Quote:
Originally Posted by stevedemena
Why isn't feasible that offshore developers in China or India can do as good, or better, at programming than the programmers in the current UK office?
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Daniel Spreadbury and his team are not just software developers - they are first and foremost musicians with a deep understanding of music and notation which is a highly complicated matter that has been developed over hundreds of years. Between them they embody dozens of years of know how. Something like magnetic layout or dynamic parts didn't just come out of thin air; it stems from an appreciation of how difficult is it to get slurs looking right without much if any effort, and how much time and effort it saves not having to copy out parts once the score is done (but just a bit of formatting perhaps).
There is also the unparalleled support that Daniel and his team have given over many years. It is a standing joke that he works 24/7, any day of the year.
That has created something that cannot be expressed in dollars or cents: trust in him and his team, and an excessive user loyalty. That trust sadly is close to zero when it comes to Avid and the way they treated this whole thing.
Whoever made this decsion at Avid does not appreciate this and believes that a group of audio programmers can take over those roles. In Avid's latest statement:
http://community.avid.com/blogs/avid...-sibelius.aspx
they announced to intend to integrate Sibelius development with their 'audio group'. That is a bit the crux here: Avid believes that the heart of the product is audio production. Well, it is not. It is about notation, first and foremost. I am one of the few people that use Sibelius in combination with expensive high end virtual instruments plugins; I'd *like* for the midi features to be improved, and I'd *like* to have it more integrated with protools and have audio editing features as well, but first and foremost the notation part of the program has to be rock solid.
It is really very sad and it does not help anyone; it is just destruction. This morning Avid's stock was even lower, below $7, and the prediction I got from StockWatch was "strong Downtrend". I don't want Avid to go down under, being a PT user myself and having just invested $$$ in the complete production toolkit for surround mixing; I am thinking of getting media composer just to be able to wrap my head around the integration with PT. They have a lot of very cool products. But this present move is brainless.