SONAR Takeover

I don't give it great odds. If I were a betting man (which apparently I am since I paid for Lifetime Membership... huh, you know, the first time I typed the second word of that it came out with a 't' at the end instead of a 'p'... it's true...) I would not put any (more) money on that horse. But hey, I've been wrong many, many times before and I'd be happy to be wrong in this case!

I think it could be too late anyway. If someone took it over and relaunched it most of the old customers will have moved on and spent their wad on something new. Plus, would people trust it after all this? It would have to be something very special to get it back on the ladder again. Or a complete rebranding, renaming and facelift to launch as a brand new product.

chuckebaby

denverdrummer
There's a good chance the IP will be sold off in bankrupcy for Gibson,

I don't think Gibson is filing  bankruptcy. I believe Cakewalk will probably auction off items such as PC, Desks, tables, exc. Im sure the code is worth something. But Cakewalk is just a company being closed, not a bankrupt in process.
 

I think this is just speculation about the future of Gibson, which is certainly looking problematic to say the least. They seem to have a lot of work to do just to stave off default on maturing debt in 2018.

Great idea Raisindot!!!!  I would be more than willing to contribute to this cause.

raisindot
Here's a fantasy suggestion just to keep the lights on for existing users who don't want to switch. 
 
What if a bunch of us existing users offered to "buy out" maintenance of all legacy Cakewalk products and pay the server rental fees (assuming that everything is kept on rented servers). 
 
While there would be no future updates, keeping the servers up and loaded would at least guarantee that we'd have access to everything we bought (including online activattion codes) in case we needed to download it again. 
 
If for some godawful reason a future Windows update harmed Sonar functionality, some of the money contributed might be used to hire a legacy Sonar developer to fix the problem (if possible). 
 
I'd gladly contribute a reasonable amount of money (say $100) to this type of cause if it allowed me to continue to use my Sonar indefinitely. 

Brilliant idea. I am in with my $$

jude77

BobF
After thinking about this for a few days, I don't see how Cakewalk can go unsold.  Lenders don't take kindly to borrowers throwing away assets that could be used to pay back debt.  Even if only pennies on the dollar.
 
Push comes to shove, Gibson will have to get what they can for whatever holdings they have in order to pay back as much of what they owe as they can.
 
I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn later that Cake was legally "frozen" by lenders to prevent further losses until Gibson pays up.
 
Just sayin'

I wish it would happen.  My guess (and it's only a guess) is that Gibson has tried to sell CW already. 

If there is any value at all in Cakewalk's IP/code base, it would be absolute insanity to throw it in the trash.  I say this with zero knowledge about contractual obligations that have been tied to it all along the way.
 
Right now if you're a buyer of such things, why not wait to see just how desperate things get?  If Henry pulls Gibson back from the brink, then he may be able to do better than whatever the current best offer is (if any).  If Gibson ends up in receivership, the bargains will be even steeper to potential buyers.
 
By now we've all seen the data.  Cake has been losing money for a long time.  Any potential buyer is going to want to get some ROI ... risk/rewards.
 
The problem for those of us that want our Cake NOW is that all of this will take time to play out.  It's a real pain for us, mainly the not knowing part because SONAR still works fine, but the game we're waiting for the completion of is played with pieces that have a lot of zeroes behind them, BEFORE the decimal point.  And to make matters worse, you can bet pretty safely that there is more than one lawyer involved.
 
So we wait.
 
Keep using SONAR (and other Cake goodies), but if you're livelihood is dependent on your proficiency, it would be a good idea to be prepared with a contingency if MS screws up your world.
 
I feel for these guys.  The job loss is bad enough, but some of these guys have put a couple of decades of their souls into this thing.  Watching the plug get pulled on something you're personally heavily invested in isn't easy.
 
So, we can petition, ****, throw fits, make threats, etc., and as Alex has pointed out probably feel better, but the game won't change.  The timeline won't compress.  When it gets to this point there are compulsory steps to be taken that no amount of desire can get around.

If that Reddit Q&A is legit, Sonar was losing millions, so why would a company buy it?

igiwigi
Do you think someone will take Sonar Daw's on at some point as everything is In place.??
 
All the best
John

 
No.

As a longtime Cakewalk Music Creator and then Sonar user I will be very sad to see it go and find it hard to contemplate jumping ship to another DAW platform (mixed metaphors) but surely there must be some sense in another DAW related company at least looking at acquiring the current Cakewalk client/user data base and offering a discounted introduction to jump ship before the good ship Cakewalk sinks beneath the waves (those metaphors again)   

i heard there giving away free crabs
 

Hey I remember bars and pipes imichaelson. Although I was more into Dr Ts KCS. Amazing what could be done with so little back in the day.

Rbh
My wish list for the future of cakewalk would be for a company like Sweetwater to buy it. They are steadfast, long term musician oriented environment. I think it would be a immediate and tragic fail if Microsoft or some other blind profit based conglomerate bought it.

I like this idea much better than someone like microsoft or adobe as has been suggested. Both companies scavenge and kill products