Just give me the $23.8 million these idiots lost, and if you need me, I'm in Caymans, on the beach, with a Pina Colada in my left hand..   Look for the bright yellow t-shirt, and ray ban sunglasses...

sharke


So according to Seth it wasn't his decision to leave, they kicked him out....

"It happens."  We've all lost corporate jobs.  

A good friend of mine, was just let go from a fortune 30 company last month.  ....   and way, way back, I got downsized from quite a good job too.   Which is why I started my own business...  ( a micro bizz, which is why I need avids lost millions to get the caymans.. )

Unfortunately this economy is bloody rough...

Wow, that's really bad. Thanks for the info.

It is a fact..  he mentions it upstairs

noldar12


craigb, there seems to be a deadly disease of some sort of staff infection going around CW land.  Maybe it was caused by an improperly baked cake using spoiled ingredients.  Who knows?

Ya!
 
Cake=Scone

Bapu mentioned the Roland takeover - which started out as a partnership... 

I can't remember at which point exactly they actually became the biggest share owner - sometimes in 2008 I think (?), but looking back as an ex-Sonar user, I do see a change from there on.

It's like until that point, Sonar (and Cakewalk) had gained a certain momentum. 

Prior to Sonar, Cakewalk products didn't have that much credibility - for all the wrong and the right reasons. But Sonar changed that. And from version 1 to 8.5, they certainly gave me the impression that the sky was the limit. It was like good old Cakewalk but w/ the financial means and ambition to rival the best...

Not only Sonar - they had the ambitious Project5 and a bunch of new top notch virtual instruments which earned them lots of praises at last. Z3ta, Dimension Pro, Rapture - man, that quite a line-up! And w/ a genius like René on board, the sky really was the limit.

I must admit that, as a long time user, it felt good to see Cakewalk finally getting the recognition they deserved. They were packing in the new features at such a rate that many of us juts wished they'd sit one out and re-organize a bit.

Then Roland took over... 

Project5 development was ended.

Amazing synths w/ an almost infinite potential were put aside while other developers saw the immense potential of the SFZ format first developed by René (Alchemy, anyone?)

And Sonar had its gut thrown out on the table and was re-assembled to look like Studio One (which itself is only a pale copy of Logic ;) ) - only, w/ all the good old typical flaws of Sonar. 

Had it been called Sonar 9, it might have been less depressing. It would have been ONE release in a long line. But it was a fresh start, what they kept from the past and expect to build on...

You know, I'm 99% happy w/ Logic, but Sonar will always hold a warm spot in my heart. Man they had something good - if only they'd refined that...

Man, it was darn good. 

The last dayjob I had almost felt secure. 

I was the first WFM member to finally get the headcount under control.

I'd earned the praises of my coworkers, payroll, HR and Admin. And the employees trusted me (rightly so, because it was my pride to go to bat for them - and I'd still do that to this day). My name was everywhere -  I was the catch of the year  so they said. They even invented a new bonus to reward me.

Until they started making cut, and my boss (whose ass I had saved countless times) felt the heat. 

Then it was to each his own and I became one of those "x" on the headcount.

As they say, the graveyards are full of irreplaceable people...

Now that Seth and others have all left the bakery, I suppose from here on in there will be changes, starting with the all new, 


Cupcake Producer.  


But will it be a more tastier, smooother edition? 


hmmm we'll all just have to wait and see. 

SongCraft


Now that Seth and others have all left the bakery, I suppose from here on in there will be changes, starting with the all new, 


Cupcake Producer.  


But will it be a more tastier, smooother edition? 


hmmm we'll all just have to wait and see. 

HAHA!  funniest post from Greg EVVVVA!!! 

Roland had approximately 3,110 employees when they announced, last week, that they were planning to lay off a total of 350 employees in the music division. The music division is about half the company... the other half makes step motor robotic machines like digital printers and cnc mills.

It seems like this means 20% of the in house staff at the music division will be asked to resign.


The other news is that most of the high quality Japanese manufacturing will be abandoned and off shore contract production will replace it.

:-(


best regards,
mike

Rain


First Brandon, off to Roland, now Seth leaving... Not to mention Greg H. 

Ron Kuper long gone. 
René no longer affiliated w/ Cake.

Who's left? 

You know that means that it's time for a new CHB song, right?
 
"You'll Never Have to Say GoodBye, Again!" might make a good title!

bitflipper

Hey All,  Thanks so much for the well wishes and kind words. Just to be clear, it was not my choice to leave Cakewalk. For reasons unknown to me, current Cakewalk higher ups decided that the company's future would be better off without me. Roland had nothing to do with their decision, as far as I know. As for why I couldn't post with my old Cakewalk account, my access to all of my CW accounts, including my forum login, were frozen immediately when they decided to let me go (standard corporate policy, I imagine).  Seth 

I figured I'd better quote Seth's post just in case there's anybody actually moderating this forum who might be tempted to delete it.

What he said about "standard corporate policy" is true.

I remember some people coming to the boss saying they couldn't log in to see their service calls on their hand held devices, and that's when the boss would tell them they were gone. They would be locked out before they even knew they were leaving.

They used to lead people out of the building by the arm where I worked. Being the assistant manager, I had to escort my boss, which was my best friend at the time, out with the Director of Service. That was a bad bad day. We worked together for 8 years.

I don't know what's going on, but these corporations are the scum of the Earth. The people that tend to end up there in management, are pretty much worthless in my opinion. Cold, heartless, self serving, and worthless. I thought I wanted it at one point, back before things changed ... but I'm glad I never got in to management now. I'd be fired anyway.

bitflipper


Bloomberg: 
"[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]Year over year, Roland Corp. has seen revenues fall from ¥78.3B JPY[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"] to ¥74.8B JPY[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]. In addition, the company has been unable to reduce the percentage of sales devoted to cost of goods sold, SGA expenses and income tax expenses. This has led to a reduction in the bottom line from a loss of ¥694.0M JPY[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"] to an even larger loss of ¥1.9B"  [font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]

[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]IOW, they're spending too much on marketing. Might explain their move this year at NAMM from a prestigious space downstairs to the less-expensive 3rd floor. 

[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]

[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]Being a publicly-traded company, annual reports are public and available online. You can compare them year-to-year and see that indeed all the music-related business units have been on a downward slide for a while.  (As have Yamaha's, but to a lesser extent. Yamaha is 10x the size of Roland and much more diversified.)
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]

[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: normal"]But does any of this really impact Cakewalk? Probably not much; CW is such a tiny slice of Roland's business, I've read Ikutaro Kakehashi's autobiography, which makes it clear that Roland subsidiaries have always been independent business units that are expected to sink or swim on their own.

Ok....who took my blooming decoder ring?

I guess it is possible that something good could be coming but I fail to see how fewer people can get more things done. IK seems to be more interested in making products for i-pads, though they are still making products for Sonar....

This all makes me wonder if 3rd party companies will not be putting anything into products for Sonar until they are sure what is going on with Cake and Roland, I know I wouldn't be putting resources into something that has an uncertain future.

I think there is a much better chance that this is going to end badly for Sonar than there is that things are going to get fixed and continue to improve. It could be that a DAW like Reaper is hurting sales with their "full featured" DAW for 60 bucks. I know it is not Sonar but new users do not know the difference. Time will tell but I feel insecure about it.

J

Sorry, what I meant is companies like IK who may be wondering if they should put any resources into products to work with Sonar until they know what is happening.

Sorry if I used the wrond words. Then again perhaps products that other companies make, that we use in Sonar work in other DAWs too, I don't know.

J