I agree with skyline_UK. I've also been looking at other DAWs since the news and have come up disappointed and in some cases extremely disappointed with the alternatives. The bottom line for me is that Sonar's feature set and UI just can't be matched for the way I work. I looked at Studio One (which seems to be significantly less feature rich but has a nice UI), Cubase (which is feature rich but its workflow
for me isn't nearly as nice as Sonar), and Ableton (which I haven't given it the scrutiny that I've given the other two yet because there does not seem to be a crossgrade option which would be a showstopper by itself because it is
very expensive. It is probably the closest to being as powerful and user friendly as Sonar but does not
seem to be as feature rich in my limited analysis.). This is all subjective because everyone's needs and preferences are different, but that's my two cents.
My plan for now is to just keep using Sonar Platinum.
With regard to Gibson, I'm certainly not happy, but I think it is safe to assume, though, that Sonar would have died years ago if not for Gibson. So at least we got all the additional development and bug fixing that occurred since they acquired Cakewalk. I feel bad for
both companies. I'm sure Gibson didn't acquire Cakewalk to do nothing but shutter it. They had hoped it would be a cash producer and it appears to me that Cakewalk got the needed funds to try to bring it to the top of the DAW list. Unfortunately, features and user friendliness alone don't translate into sales. I'm not saying that those that purchased lifetime updates recently don't have a legitimate gripe. They do. But for me, even though I didn't get updates forever, I certainly got my money's worth. Sonar has improved my productivity in very significant ways. I've owned and used both Cubase and Logic (and tried Reaper which is close to worthless to me) and I will never be sorry with my choice to get Sonar - even with the company being shuttered. My sincerest thanks to the team that developed the program.