Chuck, I don't think there's as many Sonar users as you think that have gone off to buy other DAW's. This forum is only a small portion of users. I have 2 friends in my town that I talked into Sonar and they love it. They kept e mailing me questions at first and I told them to join the forum as it is the best way to learn. They both said they never join forums, that too geek for them. ANd I havn't talked to them lately but I bet they like 1,000 of users are totally unaware of what happened. No, I think the crossover is only people on this forum which might only be less than 10% of the user base. I have no clue of course but that's my guess, SO Sonar has lost at the most more like 10-20% of it's user base , but that was always on going anyhow. 

Cactus Music
m. Nd I havn't talked to them lately but I bet they like 1,000 of users are totally unaware of what happened. No, I think the crossover is only people on this forum which might only be less than 10% of the user base. I have no clue of course but that's my guess, SO Sonar has lost at the most more like 10-20% of it's user base , but that was always on going anyhow. 

I would think that a large percentage of those who have moved on were serious users who rely on their DAW for their work. Thats a fairly significant group to loose.
 
I think Chuck's right. The damage is done, and there is already a groundswell of long time users who, despite being sad at the demise of Cakewalk, are already finding advantages in their new and happy DAW homes.
 
Of course, there are no doubt nany who don't care that their DAW us out of development, and will happily use it until it dies. More power to them! This adds little to the chances of a Sonar revival though.

My son is on 8.5. Never joined this forum. As of today he did not know what happened to Cakewalk let alone what is happening with Gibson.
 
The company he works for (Ubisoft) has a "deal" with Gibson that ties in their entry level guitars with the product he works on (Rocksmith) and still he did not know what was happening with Gibson until today when I talked with him.
 
BTW, he's perfectly happy with 8.5. Has been since it came out.

Weirder things have happened in the world, but IKM buying up Cakewalk would be really high on my list of weird.
 
I'm not smart enough, brave enough or just plain good enough to speculate on whether or not it would/could/should happen.

Sonar had been improving rapidly with the monthly updates and now it's dead! Don't know why they didn't charge for the adaptive limiter, drum replacer, and linear phase replacements. I looked at my account and I hadn't bought anything for 18 months. Before that had made regular purchases. So frustrating!

That's the way I see it too. There are probably a lot of people using older versions and whatnot. They are happy campers and probably could care less who owns Cakewalk and such.. 
Example is I have always loved Win Amp as a player. I'm not alone it turns out. It is still widely used by thousands of people even though AOL killed it back in 2010, just like Gibson killed Sonar. I didn't know anything about Win amp, The web site is blank. Oh well I said I still have an old installer so I just keep using it , over and over.   Win Amp is considered miles above all other players, solid code , never crashes and no bulpoo . but AOL bought them out an killed it. They sort of have the same business mentality as Gibson. I would not have even known this but stumbled across a forum where they mentioned all this. 
The mass of consumers are oblivious to what goes on. 

Cactus Music
...and probably could care less... 

Well at least then they care a little bit.

No one is buying Sonar. If they were, it would already be announced and done.
The time between the announcement and now is the signal its over. Far too many folks had plenty of time to jump ship, and they did.
 
Not that I wouldnt come back, actually I havent left quite yet but its coming.

The first thought that popped into my head was that with IKM there’d be no more monthly updates they’d be every 10 years or so. Look at the time it took for Sampletank 2 to 3. Haha.

Besides as a plugin developer wouldn’t their current relationship with DAW vendors put them in a situation of conflict if they too had a DAW. Nah! Can’t see it happening.

backwoods
Don't know why they didn't charge for the adaptive limiter, drum replacer, and linear phase replacements.

I was mystified by that as well. The original plan built around lifetime updates involved charging for add-ons. That was dropped, as was selling plug-ins to users outside of the "Cakewalk ecosystem."