ampfixer
We're wasting our time on this thread. There's a new sheriff in town that's charting the way forward for Cakewalk. Nothing's going to change their minds.
With respect, the lifetime updates were extended based on community feedback. The eZine is being re-launched due to community feedback, as is the ongoing quest for better notation and easier arranging. Several people have complained that Cakewalk changes its pricing model too often, yet those changes show that minds were in fact changed. I've seen priorities change for updates based on feedback. I could go on but you get the point.
I've often said that the price of music software is simply not realistic. This is my opinion, which has zero influence over Cakewalk's pricing, but please note this was my opinion
long before Gibson purchased Cakewalk. People complain that Ableton Live 9 Suite costs $800 but frankly, it should be even higher. Fortunately they have a hardware controller to add revenue. Logic was $999 (a
realistic price) before Apple dropped it to $199, and essentially told MOTU "go sell hardware" and put a permanent dent in Pro Tools' sales.
If you look at the recent history of keyboards, for several years there was a "race to the bottom" where all that mattered was price. The tradeoff was opaque user interfaces, limited support, cheap construction, and rapid obsolescence. But then the market realized a race to the bottom was doing them no favors, and customers realized that yes...you DO get what you pay for. So companies like Dave Smith Instruments and Roger Linn Design - and Yamaha, Korg, Roland, etc. - started charging more, delivering more, improving quality, and raising the bar for instruments instead of lowering it. Maybe they aren't selling as many instruments, but they are delivering a better product to customers who value that improvement and are willing to pay for it.
I've often alluded to resources in the music software world being extremely limited and that margins are extremely thin. I know what companies make, not just Cakewalk, and if you subtract what it costs to stay in business from what they make, there's not much left (if anything). That doesn't allow for moving forward, hiring more support people (there are very few companies where customers
don't complain about support), or introducing new products that can take some of the pressure off existing product lines to pay the bills.
SONAR's users have a lot of wishes. Cakewalk's developers have a lot of wishes. I don't speak for Cakewalk nor do I set company policy, but its future matters to me and IMHO it's time to go big or go home. I hope Cakewalk chooses to go big, and I think that's much of what these changes are about.
The alternative would be doing what Cakewalk did for many years prior to the acquisition, which set them on a path to irrelevance and ultimately, a descent that would lead to the company's demise - no ifs, ands, or buts about that. When Gibson rescued Cakewalk it had a second chance, and it's clear the company is not only still around, but shaking up the industry and moving forward. You may not like the direction in which they're going forward, and that's fair, but it's better than going backward.
Owners of legacy software still have until the end of the month to upgrade for a significant discount. I don't think judgments should be based on speculation about the future. Let's circle back in a year before renewal time rolls around, and judge
then whether Cakewalk has delivered value commensurate with price.
Sure, Cakewalk might blow it...that's a risk any company runs, even Apple. But I don't think that's what will happen.