I'm unsure on the x-axis, someone just posted that gif, with little other info.  I'm not sure if that's licenses sold, or revenue.  It's certainly not percentage.  They did have two other gifs for marketshare for 2012-2013.

 
 

Anderton

slartabartfast
Cakewalk has been through two owners in a couple of years in the face of unprofitability.

 
Actually it's not a couple of years, Roland purchased a controlling interest in Cakewalk in 2008 but they had been partnering long before that.
 

If you are really interested in having affordable high quality music software available, you should certainly be worried.

Unless you use Sonar   Cakewalk is doing very well...X3 has exceeded expectations, and the Z3TA+ iOS app hit #1 in the App Store this week. Steam is doing great, and distribution outside the US is improving. Several additional initiatives, such as bundling Sonar with TASCAM interfaces, will be ramping up over the next few months. And we're just getting started...

That is some really terrific news there Craig, thx for passing it on.

Geo524
I never liked Digidesign, Avid's (whatever) business model. Forcing people to upgrade their hardware to keep up with the latest release wasn't cool....

Sounds like you're also describing the Mac and its endless OS upgrades that often leave users unable to update their software:  Lion, Tiger, Leopard, Mavericks, etc, etc, etc... Utter madness (IMO).

The article says that the market for music software in general is good (although it does not provide data).
 
Although I hated to see the Roland V-Studio go away (since I have one), the partnership with Tascam should provide even better matched hardware.
 
I agree PT will not go away but it is suffering and losing what's left of its aura as the pro choice.  Cakewalk provides entry-mid, and pro levels of its DAW.  I think PT was a little slow to understand the need for this strategy.  It was also slow to adopt 64 bit and to break its dependence on specific, expensive hardware that went out of date quickly.  Before I went to X1, I took a look at PT but Sonar offered much more value considering overall price, features, support, and bundled content.

joden

Anderton

slartabartfast
Cakewalk has been through two owners in a couple of years in the face of unprofitability.

 
Actually it's not a couple of years, Roland purchased a controlling interest in Cakewalk in 2008 but they had been partnering long before that.
 

If you are really interested in having affordable high quality music software available, you should certainly be worried.

Unless you use Sonar   Cakewalk is doing very well...X3 has exceeded expectations, and the Z3TA+ iOS app hit #1 in the App Store this week. Steam is doing great, and distribution outside the US is improving. Several additional initiatives, such as bundling Sonar with TASCAM interfaces, will be ramping up over the next few months. And we're just getting started...

That is some really terrific news there Craig, thx for passing it on.

I realize this is the kind of thing I'm probably supposed to say, but if anything, I'm understating the situation. Although the numbers are very good, it's much harder to quantify the degree of commitment from the user base and from Cakewalk...and that's what really matters, because that's where the future lies.
 
The reason why Cakewalk is doing well is because of its community of users. That's YOU. Yes, the bakers have done an amazing job on X3 and yes, Gibson has given Cakewalk a shot in the arm. But none of that would mean anything without the support of the user base. Everyone at Cakewalk and Gibson knows this.
 
It's a feedback loop. More support from the users = Cakewalk gets more inspired to reward that support = more mindshare from Gibson = Cakewalk does more updates, makes happier users = more support from the users...rinse, lather, repeat.
 
We're all in this together and the importance of the community of Sonar users cannot be overstated. What's unique about the Gibson acquisition is that both the CEO (Henry J) and the CMO (me) are long-time members of that community...in fact Henry's been part of it longer than I have. (Then again he's often ahead of his time )
 
Conversely, Pro Tools seems to be having a reverse feedback loop. Users are grumbling, support is dropping, the parent company has issues...before joining Gibson, I was asked by someone involved with Avid what I recommended for Pro Tools to regain some of its customer loyalty. I said when it goes 64-bit in PT 11, offer a free 64-bit upgrade to anyone who bought Pro Tools 10...no extra bells or whistles, that would be paid, but the 64-bit upgrade would be a thank-you.
 
Needless to say, they didn't listen to me. I think if they had, it would have been a game-changer for them. But given the circumstances, I'm glad they didn't listen. All the better for Sonar!

Anderton

Unless you use Sonar   Cakewalk is doing very well...X3 has exceeded expectations, and the Z3TA+ iOS app hit #1 in the App Store this week.

I find it hard to believe it was no1 when it comes to all Apple paid apps. Which chart?

Ever the skeptic :)

Cheers..

denverdrummer
Yes PT isn't going away, there's too much of the industry world wide that is to heavily invested in PT for it to go away.
 
They are rapidly losing market share.  There are a ton of DAWs out there, and perhaps too many, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them close shop, but it won't be Pro Tools.  But a lot of them are eating into PT's market share. 
 
