Good Lord!  So much kvetching and speculation and Chicken Little.  Does your SPLAT work?  Then use it.  Does your new Cakewalk work? Then use it.  So you haven't had a "real" SPLAT update in 5 months -- BIG DEAL.  New Cakewalk versions used to come out every year if we were lucky.
 
Now the updates are free and all the old stuff still works.  SONAR 8.5 still works, for gosh sakes, and so will Platinum -- for many years to come.  Its all gravy now compared to where we were 2 months ago.
 
So make some music already.

+1000!

BRainbow
Good Lord!  So much kvetching and speculation and Chicken Little.  Does your SPLAT work?  Then use it.  Does your new Cakewalk work? Then use it.  So you haven't had a "real" SPLAT update in 5 months -- BIG DEAL.  New Cakewalk versions used to come out every year if we were lucky.
 
Now the updates are free and all the old stuff still works.  SONAR 8.5 still works, for gosh sakes, and so will Platinum -- for many years to come.  Its all gravy now compared to where we were 2 months ago.
 
So make some music already.

Amen!

BRainbow
Good Lord!  So much kvetching and speculation and Chicken Little.  Does your SPLAT work?  Then use it.  Does your new Cakewalk work? Then use it.  So you haven't had a "real" SPLAT update in 5 months -- BIG DEAL.  New Cakewalk versions used to come out every year if we were lucky.
 
Now the updates are free and all the old stuff still works.  SONAR 8.5 still works, for gosh sakes, and so will Platinum -- for many years to come.  Its all gravy now compared to where we were 2 months ago.
 
So make some music already.

+1  So much DAW drama on this forum and I thought my wife was the drama queen. 
I started with Cakewalk back in 1997 with Guitar Studio and then Pro Audio 8 & 9. In 2001,
I upgraded Pro Audio 9 Deluxe to SONAR 1.0 and every year since did the annual upgrades and
finally the lifetime deal a few year back. I've probably spent a few thousand dollars on the Cakewalk
upgrades from 1997 to 2015. I am a paid up lifetime SPLAT user and had already came to terms that
Cakewalk SONAR as we once knew it was gone forever. I would have been perfectly content to continue
to use SONAR (as is) for the foreseeable future. 
 
Then along comes BandLab to resurrect SONAR and offer it free with future updates. Cripes, what is there
to complain about? I still get to use the latest updated versions of Cakewalk by BandLab for free like I did
before under the SONAR lifetime updates scenario. This outcome is actually better than one could have
imagined after Gibson stopped all development and sales of Cakewalk products late last year and there was no
future in sight. 
 
I say enjoy the ride as this journey is just getting started. I learned a long time ago to not look a
gift horse in the mouth and I am not about to now.

I honestly think that for some people here, this whole thing has become a stage on which to perform a morality play about the evils of the corporate world, how everything's a rip off and how they trust nobody. Give people an opportunity to cast themselves as victims of big business and they will make broad, expansive gestures along these lines until they turn purple. 

Some people just can't be happy unless they have something to be unhappy about.