PhilW
I'm sure they tried to sell and had no takers, hence the closedown. 
 
Gibson's issue is the circa $500 million debt hanging over them that needs a re-fi, and holding loss-making companies isn't going to help that. 

PhilW . . . I fear you are all too correct.

I was getting ready to upgrade x3 and I got email that my ability to upgrade at die count was being terminated I have upgraded for 3 ecades since I am one of the early cw adopters and upgraded as a loyal customer. I have all the synths. However I considered this threat extortion so I didn't upgrade despite having planned  to. Threatening your customers especially early adopters is bad business practice and with the recent news is that they would have taken my money and not delivered. I doubt anyone who paid for a years subscription will get a refund. So sad on many levels and they expect loyalty from customers but not the other way around. I assume craigslist Anderson is looking for work

chuckebaby
I would go easy with the name calling of Gibson.
They have (after all) been kind enough to keep this forum and the servers open.

I completely understand people being upset with Gibson right now and I am one of them. They have been kind enough to keep these forums open? Are you completely taking the piss or working for Gibson? They legally have to keep this forum open as they have been selling the product recently and that means that they have to by law provide support for the product. Remember any company that says their support is provided by a forum, has to keep that forum alive. Also, any company that sells you something has to p[rovide help at least here in the EU. It is law. One thing the EU got right.

Yes, shared sentiments here as well. Wouldn't it be great if we received some kind of monetary assistance in adopting another DAW? I mean I paid for the so-called Life-time updates as I saw it a great opportunity to keep using a program I loved and not have to shell any more money out. Now, I have to pay for another in the event that something break it...but that's just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. 

35mm

chuckebaby
I would go easy with the name calling of Gibson.
They have (after all) been kind enough to keep this forum and the servers open.

I completely understand people being upset with Gibson right now and I am one of them. They have been kind enough to keep these forums open? Are you completely taking the piss or working for Gibson? They legally have to keep this forum open as they have been selling the product recently and that means that they have to by law provide support for the product. Remember any company that says their support is provided by a forum, has to keep that forum alive. Also, any company that sells you something has to p[rovide help at least here in the EU. It is law. One thing the EU got right.

Unfortunately, this has always been a peer to peer forum - and is not official help or support. They can shut it down tonight if they want to.
 
Brian

guitz
. . . large userbase . . .

So, I actually wonder.  And I don't in any way mean this to be negative, I actually do wonder.  And the answers are fundamental to the question asked.

• Does Cakewalk have a large userbase? 
• Was it growing or shrinking?
• How does it compare with the other DAWs? 
• Were there a large number of SPLAT users? 
• How much future revenue is (was) each user worth (by segment)?

By the way, I think it is really cool that people can still run Cakewalk 8.5 -- which says more about Microsoft compatibility efforts than anything -- but those folks probably weren't lighting up the revenue #s for Cakewalk (which of course isn't their responsibility either).
 
At the end of the day, my guess is that the numbers didn't work out.  If they had, well . . . 
 

Unfortunately things like this happen,and is a fact of life! on a positive note, you can now all try Presonus studio one professional 3.5 for a mere crossgrade price of $149, which is the same as if I would of bought Sonar platinum for another year and my personal feelings is that I was gonna move to a new DAW because paying for a years worth of Sonar updates yearly did not quantify the money for so little on the update stakes!
(I do not work for presonus but have been with cakewalk for 13 years and  have pretty much all the Soft synths/vst they have to offer and the reugular updates did not amount to any thing significant in the last 2 years or so.)

John T
 
We'll likely never know, but I can well imagine them having not tried to sell. I've worked for more than one employer that's gone into a tail-spin, and I've seen this a few times: the company decides to just cut all possible outgoings that don't look immediately critical, on the assumption that they can recover later. I get the feeling that's what Gibson is doing, over all its operations, and someone probably saw the Cakewalk office salary bill as something they could just get rid of.
 
What typically happens at the end of this kind of wild cutting is that you survive just long enough to find out you don't actually have a business any more.

I agree John. All we can really do is hope that Gibson sees that the right thing to do, atm, is make sure the authorization app happens........

Gibson and Guitar Center are both in the same debt-riddled bag together, and I would not be surprised if they both filed for Chapter 7 or 11 reorganization and defaulted on some or most of their outstanding debts.
 
Do you know about the deal you have to make with Gibson in order to be a retailer of their guitars?
This has been in place for quite awhile.
You have to stock and sell every single guitar they make. 
You can't just offer some, or take stock of some. 
You have to take it all.
 
This outrageous rule took down many small retail shops I imagine.

I can't imagine why Gibson wouldn't rather just sell the whole ball of wax to somebody? Or why some other entity wouldn't be interested in it? What would possibly be in their interest in Killing It Off?
Especially if something like Reaper is still a viable product.
WSS