PT has totally lost the consumer market though.  They are basically a high end customer based DAW.  The marketing of the product and worse the treatment of their customers.  What is it $399 to upgrade to PT 11 for PT 10 users?  That is a slap in the face to your customer base.  The M-Audio bundles are a joke IMO.  The interfaces are OK, you can get better for the money.  They were really too late to the game supporting ASIO for Windows users.  If they hadn't been so locked down from the beginning, it might be a different story now.
 
I imagine they spent a lot of money to get the 64 bit engine out, which is something they've needed to do for years.  And that was an expenditure that had to happen for them to compete.  That's probably a lot of the reason for their cash flow problem, and their ridiculous asking price for upgrades.  Someone has to pay those developers.
 
 

I assume Cakewalk makes a lot of money from updates as they target the home user and semi-pro base (while supplying a product that can compete with any other pro DAW in terms of features and functionality), which is great.

When you mostly (or even exclusively) target the pro-user base like PT, the money you make from updates will be far less because the more dependent you are on your system, the more reluctanct you are to change any of its working components ... so it's a logical consequence that PT will have a hard to pay for changes that are expensive to implement, already considered state-of-the-art and not adding anything to your workflow (e.g. 64 bit) by selling minor updates. Yet, even "major" updates for $399 will not yield millions coming in (just do the math) despite the fact that $399 is cheap compared to sums you pay for basically any other pro-studio component ...
 
Nevertheless, PT is always going to stay because there are so many pro studios that are invested in it ... I know software in other industries where parts of the code is more than 25 yrs old but it's still the dominator of the market because (A) it still compiles on new machines (B) it works (C) it got a name (D) major companies bought into it (E) it became the "standard" (F) it is far to expensive too replace ... this list could go on ... usability, features, etc. are not really relevant when it comes to market domnination ...
 

When your company is bleeding red ink, and you have shareholders to report to, I would assume any notion of giving something away probably fell on deaf ears.  I really hope PT is sold to a private company, so it can focus on pleasing customers and not shareholders.  I'm not against publically traded companies (I work for one), but I don't think in this market it's appropriate, and is part of the reason PT is in the mess that it is.
 
But what amazes me, is if the upgrade was reasonable, people would have done it, even if it wasn't for free.  But I agree with Craig, I've always liked Cakewalk's policy that if you buy the previous version with in a month or so of the new release, the upgrade is free.  Not so for ProTools.
 
I think another think they have to get rid of is iLok.  The ruse that this is meant to protect software piracy is a joke.  PT is the most pirated DAW on piracy sites.  I am not a fan of software piracy and I believe companies should protect their assets from theft, but treating your own customer base like criminals is not the answer.
 
Now I will say there is a benefit to iLok that I think could be better handled through the Internet.  The one good thing with iLok is studios collaborating can give someone their iLok and load all those 3rd party plugins even if the other studio doesn't have licenses for them.  However this is all contingent on giving someone a physical device.  Why on earth don't they come up with some sort of online-password system, where they could give guest access to a second user, and have access to all their license keys and that other studio could have some sort of time limited access to those plugins while they were working on the project.
 
I guess we'll see where the future of this leads, but as Craig said, a DAW is nothing without a user community, giving suggestions and feedback and the company being responsive and listening to them.

FreeFlyBertl
 
I know software in other industries where parts of the code is more than 25 yrs old but it's still the dominator of the market because (A) it still compiles on new machines (B) it works (C) it got a name (D) major companies bought into it (E) it became the "standard" (F) it is far to expensive too replace ... this list could go on ... usability, features, etc. are not really relevant when it comes to market domnination ...

There are lots of stories of major banks running ancient (albeit well maintained) COBOL code, but the analogy to the consumer (prosumer?) market for audio software is off point. Yes, I still use MS Word 2000, but that is because nothing has been introduced in subsequent versions that is worth anything at all to my use of a word processor. Would you be willing to shell out big bucks for Cakewalk ProAudio 9 today, even if it still did most of what you typically use X3 to do? 
 
The feature set for audio software is moving at a much faster rate than accounting or office applications demand. And the cost of that innovation, and the support it demands, can not be borne by the few professional studios that are using a particular DAW, without raising the price to levels that would send most of us into shock, even if it could be justified by people getting  hundreds of dollars an hour for studio time. If someone were to buy ProTools as an isolated asset, and offer it for sale for $60.00, it would probably blow away the competition. Whether the  market could sustain continued support and development at that price is another question altogether.

CakeAlexS

Anderton

Unless you use Sonar   Cakewalk is doing very well...X3 has exceeded expectations, and the Z3TA+ iOS app hit #1 in the App Store this week.

I find it hard to believe it was no1 when it comes to all Apple paid apps. Which chart?

Ever the skeptic :)

Cheers..

The Music chart, of course. I don't make up numbers . Download the screen shot from here:
 
https://www.hightail.com/download/elNLT216RndKV05OeDhUQw
 
Although it's true I didn't tell the WHOLE story...it was also the 5th highest grossing app as well as the #1 seller.
 
Last time I checked it was still in the top 40.