slyman
Cakewalk could not survive on it's own and sold to Roland.

It became tougher as lots of products came to market, passing SONAR 7 by.  Rolan'd game plan was (apparently) to create some synergy with its hardware lines.  That never happened as far as I know.  And I'm not sure that Roland even did much with co-marketing (e.g. free SONAR starter version when you buy an upscale Roland product.)

slyman
Roland could not make it profitable and sold to Gibson.

Gibson'd game plan was to create a rich software division and integrate that with the TASCAM/Teac products, making both Teac and Cakewalk stronger.  As far as I know, none of that ever happened.

slyman
Gibson could not make it profitable and pulled the plug. 
Now Bandlab is at the plate with 2 strikes and no one on base. 

Bandlab's game plan is presumably to integrate SONAR into an end-to-end chain of products that range from mobile devices, to the cloud, all the way back to the traditional studio.  And presumably pieces of the Cakewalk technology can migrate to the cloud and mobile layers over time.  We'll see if any of that plays out.  If SONAR remains an island, as it did with Gibson and Roland, it will be dumped again in a couple of years.

I think Bandlab's purchase of Cakewalk may have been the only realistic chance this software had to survive. First, as mentioned above, they have integration with the cloud, and a cloud-based community. This is the future, for better or for worse. Second, they have considerable financial backing. Imagine your father is a multi-billionaire. Buy Cakewalk? Sure, why not? We have the resources needed to make the investments that will turn this thing around. I cannot think of a better situation for Cakewalk/Sonar. If capitulation to the cloud thing is part of the equation, so be it. 

Great bankster theories and presumptions boys, but very doomsday, dark, negative, and well, I'm thinking extremely, ahhh, PRESUMPTUOUS to think Bandlab has a master plan to drag us deeper into our hellish existence than we already are.............  
 Got any spread sheets to back up these theories, or did you just figure this out all on your own sitting alone in the dark of your man caves, only light shining in your face from the monitor as you sit at the helm of your procrastination stations? Hmmmmm??????????
 
Sorry I'm NOT buying of that lure... Nobody invests millions of dollars into a failing company just to be nice
 
 I'm theorizing that Cakewalk was not only profitable it rated the best of the best when Roland bought it from 12 Tones Inc.
 I shall also theorized that the folks at Roland did NOT invest in Cakewalk out of the goodness of their hearts because they felt sorry it couldn't make it on it's own... If it wasn't profitable they most assuredly wouldn't even acknowledged it's existence.  
 It was going so good, they offered CEO and founder Greg Hendershott an obscene amount of money which he of course took and retired FOR LIFE with. That's my theory, and I shall assume or presume nothing else.
 And really why should I even care about how much money anyone else makes but ME?
 Being I make money making music with using their most excellent and bodacious tools they have to offer, I'm not only happy for them, I want them to continue to make money to provide me with more goodies and tools to make it easier for me to make more music with.
 
Cakewalk had a great run with Roland.
 
 NOBODY at Cakewalk got fired, and when on to make Sonar even better, better, and better, and very profitable, just not as profitable as Roland's hardware.
 
 So they sold it to Gibson Brands, which by the way, wasn't in the habit of buy ANYTHING that wasn't profitable.
 And so it remained so, right on up until the day Vulture Capitalist and CEO and owner of Gibson Henry Juszkiewicz fired everyone at Cakewalk and shuttered it just around the time Tascam was introducing their new Track Factory Porta Studio which consisted of SONAR Professional preloaded and preconfigured into an Intel i5 Nuc, a set of Tascam headphones, Tascam large diaphragm condenser mic, and Tascam 2x2 audio interface for a retail price of $1300 (us).
 Goodbye Cakewalk, Hello Tascam Porta Studio that doesn't need any elaborate tech support, and it's limited warrantee expires in a year..... But..........  being Henry owed so much money to creditors, he became a questionable risk, his credit was downgraded, and couldn't get the money to finance the Tascam Track Factory..
 And that's part of my theory, and the other part has a much happier "Beginning" than you obviously 'Presume"  or least insinuate Cakewalk future to be with Bandlab....

And this is no uncommon story. I have seen a lot of companies that were struggling, but still profitable. Then they were taken over or merged with another company of the same branch. Most of the time the result was even worse than before. Why? Too much change and turbulence for the staff led to lost confidence and bad work climate. Additionally too many new managers that had to distinguish themselves, so directions changing permanently. Thus how can that improve the results of a company?

Steev
Thank you back spacey,
 As do I, Gibson might survive if Henry Juszkiewicz starts to act more like a "QUALITY" guitar builder than he does a Vulture Capitalist, than I don't see why not. For more on that please CLICK HERE
 
I honestly believe Bandlab buying Cakewalk could be the best thing that happened in many years, and the positive proof of that is, they already did.
 And there is nothing to even remotely suggest any negative aspect. 
And as the saying goes........
 
"Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep." ~ Stephan Stills 
(Excerpt from FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH by Buffalo Springfield)
 
"There's nothing to fear but fear itself." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
" I'm making a point of living my life to the fullest until the day I die." ~ That'll be ME!

On the Gibson side I know that timber became a serious issue for them in the '80's. Not good for them and I can't imagine what headaches came from that...and that issue is only getting tougher.
On the software side I can't imagine how hard it is to deal with a customer base that can't tell the difference between a payment plan and a subscription...hell, if BandLab has a handle on that they could have smooth sailing...and what got me is that I know not all of them were drummers! LOL, LOL (couldn't resist and all in fun)

michael diemer
If capitulation to the cloud thing is part of the equation, so be it. 

Even billions of dollars don't change the laws of physics.  To do commercial-grade music production as we know it today requires a whole lot of data movement, and you really cannot tolerate much variation in the data flow.  For example, if you are mixing 30 tracks, that may require something like 60 Mbit/sec of data bandwidth, not including the data access for any sound libraries and such.  This is well within the data rates sustainable on local disks, but few people have access to networks that can reliably maintain that speed 24 hours a day.
 
Over time, some of that can be handled through local caching, but I just don't believe one can deliver a cloud-based solution today that can handle projects of the size and complexity that SONAR and the other DAWs do every day.  And you don't need such large projects for the kind of stuff Bandlab has been targeting.
 
So I don't see this as "capitulating to the cloud" any more than Bandlab people would see it as "capitulating to the PC".  It is a matter of building a system that combines the best tools that can get the job done.  And if this can all be done more-or-less seamlessly, what's not to like?

cparmerlee
Even billions of dollars don't change the laws of physics.  To do commercial-grade music production as we know it today requires a whole lot of data movement, and you really cannot tolerate much variation in the data flow.  For example, if you are mixing 30 tracks, that may require something like 60 Mbit/sec of data bandwidth, not including the data access for any sound libraries and such.  This is well within the data rates sustainable on local disks, but few people have access to networks that can reliably maintain that speed 24 hours a day.

I guess you misinterpret what cloud computing is... ALL your data and sound libraries ARE in the cloud when you start mixing. And they do not need to be transfered to your computer during the whole mixing process, all you get is the "PICTURE" of the DAW and stereo sound to send into your monitors. That can be done even with 1-2MBit connection.
 
So the only time you may need a good speed is when you record 30 tracks at once into the cloud or transfer pre-recorded sounds. So, for real-time recording with "throw the DAW" almost zero latency monitoring, cloud is "no go".
 
But in the cloud you can theoretically mix 80 tracks project with 240 plug-ins and 40 Synth... using your phone or tablet.
 
That is the general concept: locally you have only GUI + sometimes sound. The rest, including all files and programs, is "somewhere", sometimes on the other side of the glob. Inside powerful farms with water colling and 100s of GB/sec storage connection.
 

In other words, 'thin client' computing...
 
A big step up from 'dumb terminal', but a nod to the mainframe supercomputers of the past. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

abacab
In other words, 'thin client' computing...
 
A big step up from 'dumb terminal', but a nod to the mainframe supercomputers of the past. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

As in wiki, 'thin client' is normally used for hardware+special OS to provide 'remote desktop' with local connectivity. Except "teleporting" local connections to the server, the client is in fact 'dumb terminal'.
 
Here the hardware is "usual" and OS is local. So that is just a "client + server" based system. In current BandLab form that is a Web application. In such concept the workload can be freely distributed between client and server. F.e. the whole graphics works locally. Nothing prevents local audio processing as well. There are web applications which work just locally, so can continue to work "offline". I mean that approach is much more flexible and usually more "responsive" then a thin client.

abacab
In other words, 'thin client' computing...
A big step up from 'dumb terminal', but a nod to the mainframe supercomputers of the past. 

Absolutely.  We have come full circle.  The beauty of mainframe processing was that all the precious assets were in a central location (or multiple central locations) under the careful management of a professional IT staff.  But the user interface was "IBM 3270", in other words, just a grid of 24 rows and 80 columns of text characters.   The mainframes died when the world decided it wanted prettier, more productive user interfaces and the mainframe world had no idea how to do that.
But now with browser-based apps, we are back to practically the same place.  The browser is the new 3270 standard and the "cloud server" is the mainframe.  And what is the attraction of cloud computing?  Well, all the precious assets are in a central location (or multiple central locations) under the careful management of a professional IT staff.