[ddwhitney]

I made note in another thread that when PT10 came out that it was the beginning move of Avid shedding the consumer level products and moving back to the original professional level products only business model.

The release of version 10 with it's upgrade price tag so soon after version 9 was designed to shed home use people who previously complained that $149.99 was too much for an upgrade... We already know that Version 11 is slated to cut off all of the consumer level user hardware from M-Audio, LE and possibly the Eleven Rack...

I think Avid see's this as a way to do a better job supporting the serious professional and not having to mess around with the consumer level products that it has been struggling to keep up with feature wise.

I think the point they might be missing is the number of professionals that rely on the consumer level gear to make up cost and schedule overruns on small to medium projects.

Typically the business model that limits flexibility in a volatile market, loses the bet and dies off rather quickly. Flying the "Industry Standard" flag and offering only high end gear and software is great as long as the list of competitors is relatively short.

The other part of the equation is how selling off subdivisions and product realignments are often tax loophole ploys to write off "bad investments" and give you cash to reorganize into a more "Lean" corporation... typically there are 5 year cycles to write offs.

Who knows how this all going to play out in the end. This may strengthen the consumer equivalent and make it more competitive with Vegas and Reaper while allowing the professionals to have a product better suited for them.