Anderton
 

• Guitar Center is always the first to "know things." There's no need to get rid of "old stock" because there isn't stock. The fact that they are promoting SONAR as a current product may mean nothing, but it very well may mean something.  

Damn. . . that's deep. 
 

I hope this may be good news, I have been a faithful paying customer for many years.  When I purchased the "Life Time" updates I expected the lifespan to go on.  There may be lawsuit material here for false advertisement and bad dealings,  "SONAR" needs to make this right.
 
 

I cannot believe another company would not see the value in Cakewalks software and user base.  It could be a great plugin distribution path or simply a jump start into the Daw market!!!
 
Business Plan
1. Buy Cakewalk, Note Gibson takes loss as they already cashed in with life time updates.
2. Initially provide simple bug fixes as needed and providing comfort to the those worried about windows updates.
3. End of life old plugins or software that cannot be supported.
4. Promote new add on's, effects and instruments.
5. Market product like a banshee!!! 

Looks like its been withdrawn from sale already. Thats bad news I guess.

kzmaier
I cannot believe another company would not see the value in Cakewalks software and user base.  It could be a great plugin distribution path or simply a jump start into the Daw market!!!
 

Without investing a penny in Cakewalk, the competition could simply post on Cakewalk's own forum to exploit the situation and gain revenue for themselves.... Wait...

Anyway, why buy a company to steal its customer base? That is only a last resort if they are actually better than you (in most cases).

If you were already interested in developing a daw, then this could look really interesting to you or if you had began development and were hitting a few snags in your code or want to add additional features and see Sonar as a way to 
save time and money in development. If the price is right you might be interested. Why spend years developing something that has already been developed and is potentially for sale at a good price? It's a win/win really in that case.
So like I said before. There might be reason to hope. 
Understandably there are those who will have moved on and those who no longer care. Dangle a daw carrot in front of me though and then tell me it's a new Sonar and I'm immediately interested. I don't care that I already have a handful of daws. I'll always look at another one. But that's me.

If Cakewalk was profitable, it would still be an active company. I think folks need to think about why Cakewalk was not profitable.

In every trade, including music production, you need tools that you can trust. Hobbyists love Sonar because it is chock full of features and seems like a great deal for the price, but professionals know that they cannot rely on Sonar to carry through a production from start to finish. As projects increase in size and complexity, Sonar becomes more and more unstable. Glitchy playback, corrupt project files, weird plugin and automation issues, etc. Sonar couldn't compete because it is not reliable as a professional tool. I know this is a sore point for long-time Cakewalk loyalist, but it's the truth.

Anyone who would acquire Cakewalk would have to fight a battle on two fronts:

1. Make Sonar a reliable tool for professionals

2. Convince professionals to try Sonar again

I think it could make sense for Microsoft to buy it. They could offer Home Studio as base music production software in Windows, and have an upgrade path to the higher grades. Aside from the profit they make with upgrades, they will pull in more upgrades from Windows 7 and XP users, who have stayed away from Windows 10 (like me).
 
Then again, the number of users of this kind of software is small and already spread out. and they already have a near-monopoly of operating systems anyway. People using Macs aren't going to start using Windows just because it now includes Sonar. Even if they did, Microsoft already has 95% of the OS market. So it really is just a drop in the bucket.
 
But who knows. Sometimes wishful thinking actually comes true.

GIM Productions
What is this???
I always hope......

http://www.guitarcenter.c...walk/SONAR-Platinum.gc

Seems like (groans) Fake News!!!!

I have a couple of questions that aren't answered. If the doors were truly closed to Sonar forever, why would they keep the servers running? Why would the description of the closure look more like a transition than an ending. Why would the parting comments seem like another door may be opening? 
 
I have a difficult time believing that Gibson is keeping the lights burning out of the goodness of their hearts. I think something is going on. I won't venture a guess about what it is at this point. 
 
I don't think lifetime update people have any hope nor do I think any of the old deals will hold over. That included me. However I'm not convinced it's allover.........yet.