One last thing regarding "Mac" vs. "iPad" ports... don't confuse OSX (Mac laptop and desktop) and iOS (iPhone and iPad)... SONAR running on OSX would be a totally different set of source code from SONAR running on iOS. Minor minor API overlap for things like media APIs, foundation classes, etc., but overally a different app entirely.

So is this thread questioning the viability of Microsoft or the inevetability of Cake developing a DAW for Apples? 
 
If Noel were to approach the other executives with a plan to triple Cakewalk's development expenses (adding another OS would easily more than double the production costs - think of all the meetings and meetings about meetings) to gain an additional 50% in sales the rest of the leadership team would stop inviting him to meetings.
 
As to how well Cake products will fit into Microsoft's newest products - try installing X1 on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and give it a test drive.  X1 today seems to run a lot better on my computer running Windows 8 than it does on Windows 7.  Try it for yourself instead of trying to double-guess the Cakewalk folks.  Microsoft isn't going away any time soon.  It looks to me like the same is probably true for Cakewalk.
 
firefly9000 - I think that you get a low grade as a futurist (and a fail as a prophet) for not thinking through the commercial realities of developing and supporting a software product.
 
Glen

If I may chime in...
As a software developer, there have been many, many efforts at write once/run anywhere type software; two examples being Adobe Flash & Microsoft Silverlight (originally WPF/e which stood for Windows Presentation Framework / everywhere).

One of the key issues with attempting that type of environment is that you are ALWAYS writing to the most limited scenario. An over-simplified analogy that I would make (strictly from a Mac-based world): If I were writing an application for ease of use, I would likely be writing one that included the ability to handle cut-and-paste (remember that this is a simplified analogy). Fast forward a number of years and I have a very flexible user interface/experience and am leveraging many of the features of the operating system. Along comes iOS and the explosion of i-devices that came along with it. The public celebrates these devices. My company's execs get together and decide they want to take advantage of this gravy train and task the developers to make it happen. The developer's take a look at iOS and, yes, they're using the same language, but a different set of base widgets to build their applications. These widgets may be a sub-set of the widgets that I have been using to build my celebrated application that I have been building for years but, then again, maybe not. In this simplified example I will return to the base piece of functionality that I mentioned; cut-and-paste. The original version of iOS didn't even have cut-and-paste ability. It wasn't part of the widget set that developers even had available to them when writing applications for iOS. So... the dilemna becomes this: do I remove cut-and-paste from my original software and come up with some other clever work-around that works in both environments or do I write a new application that has much of the same functionality of the original application but only deal with the limitations of the platform (iOS) for only that application. Many, if not all, companies opt for option #2. Many cross-over applications turn out to be less successful because these sorts of limitations (see GarageBand for iOs vs. GarageBand for OSX; Amplitube would be another example). Keep in mind that the original business was funded by the successful targeting of platform to feature set. This also works in a reverse scenario where something like Angry Birds targetted the iOS platform but has been far less successful on the other multitude of platforms you can find it on (PS3, Google Chrome store, etc.).

Some platform choices are similar enough in base functionality (OSX, Windows, *nix) that a separate application can be created specifically for each platform and achieve success because users don't miss out on features from one platform to another. For example games that are released for each platform. The code written for each is completely different. There are different teams of developers working on each platform. The issue with this is that, when I want to add a new feature (say Quantizing for example), it takes at least twice the resources to build the feature into each platform and the time to market (which is critical for software companies) becomes longer. If there is a hold-up on one team, the company can't release until it's feature-complete in ALL platforms.

Briefly coming back to the write-once/run anywhere software platforms. Their widget set has to be limited to the lowest common denominator so it often ends up being write-once/suck everywhere. This is the reason that Microsoft will no longer be releasing updates to Silverlight after this next version comes out. Flash is so often universally hated (remember, it STILL doesn't run on iOS devices) that it's not a viable widget set to accomplish the goal of same application running on multiple platforms.

So... long story short; Cakewalk may be ported over to other platforms (I'd be surprised if some initial development on iOS or OSX hasn't/hadn't been initiated to at least a small degree) but it isn't as easy a process as users (and company execs) are sometimes prone to thinking. I would expect a separate application on another platform at some point but it would be wrong of Cakewalk to call it the same product. The world will groan at and say sucks because it doesn't have the feature set of the original (Windows) version if they did.

Firefly,
     If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. My suspiscion would be that Reaper made a commitment, from the beginning, to develop for each platform. They certainly dont have the "baggage" of history that the Cakewalk product does (having been developed on strictly Windows for X years). Not that that is always a bad thing.

Gcolbert - I agree with most of what you say. Obviously writing/programming directly for the hardware would entail the most stable solution were there only one type of hardware out there. As such none of this stuff is feasible.

I'm half and half on your last statement that there is no compelling force that will redirect CW efforts. I do think there is a compelling reason. The reason is that Apple is the default OS of the pro-music industry, like it or not. As to IF that will influence CW to do anything about it (taking into account all the problems that entails), that's another story :)

DKE - Adobe Audition was software that was bought from Sylitrium I believe - initially it was called Cool Edit (Pro). Very good program for its time.

