ptheisen
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I have several thoughts.
Cool. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but educational.
1) You named stability fixes as a forum topic that has more people participating than staff view.
Well, we're kind of off to a bad start, because that is not a fact. I responded to the following:
"Can you give an example of anything else where 111 users had expressed support?" I never named stability fixes as a forum topic. It has come up in multiple contexts spread over multiple topics.
Stability fixes is a pretty general topic, I don't think it is fair to compare that with a specific feature such as staff view.
Specific features don't matter if the program doesn't run properly, crashes, or has incompatibility issues with operating systems or other pieces of hardware. People might use Matrix view, Loop Construction, Video, Staff View, whatever - all of them are affected if there are instabilities in the general program. I keep mentioning priorities. I think few would feel that nailing down any one specific feature is more important than overall program stability.
2) When microapp asked his question about how many Sonar users wanted a new start screen, while you gave a lengthy and admirable response, you did not actually address his questions at all. So we're left to wonder, what are the facts about the number of people that asked for a new start screen? If we knew there were many requests for it, we would better understand why Cakewalk chose to implement it.
As I explained: "Instead, I think they believe it's important enough to continue doing fixes but the priority is simply not as high as fixing other problems that relate to stability and therefore affect all users,
or introducing features that can attract new users (no company can survive solely on updates from its core users). I don't recall a thread where hundreds of people asked for ARA to be implemented so there could be a great Melodyne implementation. So, should Cakewalk have not done that? Of course not. Melodyne was a hugely popular addition to X3, and ARA laid the groundwork that allows for modules like the Drum Replacer. Some people have mentioned liking Studio One's start screen, which probably got the thought processes rolling. IIRC Logic has a start screen, so does GarageBand. So does Cubase where you get to choose the type of project you want to start. Apparently Cakewalk thought the Start Screen was becoming
de riguer for DAWs and wanted to keep up with the competition. Nor is this Start Screen the end of it, further development is already planned that takes customer feedback (and mine, LOL) into account. And before you say "But the competition has staff view, Cakewalk has to keep up with that to stay competitive," please re-read my posts on sales of programs with and without staff views.
3) In one of your posts, you raised the possibility that Cakewalk's scientific surveys may paint a different picture than the traffic in the forum. That is certainly possible, but I don't think we've been shown the actual results of those surveys (I could have missed it). Would it be possible for Cakewalk to release the information from a recent survey so that we all would have the facts about the desires and priorities of their overall user base?
Of course not!!!! With all due respect, this is the
real world and companies, magazines, web sites, etc. guard proprietary surveys (which cost money to create) because they are designed to give companies a competitive advantage in terms of anticipating needs of the market. Have you seen
any user survey results published by Ableton, Avid, Steinberg, etc.? No. It would be stupid to announce to the industry "Hey, people really like Melodyne and think it's way better than V-Vocal. You guys better get on the stick and include ARA integration as fast as possible to blunt any competitive advantage we might get from having it out before you."
Let me add a comment of my own. Either by accident or intention, people keep omitting that I keep stressing it's about more than numbers. One more time...
Please, think logically for a second:- If Cakewalk had internal research that showed something was extremely important to a significant percentage of its user base, and
- Implementing it would bring in large amounts of revenue, and
- The company had the technical ability to implement those changes
What possible reason would the company have for not doing it? Answer: They wouldn't, they would jump on it. So why aren't they jumping on it? I've already explained why.
Based on historical sales figures from anyone who has access to multiple years of MI Sales Trak ("Why can't you share that information, Craig?" "Because it's copyrighted and expensive. They wouldn't be happy with my giving it away for free. Buy your own subscription and educate yourself"), having a solid staff view is no guarantee of a sales increase. In fact it's very clear that the fastest-selling DAWs in recent history are ones that DON'T have staff view.
Then there's the question of the resources to devote to something that doesn't score high on internal surveys and has not been a significant factor in
overall DAW sales (although of course, it is a factor for those who want staff view, because they will pick the program that suits their needs best).