Reading this thread, it seems there are users that just found out about "the news" as late as yesterday.
Mostly because they don't visit this forum on a regular basis.
In a previous post I commented that Cakewalk (meaning the few people left still working there) need to have a mailing list of all it's users, and that they should have informed all the users about the "bad news" via email notification.
And also to inform users in the future of any new developments (forum/servers shutting down, a way to reauthorize offline, etc.) by email.

A couple of people chastised me (or were just plain rude), telling me that an email list to contact Sonar users was a stupid idea.  Well, I got news for you, it's not a stupid idea, as we have seen some users just found out, and I'm sure many users still don't even know that Cakewalk has ceased development and sales.

Not everyone comes to this forum or are on social media.  They might just have the CCC connected to the Internet, and one day they realized they stopped receiving updates, with no explanation given.   I'm sure those people would appreciate an email notification of what's going on....just like I don't appreciate having my suggestion for an email list being called stupid.   And yes, I'm sure that some people have changed email addresses since first purchasing Sonar, and there's nothing Cakewalk can do about that.  But at the very least they should have tried to contact their customers to let them know about what's going on.

Lee - you are correct.  And there is a lot of buying power with that complete email list.  Perhaps it could be used to go to another company so that that they can make an offer to Gibson.
 
Gibson has a lot to gain here - some money from another company as well as some benefit to their reputation.

The financial situation with Cakewalk is what I feared around X1 - there isn’t enough revenue to keep the company alive. About the time Roland bought the company, revenues were $14 million a year. That sounds like a lot but it’s not enough to support 100 people. Software is a complex product to develop, support, market and sell. If your sales are not headed for at least $100 million, you can’t get funding. At least that was the number in 1995 when I did a software IPO.

https://www.roland.com/Ro.../pdf/2013/20130924.pdf

Now with mobile apps, the number is much higher.

Since Roland’s purchase, sales declined to $6 million with almost a $1 million loss 2012. They call that the walking dead at investment banks. We can only guess how low the sales got and how high the losses were last year. Ouch!

Like the song says, you gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em.

smallstonefan
I think you will see the product resurrected, but my guess is they needed "Cakewalk the company" to die first. No one would buy a company that had free lifetime updates committed to people - that's an obligation in place of a revenue stream.

I'd really like to believe that would happen, but I think it will be a pretty hard sell.  There's no shortage of work for competent programmers these days, so I'm guessing that with the exception of a couple of people who agreed to stay on for a short time that most of the developers are gone.
 
So you would have to convince a buyer and a new team of developers to come in to work on a product that hasn't made money in some time, in a space with lots of established competition.  I've been a long time SONAR user, paid for every upgrade and the lifetime deal, but I wouldn't spend my money to resurrect it at this point.

For a good image, the company should provide free updates for registered customers.

CoteRotie

smallstonefan
I think you will see the product resurrected, but my guess is they needed "Cakewalk the company" to die first. No one would buy a company that had free lifetime updates committed to people - that's an obligation in place of a revenue stream.

I'd really like to believe that would happen, but I think it will be a pretty hard sell.  There's no shortage of work for competent programmers these days, so I'm guessing that with the exception of a couple of people who agreed to stay on for a short time that most of the developers are gone.
 
So you would have to convince a buyer and a new team of developers to come in to work on a product that hasn't made money in some time, in a space with lots of established competition.  I've been a long time SONAR user, paid for every upgrade and the lifetime deal, but I wouldn't spend my money to resurrect it at this point.

I've been thinking killing Cakewalk was a necessary evil all along. It needs to be resurrected in a healthier environment.
Concerning someone buying the company. Almost anything can be sold if the price is right.

Sorry if it's been said or covered, I seem to be unable to find this in search:
 
Is there any chance it would be open sourced?  If it really falls all the way apart and there is no asset purchase, I would hope someone would push Gibson to open source it and throw it up on github.  Some of the original devs and a community of others could potentially keep hacking on it and possibly even get the port to OSX happening.
 
 

groove
Sorry if it's been said or covered, I seem to be unable to find this in search:
 
Is there any chance it would be open sourced?  If it really falls all the way apart and there is no asset purchase, I would hope someone would push Gibson to open source it and throw it up on github.  Some of the original devs and a community of others could potentially keep hacking on it and possibly even get the port to OSX happening.

The discussion around this in various places convinced me this will not happen, though I thought that would be great when I first heard Gibson had killed the company. But someone pointed out that software of the magnitude of SONAR probably had licensed code from other sources - and that code cannot be open sourced without the Open Source community paying for those licenses - or rebuilding the code so that it doesn't need the licenses.

It would be a cool thing, but I think that Gibson has other plans for the Intellectual Property that SONAR represents.

I only read this announcement now, on Christmas Eve 2017 and it feels like all saints day when you remember your deceased rather than Christmas.
I only hope some decent company will buy the rights to the software and the development will continue.
All the best to you, wonderful people of late Cakewalk.

I came to cake from Cubase.  They recruited me.  It has been a long and fruitful existence.  Gibson needs to re shuffle the deck to boost some of the good things they now have.  The electric guitars are geared towards quality recording.  Titanium saddles, enhanced playability, fretboards, tuners and improved caps and pick ups that ping out with my version of Sonar.  I am currently buying certain guitars from Gibson that will increase in value in the future.
However we must realize that the software issues get cleared up by adding an APC pro 1500.  
    Perhaps what they need is me.