Anderton
You still don't get it and with all due respect, you seem to have virtually no real-world knowledge about marketing. I'm not dissing you, marketing is one of those subjects where everyone can think they're an expert (like managing a baseball team) but it's not simple. Marketing does not exist in a vacuum. Marketing co-exists with sales, development, manufacturing, operational and executive, legal, statistics/data analysis, and financials.
 

I worked over 20 years in a marketing organization for one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world, reporting directly to the VP of marketing for the last 8 years of my career there.  This was a company that did $2 billion - $3 billion of sales each year in the product areas I was involved with.  I had direct reports on every continent except Antarctica.
 
I actually do have a little experience in this field.   And I assure you, we never let $10 get between us and a customer.  Customers are more valuable than that.
 
After retiring from that career, I built a travel business that did reservations for 200 affiliated companies and brought in about $4M a year with a very small team of principals.  This involved negotiating with every major travel company out there so I also know a little about BTB supply negotiations and how to put together deals that make sense.  We often sold reservations at a large loss because that was the beginning of what we hoped to develop into a multi-year relationship.  That paid off handsomely.  Customers actually appreciate it when you make things easier for them.
 
I am not here to lecture about marketing but I am not going to take a lecture on the subject either.  It is best that we just move on.  It is clear we are not going to agree on this one.  And if Cakewalk/Gibson aren't inclined to look at this in a customer-focused way, that is their choice.

And I've worked for the 2nd or 1st (debatable) biggest PR firm in the world for several years of my life, do I win a prize?
After spending several decades with marketeers I've come to believe they believe in their own BS.
Biggest qualification right now is I happen to be a mere a customer.

I don't believe it.  Affluent people don't quibble over $10 purchases of things that last forever.  Or paying the equivalent of a tank of gas and a pizza once a year.
 
I could think of several things about Sonar to complain about, but price isn't one of them.

BobF
Affluent people don't quibble over $10 purchases of things that last forever.

I am not quibbling about it.  As I have said several times above, I paid my $10 a long time ago.  I am simply pointing out that this is a really dumb position for a company that is spending so much development effort to be taken seriously in a very crowded DAW space.  The word many marketing people use for that kind of nickel-and-dime thing is chicken-bleep.
 
I have a bit of investment in the learning curve with Sonar and I would like to see this product be taken as seriously in the marketplace as products like ProTools and Cubase.  I see lots of technical work being done, but I don't see any evidence that this is backed up by a comparable marketing effort to raise the product's standing in the market.  I am not claiming that this one issue will make or break Sonar's image, but it is does appear to be consistent with an overall lack of marketing leadership.

Anderton
now I am very interested in your answer, because perhaps you have do something of value you can contribute if you can fully understand the disparity between your frame of reference of what a company makes, and that of companies in the music software industry.

It isn't complicated.  Sonar is on a subscription program, although I understand everybody hates that word so I will henceforth use the word Minerva instead so as not to argue about that .. you know -- thing.  The reality is Cakewalk has already taken the important step of understanding that you must think of this as a multi-year relationship.  Indeed, Cakewalk seems to have some of the most loyal customers anywhere.
 
So the next step is to VALUE that relationship.  It isn't the ~ $90 net Cakewalk gets from one year's Minerva.  It is the $1000-1500 that can reasonably be expected over the life of the relationship by keeping the customer happy with the ongoing Minervas, plus any additional VSTs and other goodies that can be sold.  The Minerva relationship presumably also contributes some revenue from co-marketing deals.
 
The $10 is only swallowed one time, and that isn't even a speculative thing.  It is only paid to Fraunhofer when you make a sale.  One absorbs that as a cost of doing business at the beginning of the relationship, just as they may pay a commission to Sweetwater or any other marketing or support expense.  When I was selling travel reservations, I often spent tens of thousands of dollars a month just in the HOPE of getting customers. This is a no-brainer. In the full life of the customer relationship, it can be less than one percent.
 
Customers are hard to get.  Don't put barriers in the way.

Marketing person .... What do we need to take the product in the big league?
Marketing person.... Yes mp3 export charge them an extra $10 even if they don't use it
Marketing person ... Hooragh we've cracked it!
Marketing person... I agree
Marketing peron.... What is MP3?
Marketing person... No idea, but that will kill Pro Tools...
Marketing person... What's that?
Marketing person... No idea, maybe we should do a survey and find out...

