New Licensing

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Exactly what music features did HD8 have that PTle8 didn't?

Bob,

More mixing features than music features, from memory, eg VCAs, some automation modes etc., but it's hard to remember back ... as well as lower overall track count and aux bus count, wasn't there some restriction on the max number of instrument tracks and/or midi tracks?

I know I bought Music Production Toolkit to raise track and bus count, plus to get TL Space, and then traded up to Complete Production Toolkit principally for VCAs, automation modes and session export/import, the last of which got included as standard in PT9. I also needed surround for a couple of projects.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

High-end post facilities are already paying for support contracts so there's nothing new here. They need to be able to get somebody on the phone when they are losing hundreds an hour due to a problem. They also aren't particularly interested in new features but need compatibility with the latest computers in order to handle video needs.

Music people and hobbyists don't upgrade often and this is driven largely by new features and used gear or software opportunities. If Avid can deliver a steady stream of new, music-oriented features, a support contract could become attractive but obviously this new pace of feature introduction needs to be proven or people will remain skeptical. The good news here is that I think post people have most of what they want so we probably are talking about new music-oriented features.

Has anybody got other ideas about how Avid might become profitable?

To me these points are the crux of Avid's problem. They are in competition with their recent past.

Pro audio people in particular hang on to what works over the latest and greatest anything, with rare exception. Yet we live in a society now driven by a latest and greatest mentality. Audio engineers in particular still go goo-goo-ga-ga over gear from 40-50 years ago, or more in some cases. Avid (the audio division at least) need to understand this fundamental truth.

Avid was a video company before acquiring Digi. In doing so they were and still are trying to capitalize by cornering the market on pro media production but fail to recognize that video and audio people are completely different disciplines with contrasting mind sets. They are trying to shoehorn all ProTools users into the latest platform but audio people do not work this way.

A company cannot be profitable if they do not understand their user base and market.

Avid need to look to Apple. The numbers do not lie. They've given away their last two OS upgrades, lowered the price of their software across the board and have sold more computers in the last year while gaining their largest share of the PC market since 1995. Meanwhile their hardware sells for well more than any Windows machine. Conversely Microsoft is adopting the subscription model. Hello Google docs!

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Furthermore decoupling the software from the hardware was Avid bowing to public opinion. But there's no going back. Do away with all the MBox malarkey and sell the software as one thing. Those who use Avid HD hardware have access to all features while decoupled software is limited. Sell/rent features to those with other hardware.

More importantly be straight with your customers. Care about your customers more than just seeing them as dollar signs (or whatever foreign equivalent). Bend over backward to make your customers happy. They will respond in kind.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by JFreak

This debacle is over soon enough, and hopefully...Some day there is only one software again.

I don't know where you wanna take this - but they will not go high price only again - too much cash out there. A cool 20 million in the bank isn't apple kind of money and it's nothing to sneeze at but they didn't get there w/o selling a whole bunch of Mboxes

[CME]

Originally Posted by JFreak

As I have said already, I would just love that. Unfortunately, that would make that one unified PT software more expensive, so hobbyists would not agree.
(Snip)

Why would the price have to be higher? If they included all HD features for $199 a year, I would think there would be an increase in users. Enough that I could imagine would overcome the loss of making HD owners pay $599. Especially if you factor in the current owners who would rather leave PT land than pay $199 a year for a limited version. Like me.

In fact to me it seems even more fair to HD hardware owners to drop the price. Why do they have to pay more after investing in Avid's hardware? Because at this point all HD hardware users going forward, are going to be running HD native or HDx. So they've spent money relatively recently in these cards. Don't keep making them pay a premium just because they already chose to support Avid's hardware business. And I don't buy it will be because it costs more to develop the HD software. They develop the HD software and then simply cut out features for everyone else.

If they would consider a unified full featured pro tools at a reasonable price, I wouldn't leave. In fact I would recommend the church buy a license also. That way I could record straight into pro tools. Instead of having to record in reaper and transfer to PT as I do now.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

And regarding the Wells Fargo thing, on July 31, 2014, Avid's line of credit with Wells Fargo was $25 million, of which Avid had borrowed $15 million. Think about all of the new stuff Avid has released in the last year.

Sometimes it's better tax-wise and accounting-wise to use borrowed money for product development than it is to use money from your pocket.

Avid has a sh*tload of cash...they didn't have to borrow, but it was probably more advantageous for them to do so.

Lets at least get the numbers right...

I have no idea what exactly you are looking at but I don't think your information on the LOC is correct. Open up the latest (restated) 10K (Results to December 2013, but they note the credit and other terms that apply on July 31st 2014 as well) or latest (for period ending 6/30/2014) 10Q, and have a read....


From the 10Q


On October 1, 2010, Avid Technology, Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries (the “Borrowers”) entered into a credit agreement with Wells Fargo Capital Finance LLC (“Wells Fargo”) that established two revolving credit facilities with combined maximum availability of up to $60 million for borrowings and letter of credit guarantees (the “Credit Agreement”). On August 29, 2014, the Company entered into an amendment (the “Amendment”) to its Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo. The Amendment (i) extended the maturity of the Credit Agreement from October 1, 2014 to October 1, 2015, (ii) changed the maximum amounts available under each of the revolving credit facilities, and (iii) added certain financial covenants, as described below.

Under the Amendment, the maximum amount available for Avid Technology, Inc., (“Avid Technology”) was increased to $45 million (from $40 million ) and the maximum amount available for its subsidiary Avid Technology International B.V. (“Avid Europe”) was decreased to $15 million (from $20 million ). The maximum amount available under the combined credit facilities continues to be $60 million , subject to certain limitations on borrowing and other terms and conditions as provided in the Credit Agreement described in Note R.

