Avid Customer Association (ACA) email

[The Byre]

Originally Posted by antonis

From my standpoint, only one thing will kickstart a change in Avid; more serious competition. I would love to see DSP accelerated Presonus/ Studio One integration, or a Universal Audio DAW, with a UAD integration at the mixer level (á la Harrison Mix Bus) and so on. Something that is going to pinch Avid where it hurts, i.e. the pocket. Then they will listen and make all the changes necessary to avoid customers jumping ship.

I very much doubt it. Avid is hopelessly over-structured. It is a medium-sized tech company with giant low-tech corporation structure. The present management, by acquiring Orad, have shown that they are still trying to achieve growth and development by using tactics totally inappropriate for such a small operation.

Avid is in no position to react to a more agile competitor. Even Adobe is running rings around it and Adobe is nearly 140 times bigger! But then Adobe has learnt the Intel method of constant new feature and product development - something Avid has totally failed to achieve.

Companies like Intel and Adobe are disruptors - but they have learnt the knack of disrupting themselves, rather than waiting like a deer caught in headlights to be disrupted by somebody else! They have achieved this through a process of constant change that is in-built into the company structure.

The punter may think that the latest 12-core CPU is now state-of-the-art, but trust me, it ain't! Intel has chips coming down the R&D pipe-line that will show you that your whizz-bang 12-core CPU is pants, compared to the 18-core, which will be destroyed by the 36-core model coming out in a couple of years. But then they have a team already laying out the logic flows for 128-core monsters - and so on!

Avid has got competition - Adobe! Premier is replacing MC in many places, particularly outside of the US. I see no sign of MC fighting back with new features or a change in structure and sales models.

The great fight-back was to buy Orad - a company whose employees are doing their best to prevent integration with Avid. Orad's virtual studio technology may have been the best thing since sliced bread in 1995, but 20 years on and funky little companies like NewTek are rewriting the rules on that one!

The list of mistakes that Avid's corporate suite keeps on making is truly astounding! Just buying Pinnacle and M-Audio and selling them at a massive loss, cost over half-a-billion dollars!

Avid has bought and then dropped or sold at a massive loss something like 20 companies over that past 15 years. Now it has taken on c.a. $205m new debt. ($100 last August to buy Orad and two weeks ago they announced a new $105 million borrowing with Cerberus Business Finance at approximately 6% to pay off a $35 million loan with KeyBank and give them an apparently needed cash cushion, indicating that their cash-flow problems continue.)

Sooner or later, them turkeys are going to have to come home to roost. What happens when they do, is anybody's guess!