according to one of the Finn brothers. (Sibelius founders) Sibelius has always been profitable.
it was aquired simply for aquiring notation know how and integration with protools. Sibelius' purchase also allowed Avid into educational markets.. something I witnessed first hand here in the uk.

Once integrated wigh Protools, Avid ripped the company to shreds and kept the i.p.

Avid twice refused to sell the company back to the Finn brothers..
Must be making money somewhere!!

TheMaartian
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I believe the bridge exists, and its name is "Rewire". Consider the following thread from PreSonus' forum:

If all you want to do is add some effects and maybe automate the track mix, then Rewire will work. But frankly I can do just about as well running the Finale output through Ozone stand-alone and not using the DAW at all.
 
The problem with the notation programs is that, although some of them have evolved to semi-realistic playback, often one needs to change the MIDI itself or add MIDI controllers for just the right pitch bend, fp interpretation, or what have you. 
 
In addition, with rewire, your sounds are only as good as the sounds in the notation program.  Generally speaking. I expect the DAW to have better sound libraries
 
A "MIDI Rewire" would be an answer, but that is a whole new concept.
 

I read bits and pieces of this thread from time to time.    What I want, and I do not care how, is FAST FAST FAST and flexible note entry.    Both Sibelius and Finale are up to 10 times faster than Sonar in simply entering notes to form a project, "midi events", if you will.   Whether it be in staff view or piano roll view or event list, if Sonar would spend some time planning for the expert note-entering-user, it would be great.  
 
I am not a fan of "playing in" the notes, since a midi keyboard simply is not a clarinet or a violin or a tuba or a saxophone, and fixing the problems caused by playing-in takes longer, imo, than even sonar's current lousy note entry options. 

I'm still using Sonar 8 because I refuse to give Cakewalk anymore money until the bugs are fixed. These might not be relevant anymore.
 
Lyrics:
Fix the clips related bug that was introduced in Sonar 5 (2005) that corrupts the track and cannot be undone.
Support Unicode. This allows any language to be entered as lyrics. eg I use an English computer but often work with Japanese lyrics.
 
Printing: 
Print only the selected range
Print only the a measure range
Better layout, the printed score is often difficult to read. This risks being criticised for Finale level software but some effort could be put into better fonts and more regular spacing.
 
 

To show how I work in regards to notation, here's a symphonic movement I finished yesterday.
After composing and sequencing the piece in Sonar Platinum, I export the MIDI File (not XML!) into Sibelius
and edit the score and error-check all the parts. 
 
This piece is very slow, so best to listen when you have a moment and are not in a hurry. (7 minutes)
Comments welcome.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...y-Gerber-m3252790.aspx

Hey Jerry,  This is really great...thanks for sharing it.
 
Here is the problem I have when I try to do things the way you are.  A Sibelius file created by importing midi does not lock up to pictures.  So I create 2 Sib files...and then copy and paste all the parts. I do all my composing to picture.
 
Also once I better see the music in a score I want to edit notes.  Since I end up recording live musicians in the same Sonar file I have to make sure I re do the edits in Sonar.
 
The midi file in Sonar has sloppy note starts and ends to create legato passages and such.  Before I import into Sibelius I have to adjust note lengths and start times....that can be painfully tedious.
 
Please someone find away to interact quicker and easier!!!   We are working on computers don't you know.
 

Jimbo 88
Hey Jerry,  This is really great...thanks for sharing it.
 
Here is the problem I have when I try to do things the way you are.  A Sibelius file created by importing midi does not lock up to pictures.  So I create 2 Sib files...and then copy and paste all the parts. I do all my composing to picture.
 
Also once I better see the music in a score I want to edit notes.  Since I end up recording live musicians in the same Sonar file I have to make sure I re do the edits in Sonar.
 
The midi file in Sonar has sloppy note starts and ends to create legato passages and such.  Before I import into Sibelius I have to adjust note lengths and start times....that can be painfully tedious.
 
Please someone find away to interact quicker and easier!!!   We are working on computers don't you know.
 

Jimbo,
 
There's a certain amount of "tediousness" when sequencing music that is unavoidable, that's congruent with the old saying "The devil's in the details".  I don't think the methods I use in my music will necessarily work for others, we each have to find a method to our madness.   Since you're scoring to picture (I don't do that anymore, or at least I haven't for a long time) you'll have to find an optimal way to work that won't be the same as mine.  
 
I don't understand when you write Sonar has "sloppy note starts".  I've never found that to be true.  It could be that you've got some notes too far off the beat, or you've got your tracks shifted earlier or later than 0, or your attack times are not matched well to the articulations you're using.  Sonar's MIDI timing has always been rock solid for me. 

jsg
 
I don't understand when you write Sonar has "sloppy note starts".  I've never found that to be true.  It could be that you've got some notes too far off the beat, or you've got your tracks shifted earlier or later than 0, or your attack times are not matched well to the articulations you're using.  Sonar's MIDI timing has always been rock solid for me. 

 
No, Sonar's midi timing is rock solid for me also,  its just that if I'm using a string patch that speaks very slow (Omnispere's  Warm Adagio Strings for example), I might be a half a beat ahead.  The "sloppy note Starts" is all of my own doing and the easiest issue of all...just "quaintize"
 
   

Following on some of the earlier discussion, here is a rendering of an arrangement I'm working on:
 
https://app.box.com/s/b2w67ju5ijtvrupflw9nfzvjtfb9hr5b
 
It is an old Al Jarreau tune set to a bit of a hiphop groove and some reharmonization for a sextet (tenor-tpt-bone-pno-bass-drums)plus vox.  I'm not completely done with it, but It is far enough along to send to the singer so he can familiarize himself with this particular arrangement.  I ran this directly out of Finale, and did some slight mastering in Ozone.  It is mostly adequate for my purposes, but I really wish it were a lot easier to run this into Sonar.  If it were, I would make a couple of refinements:
 
1) Finale always messes up the rhythm such as at 1:03 and 2:12.  Finale just doesn't apply swing correctly to that figure.  It would be an easy fix in Sonar.  As it is, there is a risk that the musicians will play it the way it sounds in Finale and that would not be cool.
 
2) Finale does a lousy job of rendering fP-cresc. e.g. 238 and 2:40.  I think I could improve this with Sonar.
 
3) The vamp at 2:52 - 3:15 is more of a cool feel instead of a shuffle, but Finale applies the same swing amount to everything.  With Sonar, I could easily back off the swing a little bit in that section.
 
Because this is a very good sextet and it is for our private book, not for publication, I will not go to the trouble of running this through Sonar.  But if the importing process were much easier (as described up-thread), I would indeed do that, even for this simple project.

jsg
After composing and sequencing the piece in Sonar Platinum, I export the MIDI File (not XML!) into Sibelius
and edit the score and error-check all the parts. 

Thanks for sharing the score Jerry. Really great piece. Why not export as Music XML? Too much to fix in Sibelius?