet 

Kickstarter?

A few thoughts:

1) Feel bad for the bakers, but like Craig said, there's a lot of talent there and I'm confident they'll land on their feet.

2) Gibson did the same thing with Opcode in the late '90s. I'm even more unhappy now.

3) I've literally got hundreds of these forum threads bookmarked. If this forum goes down, I'd lose so much incredible info. Not looking forward to saving all these pages as offline viewable HTML pages.

4). I wonder if Izotope would be a viable option to purchase Cakewalk. Both in/near Boston, the Dan Gonzalez connection (I believe), Izotope getting into recording with their Spire system, etc... I like to think it makes sense.