Times are tough all over.

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.

Clever move

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.

Bloomberg: 
"Year over year, Roland Corp. has seen revenues fall from ¥78.3B to ¥74.8B. 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 to an even larger loss of ¥1.9B" 

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. 

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.)  


Here's the 5-year history of Roland's stock price. Note the precipitous drop right after acquiring a majority stake in Cakewalk (coincidence, I'm sure):




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.


[EDIT: Jeez, just once I'd like to type in a post that doesn't have to be edited in order to be readable. I'd prefer a plain old BBS over this awful forum software!]

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?

Back home (New Jersey), my neighbors son was the head of IT for Bloomberg.

Bet he's gone now.

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

What 3rd parties?


VSTi seems as universal as any vendor can hope for and VST3 left us behind about 2 years ago. 

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