If I had a choice for someone to buy Cakewalk it would be Sweetwater.

KnottyChord
Piracy /pīrəsē/ noun- selling a lifetime subscription that doesn't even last a year.
 
 

Just To clarify, Lifetime updates were introduced in June 1st 2016 thru Aug 31th, 2016.
Its November 2017. What users paid for Lifetime updates was less than what they would have paid for a 12 month subscription.
 

Perhaps I am wrong, but I get this feeling that something like what happened to the Sony Acid series will end up happening to Cakewalk. By that I mean, after a while of sitting on the shelf without nothing happening, a company like, or very well may be "MAGIX" steps in and buys the technology and sells it as is. 
 
Which that wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing if that were to happen, for the simple fact you could still get your software activated since while they are saying "The servers will be around for a few years", but then again, they also said the people who purchased LIFETIME updates had some time also, and we all know how that worked out. 
 
I'm thinking Gibson will probably lease out the technology in bits and pieces in one manner or another.
 
We shall see..... 
 

I wonder will we ever hear what happened to Cakewalk, Sonar etc and/or why?
 
I suspect we will not.
 
At some point next few weeks or next week once this black friday / thanksgiving thing is over Cake customers might get an email which wont say much that has not been said already, then a farewell with unlock codes for when server dies.
 
I have a gut feeling all this will get wrapped up very soon inc these forums. Seems to be the way this whole thing has been rolling.

As a 12-year Cakewalk user I'm sitting here with "numerous" .cwp files - it'd shore be nice to have a conversion program over to  . . . . .     I think CW should be appreciated for its evolution to simplicity - most notably in keeping with simple piano-roll midi grids as a software success, unlike MOTU's numerous, current midi hardware "interfaces", clouding the picture as midi being primarily a software success. It took ProTools 7 versions to even incorporate a piano roll midi grid into things!! Digital Orchestrator had it right, and Cakewalk got their programmers. If Microsoft ever really gets CW code, I can only hope they include .cwp as input files. But that's not at all timely, so I'll very likely go with Studio One. Sweetwater's Google-able "Alternatives to Cakewalk" is considerate and primarily pushes PreSonus Studio One and Abeldon. One mistake CW made was not getting intimately associated with a preamp. PreSonus can now kick their butts because they can package Studio One with their 1818VSL and 44VSL preamps. Focusrite has nothing near Studio One as a DAW.

I have been using cakewalk for decades, since pro audio 9. This is what gets me upsets about the software industry. It is like a double edge sword. On one hand you have people that pirate software, and then on the other hand you have people that spend their hard earned money purchasing software. When a company sells software software it is like they just toss customers aside like a sack of potatoes. I am not talking about the employees I am %100 sure a great deal of them cared about the work they have done. It is not like sonar is a useless software in fact other than pro tools it is a top contender in the daw world. The only reason Gibson it still providing access to the site for downloads and activation is because they probably would get sued. They gave no email notification to customers especially those that purchased lifetime updates. I would have not purchase it if I would have known in a years time they were going to scrap it. What do customers get for lifetime updates. Nothing except access to softwarw they legally and legitimately purchased. They should at least compensated customers with downloads of all their plugins and addons for Sonar. I am just hoping they give us some way of activating sonar even after they shut site down for good. Or remove activation thanks for listening

Electric1Gypsy
On one hand you have people that pirate software, and then on the other hand you have people that spend their hard earned money purchasing software.

Can we assume that you are not one who would complain about companies requiring hardware licensing dongles?  One really can't have it both ways, it seems.

This arguments is silly since piracy is already an option for the unscrupulous. I doubt a sudden surge in interest in sonar to kickstart a piracy campaign among users who don't already own

Apparently you misunderstood the point, as far as a dongle goes I would not mind it, aftet all you paid for it as long as it works and you are able to get the lifetime updates that you paid for. Most people who buy sonar and lifetime updates would assume it would last more than a year especially since the softwarw has been around for decades in cakewalk pro audio. Not everyone pirates software however when a company offers a product for sale and offer services then it should be understood that it is going be around more than a year after purchase. Which is the point I was trying to get across as to howbin the software industry companies seem to care less and less about consumers than they do their bottom line. Would I purchase sonar today for 500 dollars for a year of updates absolutely not. For 100 bucks probably.

Cakewalk is dead yet Kanye is still alive... Go figure!