I think the bakers know most of us are excited; there's always gonna be a few whiny (insert lots of stuff here) that spin in negative directions at every opportunity.  Every forum has them. I try and ignore them

jimkleban
This goes to John specifically..... this thread was just for me to post some thoughts on what I think (and others may think) about this too good to be true offer.  I usually don't respond to individual posts but I feel I owe John an explanation. 
 
If this thread inferred that I thought this is a bad deal and I was upset, please read it again, in where I close with "Having Blind Faith" that the powers to be have this under control and was only questioning the wisdom of giving up millions of dollars of revenue for an extra one time hit of revenue. This seemed puzzling especially since this new subscription deal has been executed and accepted so positively by us users.  I like that fixes and new features are being realized more frequently for about the same cost as was the annual upgrade fee (we are all winners here).  
 
I know that CAKE is saying that most of their revenue is NOT coming from existing users but even at 10,000 annual updates we are talking about $1M per year in revenue that has apparently been given up by this new lifetime deal.  I am going to sign up for this and my faith is that CAKE is able to remain my DAW environment software for many years to come.
 
I felt that I  wanted to get my thoughts out to the community to see what others think as well.  And I would say that based upon the additional input here, most agree that this move by CAKE is a bit of a mystery and that, like me, most folks have some blind faith in this move and will be signing up for this too good to be true business model change for us SPLAT  users.  
 
I did some calculations and I think I have purchased over $2000 in upgrades since I first signed up in the mid 1980s to CAKEWALK when the product was basically a MIDI editor with little to no support for AUDIO. I am sure that most of us long time users could estimate how much income they have provided to CAKE for upgrades and as you can see, we are talking about a multi million business change cost to CAKE for what appears to be (from their words) a reward for all of us sticking with CAKE all these years or at least (for newer users) to take the SPLAT plunge.
 
Only time will tell how this turns out but again, I say, they have my blind faith as a loyal and dedicated user of their DAW software.
 
Again, for John, this is why and how I started this thread in good faith and if this came across as a CAKE bashing, that was not my intent for which I apologize to anyone who took this OP as a negative to bakers.
 
Jim

I don't think you intended to bash CW I do think your title is provocative and why you have gotten the reaction you have seen here. It is possible you have insights and resources that allow you to "calculate" the revenue CW gets though I don't know where you would get that data. Still the idea is that you question the viability or at worst the truthfulness of the CW announcement. That is what is troublesome in this thread.
 
You may not have intended that but that is how it came across.  

BRuys
I have been using Cakewalk's flagship product since it came on a single floppy disk.  I have never once regretted a single purchase over all these years.  I jumped on the offer and have no regrets.  Those of you who are suggesting that this is somehow the death-gasp of a company in trouble should be ashamed of yourselves.  You are propagating unfounded rumors that could actually do some harm.  If I was a staff member at CW, I would be saddened and disappointed by some of these responses.  Do you not give a damn for the hard working, Cakewalk staff?
 
I have seen some great announcements met with skepticism and distrust around here lately.  Wow, some of you guys really know how to rain on Cakewalk's parade, don't you?

+ 1
Some speculations are going to far.

I've been around since CW8. Core functionality has been my reason for upgrading through the years, when the various add-ons were less of a draw (due to lack of need or previously addressed needs, like already having AD or Melodyne).
So now they offer to reward me for this loyalty with a reasonably lifetime upgrade price..allowing me to pick up the add-ons as I see fit. This is my PERFECT BUSINESS MODEL. 
 
I've made a living with this software for many years, and I feel like CW just threw me a "thank you" birthday party.
I couldn't hit the "buy" button fast enough.
If this sales model works for them, I'm happy to support it ( along with the near certainty of me ponying up for the occasional add-on as we go).
 
I think this is brilliant. Thank you :)

The Sweetwater interview with Craig (A+) and the lifelong deal (A+) I get it!
BUT...
The things that concern me are well the way I see things. Lol ;)
 
I see my IK Sample Moog and Tron that worked a few months with Splat stop working and the bit bridge grinding to a halt as more and more 32 bit 3^rd party plugins stop working in Splat… I wonder if this isn’t part of the new Cake recipe… Were you have to use and/or buy CW plugins to replace any other plugin brand Or you will need to buy some plugin bridge for each plugin brand. There are many numbers of ways that I can see this going… I have lost many 32bit CW plugins as it is…
 
Life time Splat users??? Hum? Nothing says that CW can’t put a new DAW on the market…  Splat 10 next gen….   ???
Just saying…
 
As long as CW is upfront with us and is focused on taking over the DAW market, I’m in!
 
