I am gutted at the loss of Cakewalk & Sonar. I literally feel like a good friend has just passed away! So I have been reading quite a bit about this and trying to make sense of it all.
 
What if;
Gibson scrapping Cakewalk rather than selling it could be strategic. They may not have a buyer for the Cakewalk brand, but they could have a buyer for the source code and the patents associated with it. Cakewalk and Microsoft were working quite closely together in recent times. Microsoft with its "creator's" edition of Win 10 has clearly got its sights on the Mac market. Microsoft is right now starting development on a Windows DAW to rival Mac's Logic Pro. It could be that Sonar's (and other Cake products) code may be on its way to Microsoft. MS would likely put their own management and development team together (they have already placed ads for audio developers) for it which may include a couple of folk from Cakewalk who know the code well but would probably leave the rest searching for a new job. It may even be that Microsoft would have instigated this whole situation, maybe approaching Gibson with a deal - they know they are in financial crisis after all. Microsoft would need Cakewalk out of the picture and take the development of 'their new product' in-house. They probably wouldn't need the customer database as we are all Windows users anyway, but they would need to get shot of any obligation for honoring the lifetime free updates, so that would be another good reason to kill off Cakewalk.
 
OK, so this is just a theory. But maybe some of us might come across some Sonar quirks again one day when we are working in the new Microsoft DAW.

Spot on .. Been exactly my thought recently .. jokingly thinking MS SONAR 365 .Perpetual Sub based like Office 365 with Home, Business and Premium editions, each a higher per month price. 

So our options could be:

- MS SONAR 365 Home
- MS SONAR 365 Business
- MS SONAR 365 Business Premium
 
And by suddenly, catastrophically removing Cakewalk off the scene, being the largest WINDOWS ONLY DAW .. it ploughs a clear field ahead competition wise, in one fell swoop
 
 

Yes, a lot of people have been suggesting MS buy it and how great that would be. I'm not sure it would be so great. Sonar had personality and character. I wonder if they may have also bought the name 'Microsoft Cakewalk'.

35mm
Yes, a lot of people have been suggesting MS buy it and how great that would be. I'm not sure it would be so great. Sonar had personality and character. I wonder if they may have also bought the name 'Microsoft Cakewalk'.

Again .. similar thoughts on that. MS buys it, it will become, well, bland, functional, something for the masses to try out who really have no huge interest in music making, just another piece of "creative software" for the masses like MS Powerpoint - Everyone is now a pro presentation maker .. type cr*p.
 
Or worse still .. become integrated into Windows 10 via a future MS Windows Update, the MS SONAR Home version anyway .. FREE. You then pay more monthly for the Business & premium editions
 
On plus side though ... no more or way less Windows BUGS, closely integrated :D
 
I mentioned here before that I saw this happen back in 2008. Im also big into 3D graphics, since early 90s I used / bought CALIGARI TRUESPACE. In 2008 it got whipped from under us. Bought out by Microsoft with a view to being part of new virtual world products. It eventually sank without a trace somewhere in Redmond. 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/02/microsoft-acquires-caligari/
 
TS also had a very close relationship with its customer base. Thats why this feels like deja vous to me here!
 
 
 
 

that would be cool(especialy if also cake staffs can keep their job...)

Seriously?  Going from Cakewalk to MS is better because it'll be like Office 365?  Maybe it'll operate in the "cloud" too and we can all become totally dependent on the whims of yet another corporate monstrosity.

cityrat
Seriously?  Going from Cakewalk to MS is better because it'll be like Office 365?  Maybe it'll operate in the "cloud" too and we can all become totally dependent on the whims of yet another corporate monstrosity.

Well I reckon it would be like Office 365 in one main respect .. I have no doubt it would go perpetual monthly sub for ever AND no lifetime purchase either.
 
With respect to the cloud aspect - You might get 1TB or more of cloud storage thrown in so as to backup material on line and/or there might be a collaborative aspect too for writing tracks together. I imagine it could be the same as Office 365 business in that respect. You could add Users / other musicians to your plan and share / collaborate with them.
 
In my last post i was just joking re MS Sonar 365 analogy .. but if MS is the potential buyer then my description above might not be far off the mark?
 
 

Well as I've said elsewhere, projecting, it *seems* like it would be a no-brainer fit for MS - Home Studio is the perfect, drop-in freebie Garage Band killer (err, competitor). Artist/Professional/Platinum - well, it may not make any sense to maintain two versions (and in terms of features the difference has been shrinking as most new features for the past while have been cross-version), so combine those into one solid Logic competitor (likely dropping most of the third-party content), and MS gets a big dose of creative cred with very little dev work, a codebase that's already tightly integrated into their audio world and, ideally, a great development team they already know and work with. 
 
But who knows if it looks like that from where they stand? 
 
edit... of course, they would grandfather the existing Lifetime members (and anyone with an owned license for Platinum) into an initial license for the paid version... 
 
edit 2... in related news, pigs can reportedly fly now!

The worst part is that even though there may be some Sonar in there somewhere and probably the plugins we get with Sonar now (although MS will probably sell most of those separately), it would never really be Sonar again and never be Cakewalk again.
 
On the other hand, MS would be trying to compete with Mac & Logic here so they would have to make it accessible and very special too. MS is stable and has a hell of a lot of resources so if they chuck enough money at it and develop it properly it could be everything Sonar was but even better. Or not. 

I really hope this is true. But they cant wait to long to release it. And I would gladly pay monthly as i do with office to have this.