The present is no guarantee of the future.  

""God created heaven and earth in 6 days.  You cannot top that."
 
The Microsoft engineer took another sip and replied, "Well, of course God could do that.  He didn't have a user base to support." ha ha ha lol peach

i think its all good in tha hood for DAW's, the more the merrier, the love of music shouild be the driving force behind it, the more DAW's the more music. I mean we grew up broke when I was a kid in the 70's/80's , couldn't afford computers and ****, **** couldn't even afford a vcr in my house back in the 80's, when the 90's came,i never had money for samplers and synths, what am trying to say is DAW software saved my ass, seriously changed my whole life, gave me the ability to make music without spending 1000's on hardware this that and the other, i hope they are all around in 7 years

thats why I have alot of love for sonar/reason and the rest of the apps, and i can use most of them, have done for a few years now, just finished an honoury science degree in audio, we all got taught cubase, logic, pro tools, reason. Must of been the only sonar user at college (cubase seems to be the most popular DAW in europe, Sonar's biggest customer base seems to be the US). and I love them all, would quite happily walk hand in hand into the sunset with any of them, but I've always said reason is the app i'd take to a desert island with me, cuz im all edm, and reason is just so good and solid for edm, everything is top notch with the app

Ask this same question on any of the other DAW forums and you'll get as many different answers..........

I think the last few posts bring up a good point...    Perhaps the question is more like "which DAWs will be around in seven years.... for which target markets?".    Live audio recording?  Personal studio based audio + VSTi?  DJ/remix?  EDM?   Sound for picture?  Post?  
 
Something tells me that non only would the answer differ from category to category, but the primary DAWs to choose from in each category already vary.
 

I think that the DAW that is funny, smart, photogenic and well like by the audience will be the survivor.  Typically the producers manipulate things so there is the DAW everyone hates, the unpredictable / weird DAW and the audience favorite DAW near the end.   The producers of course cannot guarantee which of these DAW's will survive, but they do manage the "gold fish bowl" and as such do have enormous power over the final DAW survivor outcome.
 
I especially like it when the nice DAW is forced to stab another nice DAW in the back thinking they will survive, only to be sold out the following week by an even nicer DAW.
 
JR

stevec
I think the last few posts bring up a good point...    Perhaps the question is more like "which DAWs will be around in seven years.... for which target markets?".    Live audio recording?  Personal studio based audio + VSTi?  DJ/remix?  EDM?   Sound for picture?  Post?  
 
Something tells me that non only would the answer differ from category to category, but the primary DAWs to choose from in each category already vary.
 

You may be right.  But that is not how other platform markets have progressed.  The natural course as complex platforms approach maturity is CONSOLIDATION.  We don't have one web browser for visiting retail sites and another web browser to look at government sites.  It is just one platform that serves all markets.  And those that never achieved critical mass (or had critical mass but lost it) may still technically be alive, but certainly not thriving.
 
Can you still buy a phone that has Symbian?  I bet they are sold somewhere, but they certainly aren't thriving, nor is Blackberry.  Nokia and Motorola were huge just 4 years ago.
 
I may be off in my time-line of 7 years.  Perhaps the DAWs are not as close to maturity as I think they are.
 
The action is moving up the stack to the VSTs.  The high end VSTs already cost a lot more than the DAWs themselves.  That's where I see the strong market segmentation.  A commercial studio might be willing to spend $5000 or more on all the high-end VSTs, whereas a hobbyist will prefer a "pretty good" set of VSTs that are bargain priced.  And because a VST supplier doesn't have to bear the cost of the platform, they can afford to specialize their VSTs for different markets (rock bands, acoustic, live concerts, Gregorian chants, whatever.)

Interestingly enough, PT11 is a major departure from prior versions.  Unless your VST developer has written code for AAX, you can no longer use it. Basically, Avid has a new proprietary plugin format that renders your current VST's useless. They also have initiated some significant marketing changes regarding selling older HD versions and upgrades. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the PT forums. Honestly, it really looks like Avid just wants the big boy audio market.
Sonar will be here in the future simply because of the existing user base.

Some interesting speculation going on above, always a fun thing.
 
I think the companies that succeed will be the ones that are willing to bend the technology curve to their advantage, possibly even changing how we think about recording. Looking back it seems that the original digital recording was based more on replacing tape with bits. Then MIDI started being incorporated etc and so on until the present state of the art allows complete ITB recording. Notice that I say allows...I'm sure valves will remain popular for the forseeable future. ;-)
 
It is of interest to me how different companies are trying to bend the curve, inside Sonar we have Matrix View (and 'touch' on Win 8); Live has their Session view; NI Machine can eschew a DAW altogether and provide a pretty decent platform; not my cup of tea but the iOS apps are pushing the envelope also.
 
In the end, to me, it's all good.
 
Regards,