It's alive! I have been thinking about getting Studio One 8 months or so and  now that I did I like it. So the Cakewalk demise just got me to do something I was thinking about. At this point for me I would say there is some advantage knowing more than 1 DAW just how it opens up your thinking. I welcome the rebirth of SONAR and look forward to getting further into Studio One. Maybe they will even improve SONAR. It was wise for the other DAW guys to give us the discounts on their DAWS right away. Some of them made out like bandits. This is good. I like it.

Since BandLab only bought the assets, and not the operating company, they have a clean slate as far as the business and former customers are concerned.  They can do with them however it fits their business model.
 
Since they have clearly stated they plan to archive the former website and keep the forums up and running, it is probably safe to assume that the product activation servers will continue to run.
 
Since they are also hiring former Cakewalk developers, there will be new and updated products.  It would make sense to offer a reasonable upgrade path, but probably zero chance it will be free.  I am OK with that, and just happy that I will be able to continue to authorize and use the products that I've already paid for! 

Speculation...
 
Will any recent Cakewalk branded products appear "in-stock" again?   Maybe at reseller sites, if the Cake store is not going to open again.
 
For example, there seems to be some uptapped demand from some Sonar users that missed the cutoff to update to a recent version of Platinum before the shutdown announcement.
 
Or would selling the existing product again now imply some sort of warranty or support arrangement by BandLab for new customers right away?
 
That could be an expense that the new owners might prefer to avoid until they are up and running with a new product line.
 

Yeah I don't think anyone really expected that whomever bought Sonar would grandfather in existing "lifers." It just wouldn't be financially viable for them to do so, in addition to the considerable risk they're taking with the purchase in the first place. 
 
The one glimmer of hope for Sonar as I see it is that whomever they recruit from the Bakers will have a solid idea of where to take the program having learned from all the mistakes under Gibson. I should imagine they've all been in contact with each other and have had time to reflect and talk about "what might have been," and those who get on board with BandLab will take this renewed vision with them. I should imagine BandLab is going to be way better to work for then Gibson, even if just by virtue of the fact that they don't have a crabby old lush running the company (or do they )

sharke
 
 I should imagine BandLab is going to be way better to work for then Gibson, even if just by virtue of the fact that they don't have a crabby old lush running the company (or do they )

Didn't that guy get fired ? 

In the 80s I have quite an investment in my Amiga 2000 with DCTV and SupraGen broadcast quality video hardware.
 
Then Commode-Odor crashed the company into the rocks, and just like Cakewalk the company was toast almost overnight.
 
I kept my hopes up that someone would buy the company and breathe new life into it. That didn't happen, but the Amiga and associated intellectual property got sold to German company Escom, which gave me hope. They released an Amiga 4000 that no one bought and went bankrupt in a couple of years. Then The Amiga technology was sold to Gateway 2000, and again I hoped for a big comeback.  In 2000 Gateway sold it all having never released any products employing the technology.
 
Finally in 2010 Commodore USA LLC was created as the last and final attempt at bringing back the Amiga. It collapsed in 2012 with nothing to show for the effort.
 
Anyway, my thoughts on the Sonar intellectual property sale are that this will also be too little too late, just like the demise of Commodore and the Amiga.

More relevant info here.
 

sharke
Yeah it's great that it's been rescued but the crash has really opened my eyes as to how much better things are on the other side, and it would take me a lot to switch back to Sonar from Reaper and Bitwig. It would be too much of a step backward.

My hope for the new owner is that they strip Sonar of all of the (bug ridden) old bloat it doesn't need and just concentrate on getting the core recording and editing features up to 100% as part of a scaled down DAW which will be snappier, less troublesome and cheaper to develop. Maybe then it will have a chance.

Yup.  I would never have chosen to bail on SONAR, but with the failure of Cakewalk I've given Studio One 3 a real chance.  I'm liking it.  It's soooooooooooooooooooooo much easier on CPU than SONAR.  Plus, even though everyone tells me I can't hear a difference in DAWs, S1-3 sounds better.  It does.  So there.  If I can get a good deal on a "new improved" SONAR, (and that means actually improved as Sharke indicates) I'm in.  Otherwise, I see Presonus in my future.

Sonar! Yay!