Does PT12 bring value

[Barry Johns]

You know I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and when you look all the various ProTools releases up until ProTools 12, you're looking to find f ProTools 12 brings value to me as a user, and then what is the potential beyond this to continue to bring me value? I think when you have to put all that in perspective you have to look backwards a little bit, and then you have to looking forward record to this point.

Obviously for a lot of us the features that it brings, and especially the price point associated with it, is a huge part of what brings value to all of us. It's important that we understand as a business model, it obviously has to make sense to us as an investment strategy as well. We have to consider if ProTools 12 give us something that other versions of ProTools doesn't as well as what is the integrity of the company that we're doing business with?

For me personally to consider does ProTools 12 bring value to me, I think it's important to take a look at the thread below, to really bring it all into context.

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=363796


Person to truly understand the point I'm trying to make here, I think it's critical that you look at the link above.

[zedhed]

I used to find out how much value Pro Tools gave me by buying it first.

With PT12 though, I will not be doing that. I'll wait for awhile since PT11 is going fine for me. Cloud collaboration and even Track Freeze doesn't spin my crank much. Indeed it leaves me stuck in 1st gear!

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by zedhed

I used to find out how much value Pro Tools gave me by buying it first.

With PT12 though, I will not be doing that. I'll wait for awhile since PT11 is going fine for me. Cloud collaboration and even Track Freeze doesn't spin my crank much. Indeed it leaves me stuck in 1st gear!

What is, again, my opinion only...

The only reason for PT 12 is to kill PT 11, and more especially, those PT 11 licenses that were sold before the service plan model went into effect.

Killing PT 11 will also "kill" the last bit of Avid's accounting issues...

[lexaudio]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

What is, again, my opinion only...

The only reason for PT 12 is to kill PT 11, and more especially, those PT 11 licenses that were sold before the service plan model went into effect.

Killing PT 11 will also "kill" the last bit of Avid's accounting issues...

Agreed. I'm getting this feeling that AVID is trying to do away with perpetual licenses and make it subscription/rental only.

Which is what had me worried about buying HD Hardware in the future. And I'm not the only one feeling that way either.

When accountants are running the show, the user looses. And the way it looks, we are losing.

PT12 doesn't bring much to the table. The music community, through a friend well plugged in, said they weren't happy. He said, "dead set against PT12", as there is nothing added they want or need.

Keeping data on the cloud is also not popular especially with high profile projects.

[TimNielsen]

I would say the cloud collaboration has zero interest for me, I just can't see myself using it at all.

Track Freeze I would like. But the question is, am I willing to buy into a subscription plan and pay monthly just for that feature?

I'd say less than 5% chance at this point.

[deanrichard]

I think you're probably right.

My guess is that the number of users who upgrade has been diminishing over the last few versions. That means less upgrade money. Putting everyone on a subscription plan means regular, consistent income even as the product matures. It puts less pressure on each new version to add "wow" features that make users willing to shell out upgrade money. If it catches on it eventually allows Avid to lower development costs and go into a "harvest" mode of sitting back and making money on what will be a mature product.

But, it could backfire. There will be some who subscribe, and think nothing of it. But there will be a large number who will balk at upgrading. And others will balk at buying new hardware that essentially forces you to pay a subscription fee until you can completely amortize it.

To me, it seems like Avid is betting the farm on this subscription model. We'll see how it plays out. I know I won't be a subscriber, but I'm not their target customer.

Dean

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

What is, again, my opinion only...

The only reason for PT 12 is to kill PT 11, and more especially, those PT 11 licenses that were sold before the service plan model went into effect.

Killing PT 11 will also "kill" the last bit of Avid's accounting issues...

[deanrichard]

Originally Posted by deanrichard

I think you're probably right.

My guess is that the number of users who upgrade has been diminishing over the last few versions. That means less upgrade money. Putting everyone on a subscription plan means regular, consistent income even as the product matures. It puts less pressure on each new version to add "wow" features that make users willing to shell out upgrade money. If it catches on it eventually allows Avid to lower development costs and go into a "harvest" mode of sitting back and making money on what will be a mature product.