DKE - I was remarking that with Audition, Adobe was very far from starting from scratch. Cool Edit was quite a little "gem" before it was bought by Adobe. I lost touch with Cool Edit after it was bought so I can't speak as to how well Adobe ported it.

firefly9000


DKE - I was remarking that with Audition, Adobe was very far from starting from scratch. Cool Edit was quite a little "gem" before it was bought by Adobe. I lost touch with Cool Edit after it was bought so I can't speak as to how well Adobe ported it.

Audtion CS5.5 & CS6 are a near complete rewrite (if you believe what the developers say) with a new audio engine, while it  may not have started completely from scratch it was close to it hence the reason so much was missing from CS5.5.  Sonar would no doubt require a similar rewrite for what would probably be little gain.
 
Dan

Cakewalk only has a total of about 65 employees. In order to develop and support a Mac version, they would have to substantially increase that and I don't see that happening. Mac still only has less than 10% of the total PC market compared to over 75% for Windows. 

daveny5


Cakewalk only has a total of about 65 employees. In order to develop and support a Mac version, they would have to substantially increase that and I don't see that happening. Mac still only has less than 10% of the total PC market compared to over 75% for Windows. 

years ago  (12 or so , it was about 5%) ... BUT for the creative market them stats are very different , and far higher. it is changing generally due to peoples consumerism also and how they buy into the brand big time.


remember apple already had FCP out for the video side of things, at work Final cut rigs were flying off the shelf instead of them hiring AVID stuff to do their editing.


then they bought out emagic solely to get a big footprint in the DAW market, but obv. to sell more machines. logic (c-lab / notator) has a following from the ST days, ask old timers about the midi timing on that.. vs the competition at the time, so they got a nice foothold as did the other well known maker.

it's business wise crazy for  any company to attempt to take on apple, even performer which was mac only went pc. (that was a surprise TBH)

when they want people to buy new machines, no doubt something will change to make things not so compatible with older machines.

it's a waste of dev time / effort for any company to take on apple, due to none of the other makers being all the same company for BOTH hardware / software.

it's a none question for me to port it to mac, as I'm sure it is to many others
    

konradh


You are asking for a native MAC version, but, for the record, it is not uncommon for someone to run Sonar on a MAC under Windows.  It is harder to get a PC laptop as fast and powerful as a Mac so some people who want portable Sonar go this route.

http://www.macwindows.com/winintelmac.html#bootcamp

Actually it's the other way around.  Currently Windows easily beats Mac on benchmarks.  

Unfortunately my quote functions do not work on my browser so I have to do it old school -

Keith - Yep, Cool Edit was quite a gem. Do you remember their brainwave functions? I had lots of fun with those trying to create alpha state tapes :)

Fog - I don't think that we have to think in terms of "taking on Apple". I don't think ProTools, Cubase or Reaper think like that or they never have started developing for Apple. I don't actually think even Apple thinks like that. If they were to mow the competition down too much people would run away from a sole solution proprietary and inflexible system. Do they want to be on top of the heap - Of course they do. But doing that by erasing everyone else is suicidal - just my thoughts. Remember Microsoft's push for iExplorer and the backlash it generated? Apple learned long ago that playing nice is better than being a tyrant that tries to obliterate everything. To argument this I point to Apple's openness (finally) towards Windows and MS products. Of course they would like to be the "winners" of the race, but the winner of a race that has no participants is worthless.

Keith - Yep, Apple makes some really good hardware. After years of having my hands on all kinds of PC systems, from factory to custom built, I can really see a difference in my Mac pro 12 core even under bootcamped Win7 - Stability. I think lots of other manufacturers make good machines but very few of them test them specifically (or as rigorously) as Apple does. I think the Apple team knows that a major part of their Mac Pro customers are involved in the artistic field in one way or another. I am aware that benchmarking tests etc can show other things - but at the risk of sounding stupid - it's just like music, you feel the Mac differently, even under Windows. Lol :) and that's a heck of a lot from a guy that hated Apple for a long time and still doesn't like their OS so much.

I am getting a lot of replies that tend to bring to my attention the business aspect of CW developing Sonar for Apple. I feel it is necessary to make a couple of disclosures here. While I am not a multimillionaire I do run my own very small company that does about 18+k per month (just 3 employees) and we're projected to go to 27k/mo by next year. I've also build and sold a company before this one. So I'm not exactly new to the concept of business development. Here's a quote that I like and found to be true, even when applying it to business "What one man can do, another man can do"... There are plenty of examples of successful Win/Mac apps. Reading most of the posts on this thread you'd think EVERYBODY that has double platform apps either is a billionaire company that had money to burn or has been "erased" by Apple in their quest to destroy any non-Apple software... and this is not the case.

If they do decide to go ahead with a Mac version as long as the PC version is not harmed by doing this I couldn't care less.

 
Yeah, that about sums up my feelings on the subject too.