Well, this certainly sucks. It's not the first time I've invested in a platform to see it go south... but this hits harder as it's been a longer term thing and like many here I've felt a bit of an affinity with the company, which has always seemed to be populated by good people and run for the most part that way I think a company ought to be run. As others have noted, I guess Gibson's recent summary dismissal of Craig was a bit of a warning (not much warning) and, also echoing others, I'll hold out hope for a little while that some other parent company will see the potential here and swoop in to save Sonar and us... but I can't say I think it's incredibly likely. It's hard not to feel like the writing is on the wall at this point. Who would want to take it on after two big names have dropped it? But you never know.
With regards to alternatives... I was at the Ableton Loop conference last weekend and was impressed with the dynamic and open vibe there, I guess I'll tentatively start digging a bit deeper into Live, which certainly seems like a flexible and powerful platform and a fairly robust organization (and hey, Ableton is here in Berlin and I have friends that work there!)... I've never spent a lot of time with it, but that might change. Also I've been playing with Reason 10 the past few days, trying to decide whether this is a good time to pay the fairly Reasonable (heh) upgrade fee to bring my old license up to date... I'm now thinking maybe I will. It's a fun environment and I've enjoyed it in the past.
But neither of them is Sonar. Oh well.