Anyway congrats you've cracked it. By bundling mp3 export as a built in feature (a feature that hardly ever gets discussed in these forums for some reason, only seen 3 or 4 threads this year ) Sonar sales will increase by about 1000% ..Genius.. Wish I had thought of it...

cparmerlee
I worked over 20 years in a marketing organization for one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world, reporting directly to the VP of marketing for the last 8 years of my career there.  This was a company that did $2 billion - $3 billion of sales each year in the product areas I was involved with.  I had direct reports on every continent except Antarctica.
 
I actually do have a little experience in this field.
 
And I assure you, we never let $10 get between us and a customer.  Customers are more valuable than that.

Okay, now I totally get where you're coming from. So, I thank you very much for giving specifics instead of speaking in denigrating generalities about Cakewalk's alleged incompetence and insensitivity to the needs of its consumers.
 
Given a company that you say did $2 to $3 billion of sales each year (and apparently with greater grosses than that, considering that you limited your statement to product areas in which you were involved), I can completely understand why you think $10 spread over tens of thousands of pieces of software is trivial.
 
In this industry, it is NOT even close to trivial. 
 
Global sales of the entire musical instrument industry for 2013 (the last year for which I have figures) - including DJ gear, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, PAs, ukuleles, recording gear, software, interfaces, headphones, microphones, studio monitors, power amplifiers, pianos, synthesizers, strings and accessories, tuners, brass, woodwinds, sitars, drums, etc. - is estimated at under $17 billion dollars and under $8 billion in the US, the world's largest market. According to the best data I've been able to gather (correct me if I'm wrong, please) Avid, by far the market leader for DAW software, tops out at quite a bit less than $900K/month during the two-month holiday season spike and goes as low as under $500K during other months. I can assure you that no other music software company, including Cakewalk, is even close to that.
 
So, given your expertise, I remain interested in how you propose that Cakewalk cover this expense given the constraints imposed by the size of this market. Except now I am very interested in your answer, because perhaps you have do something of value you can contribute if you can fully grasp the disparity between your frame of reference of what a company makes, and that of companies in this industry. So ultimately, the question remains...who's going to pay the $10 per unit sold, which in the case of a company the size of Cakewalk's, literally means the difference between firing and keeping an employee if Cakewalk has to absorb that cost?
 
And it's not like Cakewalk has employees sitting around doing nothing that the company could easily afford to shed. In fact the company needs to hire more employees.
 
Consider this not a lecture about marketing, but straight talk about the realities of a tiny industry, which has been the context of everything I've said. If you have meaningful answers to the questions I have asked that are relevant to the constraints of this industry, believe me, I'm all ears.
 
I have zero doubt that if Cakewalk was pulling in $2-$3 billion a year, they could indeed "eat" the costs of including a $10 encoder...because each copy of SONAR Platinum would have to cost several hundred thousand dollars in order to bring in that kind of revenue. Unfortunately, I do think that pricing strategy would limit the size of the customer base 

Anderton
So ultimately, the question remains...who's going to pay the $10 per unit sold, which in the case of a company the size of Cakewalk's, literally means the difference between firing and keeping an employee if Cakewalk has to absorb that cost?

Put it all through MP3.

Kev999

WDI
Referring to post 63, for me, MP3 is proofreading...

 
As for the "proofreading" thing, it's not really recommended to use a format that entails a risk of introducing unwanted artifacts, however small or subtle, if you are going to be listening critically.
 
MP3 files certainly have their place, particulary as a suitable format for uploading music to the web. But conversion to any lossy format should only be done as the very last stage. This doesn't just apply to audio. JPEGs would be similar.

No, what I do is make and MP3 from an MP3 from an MP3 and then I master from that.
 
Being funny. HAHA!
 
But seriously, I don't need a technical lesson. It's coming across a little condescending. Merely trying to explain why I would export an MP3 from Sonar as requested. But regardless,  an explanation or justification should not be needed. If that's what someone wants to do then so be it.
 
This whole thing has gotten outta hand ridiculous.