OT: Tough world out there for DAWS, PT

This probably started to show when they were still Digi Design.  Their hardware products were/are just too expensive! When they became Avid, Avid tried to produce good quality products at lower prices, such as the MBox Pro (3rd Gen model), but it was probably too little, too late.
 
It's probably for the best.
 
Hopefully, they will bring their prices down on more products, and get rid of that stinking copy protection scheme they have (ilok.)

As I was looking at the article, I happened to see a link for some new guitar midi controller that just slips onto your guitar:
 
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/02/augmented-guitar-final-hours-crowd-funding-watch-guitar-wing-can/
 
Pretty interesting - WAY off topic, but I did see it while reading the article that was on topic.
 
Bob Bone
 

I hate Avid. I hope PT gets a new home.

robert_e_bone
As I was looking at the article, I happened to see a link for some new guitar midi controller that just slips onto your guitar:
 
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/02/augmented-guitar-final-hours-crowd-funding-watch-guitar-wing-can/
 
Pretty interesting - WAY off topic, but I did see it while reading the article that was on topic.
 
Bob Bone

Very cool Bob, thanks for sharing!  Darn, I missed the kickstarted fund by 5 days...

This same thread sparked an interesting set of "former PT" owners in the Coursera class I am taking. As I have never used the product it is interesting insight to see folks rant about "now worthless" hardware that was met with the  "buy more!" mentality. Not sure I find that appealing (even as a sick joke).

So I understand :(
Still hoping for continued development by whoever is left there :/

Pro Tools isn't going to go away. It's an asset that can be sold, although I presume its value isn't what it used to be...

denverdrummer
I imagine they spent a lot of money to get the 64 bit engine out, which is something they've needed to do for years.  And that was an expenditure that had to happen for them to compete.  That's probably a lot of the reason for their cash flow problem, and their ridiculous asking price for upgrades.  Someone has to pay those developers.

And now plug manufactures are scrambling get AAX versions out.
 
Avid seems to be job creators ATM.

I don't think they ever gained a real foothold in the production end of things, though they tried for a while with their massively crippled M-Powered versions. As you say, it is more recording, but I think in the bigger recording studios they are still dominant. I have no statistics to back that up by the way :)

I've always found Finale way more cumbersome to operate, always having to select the right tool before any operation, etc.
I've been using Sibelius since version 2 or 3 and always got along with it much better, even though they tried teaching us Finale at school.

I would be seriously pissed if I had to move camp.

I've read that too but it seems entirely unclear to me what it means for the product Sibelius.

I remember going up to Sweetwater Sound for a job interview in 2003. (...as fate would have it, I didn't get the gig...  God is good...) At the time ProTools was the big guy in the digital world.  However, it seemed at that time is when they were changing the branding to Digidesign.  I remember thinking at the time it was marketing suicide.  In fact, I met with the VP of Sales at Sweetwater and I had a hard time not calling the product ProTools.  I still think it was a stupid move on their part to neglect the branding like they did.  Yes, I know the software is called ProTools but that name implied everything when it started- and it worked.  I'm not surprised they're on hard times, frankly.

slartabartfast

BJN
Don't worry about it.
Mis management within Avid doesn't change Protools and it will find a new owner like Yamaha.

Define mismanagement. Cakewalk has been through two owners in a couple of years in the face of unprofitability. As likely as mismanagement is the possibility that the demand for the product is less than the readers of this forum realize. People who are interested in just cobbling together some kind of music with a computer (or smartphone) need not spend hundreds of dollars on DAW software, and the truly professional market is really very small. It is certainly too small to support any of the first class DAW's at a price that most of us could afford if only the professionals were buying. The dilettantes and dabblers (most of us if we are honest) have provided most of the market for "professional" music software, just as we made the PortaStudio and similar home recording hardware possible in the past. If you are really interested in having affordable high quality music software available, you should certainly be worried.

Sorry, when I first heard and read the news it was when the report that the shareholders hadn't received their annual report. I commented on it in another thread here and didn't feel like going into it. In my opinion a change of hands with PTs will be a good thing for users.
mis: wrongly or badly; incorrectly. Manage: handle or control. Management: governing bodies of an organization that see to its overall operations. \
When I was first wanting a DAW I had heard of Protools and as the Professional choice used in most studios. I wanted in but couldn't get their lite demo 8 track version to work.
I was going to get Cubase when a band friend showed me his Sonar 6.
I know here is not the place to be a fan of PTs but I did notice it has more video tutorials than any other DAW and they go deep. There are alot of skilled users many of whom have invested in the hardware back when computing power needed DSP interfaces, which is what made PT top DAW a long time running.
Computing power has been good enough for a while now that even PT not long ago released users from their interfaces.
But I also agree with geo, PT is expensive unless you picked up the Eleven that included PTs. That was a hot deal but a little too late.
There are too loyal users who don't want to learn a new DAW and will stick with them.
With players like Reaper all DAWs pricing is being challanged. PTs upgrade policy like that of Cubase will change .
Sonar is a shinning example of supporting your clientele. 
It is true we the home/project studios are the biggest market for the recording equipment industry.

I'm not sure the accuracy of this, but I saw this over on gearslutz.com user forum, So I don't know if it was gearslutz that gathered the data or if it was being copied from somewhere else.  These results were cumulative from 2009-2012  (Blue 2009 - Green 2012).  What I find interesting is how big of a drop PT has taken in that time.  Then you had new comer S1 on the block that has been rapidly growing in popularity.
 
As I said, I think there are way too many DAW's on the market, and I think you are going to see some fallout.  I think Sonar and Logic have some advantage in they are platform specific.  Someone mentioned Sonar being sold on Steam which I think is huge.  I would also like to see Sonar get on the Windows 8 market place.  This is how Logic is being distributed through the App store, and you can see how popular it was in this survey.
 
There's no 2013 data on here, but I know X3 has been very popular, so hopefully that bar is going up for Cakewalk, but I think it's good they increased in popularity from 2009 even if slightly.  I'd be worried though for FL Studio, Reason, and Samplitude.
 

where's Bain Capital when you need them?