It would be nice to be using the #1 DAW in the world!
 
Ride the way baby!!!

I totally made up the number of upgrades per year for example purposes only.  I have no idea how many SONAR users even exist let along SPLAT users.  No sense in beating this old horse any more.  I hope and support that the bakers know what they are doing.

Just did the lifetime upgrade myself.  CW has always been more than fair about giving us "stuff" (which they didn't have to do) with each and every upgrade.  Am I concerned about spending $99 for this???  Of course not.  I make a living using Sonar among other software....doing audio and video production.
 
For one thing...it's tax deductible....for another thing, I'm anxious to see what they have in store for us :) .

Dave000
I see my IK Sample Moog and Tron that worked a few months with Splat stop working and the bit bridge grinding to a halt as more and more 32 bit 3^rd party plugins stop working in Splat… 

I think the ST2 instruments still work in Sonar as long as you run it in admin mode, which I believe is an IK limitation rather than a CW one... but I agree it's a drag.
 
If you are of a mind to act quickly, IK has a deal on until May 31 where most of the hardware - some of it quite cheap - that would normally get you Sampletank 3 SE gets you the full meal deal ST3, complete with 33GB library, plus the usual extras. That would let you import SampleMoog and SampleTron to ST3 and run them in 64 bit with a much nicer interface and better onboard FX etc. I've just imported Tron, Moog, Sonic Synth 2 and a few other goodies and it works a charm.
 
link: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/st3controller/
 
Some of those iRig keyboards are pretty cheap at third party shops - I went with a 37Pro because I've always wanted a 3-octave, light, full-size controller that fits in a suitcase for travel, but even if you don't need one at all the smallest mini-key ones are practically nothing. Of course you can do the imports with ST3SE that comes with those products normally, but I figured it was worth jumping on the full license for the full library - maybe there's something great in there that will fuel a track or two down the road. Hey, it's only disk space, might as well use it!

 
 
(Just a quick question from a newbie, I've looked everywhere but I can't seem to find the answer)
 
Assuming one doesn't take advantage of the lifetime upgrade to Platinum, what is the alternative membership plan going forward?
 
Will we still be able to renew every year as now, or will there only be lifetime upgrades in future.
 
Apologies for the newbie question, but I'm not absolutely sure I understand the whole business model.

Andy Stone
 
 
(Just a quick question from a newbie, I've looked everywhere but I can't seem to find the answer)
 
Assuming one doesn't take advantage of the lifetime upgrade to Platinum, what is the alternative membership plan going forward?
 
Will we still be able to renew every year as now, or will there only be lifetime upgrades in future.
 
Apologies for the newbie question, but I'm not absolutely sure I understand the whole business model.

I believe it's been stated that the original annual/monthly plan will still be in existence, so don't worry!

superdan54
Here's my prediction: The June 1st announcement is going to be that they are consolidating all the various flavors of SONAR into one. No more Platinum or Professional. All future premium features we would have enjoyed in the past as Platinum/Producer users will now be available ala carte. So in effect, what we are receiving with the lifetime subscription is SONAR Artist 4 foreva on top of the Producer features we already own. That's not a criticism as it's still a pretty amazing deal and much appreciated.

that's... an interesting notion...

pwalpwal

subtlearts

superdan54
Here's my prediction: The June 1st announcement is going to be that they are consolidating all the various flavors of SONAR into one. No more Platinum or Professional. All future premium features we would have enjoyed in the past as Platinum/Producer users will now be available ala carte. So in effect, what we are receiving with the lifetime subscription is SONAR Artist 4 foreva on top of the Producer features we already own. That's not a criticism as it's still a pretty amazing deal and much appreciated.

that's... an interesting notion...

indeed, i suspect that dan's the winner - check out the steam store pages: professional and platinum editions are delivered as DLC for the steam edition http://store.steampowered.com/app/443205/

As the acting Steam LiveOps and Community Manager, I wouldn't look at the Steam offerings for a clear indicator of what our direct products will be. 

There's actually a simple technical reason why we offer Professional and Platinum as DLC's. If we were to offer each product as a standalone library item, it would fracture our community into 3 different groups. Now since Pro/Plt are DLC, all our SONAR Steam users have one place to congregate.