And of course I too have been thinking about this since yesterday, but the more I think about it the more something seems off, like Cakewalk has been getting used for some time behind their backs.  Back around May or June Noel was at an event with Microsoft discussing the improvements Cakewalk has helped Microsoft with in bettering their MIDI capabilities.  That seemed awesome at first, direct cooperation between Cakewalk and Microsoft? That could only improve Cakewalk overall right? Well fast forward to about a month ago when Microsoft announced their intent to create their own DAW, something seemed fishy to me at that point.  And here we are today scrambling to understand what our personal futures are in continuing use with Cakewalk.

Interesting for sure: 

ask.audio/articles/microsoft-working-on-daw-to-challenge-apples-garageband-logic-pro

I'll certainly be interested in any audio products that ex-Cakewalk developers work on, as I'm sure most or all of them will. But I don't imagine we'll hear anything about that in the short term.

Yea that is interesting.  I did not know about the M$ DAW development.  And fishing for DAW developer talent just got easy!
 
Gibson wanted more market so there was MAC development of Sonar and then not a lot of info and it got shut down. 
 
Sonar code would save MS a lot of work and give Gibson some cash to give their creditors.
 
If it had sonar features and flow and would work with Windows 10 updates I'd try it out.
 
 

 
MICROSOFT SONAR 365 :D
 
 

I would feel pretty shafted if Sonar were to become the back bone of a Microsoft DAW.  Having lifetime updates cease only to have the future product continue only under a different name.

Pretty standard in the roofing business. Create a company, offer 25 yr warranties, go for 5 years and shut the company down for a week. Reopen with a clean slate and no baggage. It's a trend that's found its way to big business. Just ask Donald Trump. Write it off and walk away.

TranceCanada
I would feel pretty shafted if Sonar were to become the back bone of a Microsoft DAW.  Having lifetime updates cease only to have the future product continue only under a different name.

Hmm. I can see what you mean, but ultimately, Sonar is almost certainly over with. Got to let it go. So from that starting point, something else Sonar-like existing in the future would be a positive, not a negative, to me.

"And here we are today scrambling to understand what our personal futures are in continuing use with Cakewalk." - Well, so long as you have hardware that can run Sonar, you have a "perpetual license", (as in never-ending), to use the last fully paid for version. That is something a lot of people seem to be forgetting - so long as you either paid for Sonar outright, or completed 12 monthly payments, that version of Sonar is yours - Until the end of time.