mudgel

bitflipper
I can't think of a single example of where a big company buying a small company has ultimately been good for consumers. Can you?

Gibson buys Cakewalk!

Hope you're right, Mike. But then we were initially optimistic about Roland's acquisition, too.
 
At least, we got Craig A. with the Gibson bundle. I don't remember anybody from Roland ever coming round to say hi. Time will tell.
 
Another positive example comes to mind: Cakewalk acquiring RGC:Audio and Sonitus. In both cases the products continued to have long lives beyond the demise of their founders' companies.

Neither of those examples really qualifies though - Cakewalk doesn't qualify as a big company and Gibson bought Cakewalk from Roland.

Well one nice thing is that I'm glad I never bought it. It was on my list to buy last year but then Serum came out which imo is like Alchemy on steroids.

I own it and most of their sound sets as well as camelphat and camelspace so this ticks me off. Was secretly harbouring hope that Cake had bought them. Re Serum, (I agree it's a great synth - I own LFO Tool and Cthulhu and have been thinking about jumping on Serum). Steve Duda/Xfer is extremely innovative, and IMO is ripe for the type of takeover that Camel just went through. It's clear there are vulnerabilities when dealing with small companies - I love Xfer and still am considering the jump to Serum but the Alchemy experience has me concerned, to say the least. Especially if with one acquisition a product line can be discontinued, or PC support can vaporize.

saw about it elsewhere, really not impressed with how camel conducted matters with end users.. I own all their products (sound packs), so apple buying it is emagic all over again.. luckily I dodged that one.. but if I had known in 2014, I'd have not bought anything. I'm a PC owner.
 
but the big worry is making 100% sure I have backups of their files that work after they close.. I've had it before where 2 backups have failed over time.
 
it's just another reason/example why i distrust many pro audio companies sadly and their "stunts"
 

bitflipper
Alchemy never moved from my wish-list to my buy-immediately list, so I'm not out anything. But it makes you wonder what other mom 'n pop software companies Apple's gonna gobble up next. 

The big rumor on KVR now is that Spectrasonics will be next.  Given all the "Should I buy Omnisphere or Komplete" threads, a cynic might wonder if that thread started somewhere in Berlin.
 
 
 

Fog
really not impressed with how camel conducted matters with end users

Sadly, I must agree.  I don't feel cheated myself but rather deeply disappointed that the long-awaited Alchemy 2 will probably be off-limits to PC users like myself.  At least I bought Alchemy years ago and had acquired all the add-on sound sets that interested me.
 
But as far as I know, Camel was selling new PC licenses up until the day before they went dark.  Those customers were buying in good faith with an expectation that additional sound libraries would be available in future.  Then suddenly they were completely cut off with no warning and no opportunity to build on their investment.  Selling those licenses when knowing full-well what was coming seems like a real dick move in my book.  I thought highly of the CA folks until that happened.  I hope things turn out that I am wrong in this.

dmbaer

Fog
really not impressed with how camel conducted matters with end users

Sadly, I must agree.  I don't feel cheated myself but rather deeply disappointed that the long-awaited Alchemy 2 will probably be off-limits to PC users like myself.  At least I bought Alchemy years ago and had acquired all the add-on sound sets that interested me.
 
But as far as I know, Camel was selling new PC licenses up until the day before they went dark.  Those customers were buying in good faith with an expectation that additional sound libraries would be available in future.  Then suddenly they were completely cut off with no warning and no opportunity to build on their investment.  Selling those licenses when knowing full-well what was coming seems like a real dick move in my book.  I thought highly of the CA folks until that happened.  I hope things turn out that I am wrong in this.

Have to agree. And if this is in fact the case- should Ben and the former Camel folk ever show up in some other manifestation it'll be a cold day in Hell that I free up a red cent to do any type of business with them. Though I'm sure that's unlikely as without a doubt the deal with Apple was sweet enough that they're sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them on some beach somewhere.

I doubt that the Camel folk are retired.  It was many years ago, but there was the fact that all the music hardware/software business equaled about what a good box store sold in a year.  So your local Walmart today is likely to sell as much stuff as all the music companies in the world.  Ben etc. were a very small part of a very small business.  But I doubt they be back - I'm sure apple has made the terms of non-competition very clear.  And I'm one that would be interested in the ex-Camel music products.  Alchemy is that good.
 
@

Ya and Alchemy 2 would have likely been even better - but as a PC user, I'll never know. If Apple does happen to release it for Windows (say a snowball survives in Hell one day) - I have faith that it'll be the same disaster as iTunes, etc. (I am an iPhone/iPad user - but their PC-based software and their OS forced-upgrade schema are Borg-like).
Anyway - I will continue to use Alchemy (1), cause I love it too. But to say I will forgive and forget the Camel-folk - nope.