But, it could backfire. There will be some who subscribe, and think nothing of it. But there will be a large number who will balk at upgrading. And others will balk at buying new hardware that essentially forces you to pay a subscription fee until you can completely amortize it. There are still users who absolutely need hardware DSP, but as computers get more powerful more customers can effectively use the computer for DSP. Also, the addition of a "Freeze" feature makes the hardware a little less necessary.

To me, it seems like Avid is betting the farm on this subscription model. We'll see how it plays out. I know I won't be a subscriber, but I'm not their target customer.

Dean

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by lexaudio

Agreed. I'm getting this feeling that AVID is trying to do away with perpetual licenses and make it subscription/rental only.

Which is what had me worried about buying HD Hardware in the future. And I'm not the only one feeling that way either.

When accountants are running the show, the user looses. And the way it looks, we are losing.

PT12 doesn't bring much to the table. The music community, through a friend well plugged in, said they weren't happy. He said, "dead set against PT12", as there is nothing added they want or need.

Keeping data on the cloud is also not popular especially with high profile projects.

I'm getting this feeling that AVID is trying to do away with perpetual licenses and make it subscription/rental only.

Could be, but personally, I doubt it...

Accounting-wise, there is no problem with perpetual licenses per se...the problem is the de facto "open-ended" service contract created by Avid's maintenance/updating process.

(Note regarding the following...this gets into some accounting methods/rules/whatever that I do not know much about. I am not an accountant, nor do I have a business-related degree. But, for most of my career my day-job has been in what one might term "ordinary" business...companies that make stuff or offer services. In IT, you tend to learn a little about a lot of things in order to write the appropriate software. So, some of this next little bit is not something I've extensively studied...it's just stuff I've picked up on as part of my day job. And some of this may be incorrect.)

Suppose I have a company that makes hammers, and sells them directly to consumers via the Internet.

The hammers I sell are well-designed and well-built...good quality tools that come with a one-year warranty...I sell them for $10.00...it costs me $7.00 to make them.

So, it would appear that every time I sell a hammer I would make a profit of $3.00. But, there's that pesky one-year warranty, and, as I understand it, I would need to hold some part of the $3.00 profit in reserve to cover the cost of warranty repairs and replacements. Let's suppose it's $0.25 per hammer.

So, when I sold a hammer, I could only "count" $2.75 as profit. But, since the warranty was only for a year, after that year was up, I could "count" the $0.25 as profit.

(Again, this is a greatly simplified explanation, it may not be 100% correct, and it may not be applicable to Avid. But I personally believe it's pretty close...)

In my hammer company's case, since I only offered a one-year warranty, I only had to hold the reserve for one year.

But, in Avid's case, they were selling products that had a de facto "open-ended" service plan that lasted forever ("open-ended"). If they weren't "accounting" for reserves or whatever in accordance with "accepted standards", they could/would have problems.

But, by moving to a "service plan" model, Avid moved to a "fixed-term" support agreement, and got away from the previous "open-ended" contracts.

(I believe the "rental" thing that Avid is also doing may be due to the changing market, but a "rental's" service contract is also "fixed-term"...limited to the length of the "rental".

This is why I keep "going on" about the accounting issues...it's only by understanding them can the user appreciate what's going on.

There's more, but I have other things to do right now...perhaps I'll post some additional info another time...

(And again, it's all just my personal opinion and belief)

[JCBigler]

Protools 12 only brings value to Avid.

Unless no one chooses to upgrade or get on the support plan. Then it will bring devaluation and bankruptcy to Avid.

[Dannyd]

I feel PT 12 something like Adobe CC but they didn't find a good name for it so keep going with numbers in name.

I think Avid just made the "foundations" for incremental features (like adobe does), so when PT 12 arrives it comes with only little new features, repair some bugs and bring us the base system for upgrades.

Maybe they do a updater app (adobe has "Adobe Creative Cloud" app for updates or if you think on Native Instruments they also have their "NI Service Center") so why not Avid and maybe integrate plugins updates also? We will see...