The Future of Digidesign: An Open Letter to Customers

[Avid]

The future of Digidesign: An open letter to customers

As you might know, one year ago we decided to combine all the Avid companies—including Digidesign, M-Audio, and Sibelius—into a new, unified Avid. Since then, we’ve taken steps toward transitioning Digidesign to the Avid name. We understand that you might have questions about the future of Digidesign and the product lines you’ve invested in. With that in mind, we’d like to share some information, answer some questions, and explain how these changes will affect you.


New website launching April 12th
Many of you told us that we needed to improve the navigation, organization, and the overall user experience of digidesign.com. In order to make these improvements, a major overhaul was necessary. On April 12th, we’re going to launch a brand new avid.com website that will include all of the digidesign.com pages—plus a number of enhancements to make navigation faster and easier. At first, the website will be US-only, but over the next few months, we’ll work on moving the international Digidesign websites as well. To help you get acclimated, we’ll be posting an interim page at digidesign.com offering links straight to the pages that are most important to you.

Why move the website to Avid.com?
Not surprisingly, many of you own products from multiple Avid companies—including Digidesign, M-Audio, and Sibelius—so we thought it would be more convenient to offer one centralized, unified website for all Avid products. We’re working toward providing you benefits like a simplified product registration process, single login ID, and a one-stop source for all product information, support, downloads, and news.

What will the new site be like?
The people behind the look and feel of Digidesign and M-Audio are now creating a new look and feel for all Avid—so don’t expect the new site to look like we sell IT products! It will feature completely new navigation and organization, making it easier and faster to find what you want. Overall, it’s a big improvement over the current Digidesign website. Our web team incorporated feedback from customers into the new site—we think you’re really going to like it.

Is the Digidesign name going away?
Yes, we are in the process of retiring the Digidesign name—but the products will live on. After talking with many of you, we discovered that most people identify more with the product names—such as Pro Tools, VENUE, ICON—instead of the company name (actually, there are some people who thought the name of the company was Pro Tools, so go figure…).

What is happening to the Digidesign team?
Rest assured, the same core Digidesign team of audio fanatics is still here, with offices in Daly City, CA. We just have a different logo on our letterhead. And since the transition, we’ve been playing key roles in creating the new Avid. Over the coming months, you’ll start to see our influence on packaging, videos, customer communications (like this one), and the overall look and feel of Avid.

Why is the Digidesign name being retired?
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, it no longer makes sense to maintain many separate brands. It’s also impractical to have multiple marketing teams, websites, newsletters, and separate methods for communicating with customers. Our new brand strategy is to combine everything under the Avid name. This will help us streamline operations and become a healthier company—which frees up more resources for product development. We figured that you’d rather see us put more money towards designing innovative new gear than maintaining five separate brands.

What does this mean for the Digidesign product lines?
You’ve seen a taste of what can be accomplished when we work together—products like Pro Tools M-Powered, Video Satellite between Media Composer and Pro Tools, the DSM monitors, and Sibelius integration into Pro Tools. Moving forward, audio and video are going to be equally important for Avid. We’re totally committed to Pro Tools, VENUE, ICON, and all the other product lines that used to be branded under Digidesign. Combining forces with the other Avid companies means more resources for our R&D department to work with, enabling us to release more great products than ever. We’re also committed to expanding our product lines further—in fact, we have some incredible new audio products in store for 2010 and beyond…

What about the M-Audio brand name?
We’ve begun the process of transitioning the M-Audio name to a product brand instead of a company name. You’ll continue seeing product names like the M-Audio Oxygen 25, and the M-Audio BX5a Deluxe.

What does this mean for the M-Audio and Sibelius websites?
Eventually, the M-Audio and Sibelius websites will be moved to the new Avid.com as well. But for now, those sites will continue to operate independently just as usual.


We truly appreciate your loyalty and continued support, and hope you take some time to explore the new website on April 12th. If you have any questions or comments about the brand transformation, please join the conversation here.

Sincerely,
The Digidesign (aka Avid) team