The Amendment further limits the Company’s ability to access borrowings under the credit facilities if (i) EBITDA (as defined in the Amendment) of $33.8 million is not achieved for the year ending December 31, 2014, or (ii) capital expenditures (as defined in the Amendment) exceed $16.0 million for the year ending December 31, 2014.

The Company evaluated subsequent events through the date of issuance of these consolidated financial statements and, except for the subsequent events disclosed above and in Notes L, M and R, no other recognized or unrecognized subsequent events required recognition or disclosure in these financial statements.


and from the 10Q

At June 30, 2014 , Avid Technology and Avid Europe had certain reserves and letters of credit guaranteed under the credit facilities of $4.0 million and $1.0 million , respectively, and available borrowings under the credit facilities of approximately $12.0 million and $12.6 million , respectively, after taking into consideration the reserves, outstanding letters of credit and related liquidity covenant. In addition, Avid Technology had $5.0 million in short-term outstanding borrowings under the credit facilities at June 30, 2014.


There is no amount equal to $15M in credit borrowing here. Are you confusing that with Avid Europe's $15M revised credit limits?

Avid has far from a "load of cash". They are a company has been in serious distress for years. But they do have a large deferred revenues in their GAAP accounting.

Last 10Q to June 30 the 6 month they spend $25M cash and had a remainign ballance of $25M. Now you can position how much of that spend was special etc. But they spend down over half their cash reserves in 6 months. The next 10Q will be fasicanting reading, and again these are all GAAP numbers. For non-GAAP number Avid reported $15-$20M free cash flow. But that will not include a lot of significant cash outflow, and I challenge anybody to decode what that really means. However you slice it these are small company numbers. Avid just does not have a huge amount of cash to invest in new R&D, can't do acquisitions, etc.

Beating that down with moving customers to revised licensing terms is clearly the thing that Avid can do to significantly improve their GAAP numbers. They are bleeding (GAAP) cash, and I would not be surprised if what we are seeing happening is a top down directive from finance to product teams to just get new licensing done and sales closed by the end of this financial year (December 31st) whatever the other issues.

Do not understate that Wells Fargo LOC. Without that LOC Avid could be in serious trouble overnight, e.g. unable to secure or continue manufacturing or software engineering/support outsourcing deals even with current providers etc. Renegotiating that LOC seems to have been well done by Avid.

The OTC pink sheets is a very [bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]ty place to be. The only real outs I see would be taking the company private and/or finding an aquirer, if Avid was more or a pure software player an acquisition would be a lot easier, but I expect any companies won't want to pick up the hardware business, especially if it conflicts with stuff they already do. Avid is just too small to be a successful public company.

Could they pretty much stay as they are but manager to successfully navigate their way out of this hole? With better products, jiggering around licensing terms, fixing many little product problems, fixing customer support etc. Ah I seriously doubt it. I was expecing Blum Capital to take Avid private, maybe break up parts of it to make it more attractive to purchasers. But Blum dumped their lead holding in Avid for a significant loss. Now I wonder what does Wells Fargo Capital really want to do?

And I am not sure what a-priori benefit of financing R&D via borrowing would be. In general borrowing cash to finance R&D is a tough one, lenders often don't like doing that becasue of the highly intangible/risky nature of R&D, and often not something companies *prefer* to undertake.

---

So what's the point, I expect that revenue recognition is driving current licensing changes. And that is against a long term background of poor financial performance, its not just a GAAP revenue recognition issue.

And on general specualtion, we don't know anything either-way until Avid releases details or bothers to answer many of the good questions asked here. Both sides of that argument need to realize they just don't know what Avid will do.

[Righty27]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Exactly what music features did HD8 have that PTle8 didn't?

Apologies Bob - I'm relatively new to this (and just getting up this morning!), especially compared to someone like your good self!

I intended to refer to more recent differentiation between HD and what we now often refer to as 'vanilla'. Some users interchange the terms 'vanilla' and LE (which I appreciate was a different beast) and I mistakenly assumed you were grouping all the non-HD versions under the LE umbrella.

Nigel has kindly pointed out some differences with LE, including e.g. VCAs, not the sort of functionality hobbyists generally miss much. However, disk cache, track counts, surround, even HD's enhanced metering, are features that, if introduced lower down the food chain, might help users feel that the tool they 'invested' in was moving forward, even if they don't need/use them ... in which case, they have nothing but perceived value (like an unused free hotel night). These users were never going to pay for HD ... but they could select Studio One or Cubase (not that Cubase has all these features either) yet still pay a premium.

Including more for less (than a 'compulsory' $199 p.a. 'Avid tax') does not affect a pro's ability to work, which in my opinion should increasingly, if anything be about the use of Avid's DSP hardware which is where the ubiquity of Pro Tools in pro facilities lies. Here, Avid need to compete with the likes of UA and Waves ... and Avid have a serious head start. I suspect that UA have become the hobbyist's platform of choice when moving up from 'native' so maybe Avid's hardware division should look at these aspects separately - maybe they need an Apollo-killer?

Anyway, few people bring as much experience to this debate as yourself so I for one would welcome your views on what you think Avid should do with Pro Tools to set themselves up for the next, say five years ... with some hope of turning a profit!

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Righty27

maybe they need an Apollo-killer?

They already have it in HDX, but more AAX-DSP plugins are still much needed.

UAD2 Ultimate costs 5999usd (US VAT) and HDX card costs 5690eur (EU VAT) so all is required is Avid selling those cards as themselves and not bundled as a system.

[RussUK]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Has anybody got other ideas about how Avid might become profitable?

You would have to pay me the same as the current Avid CEO for that information.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by JFreak

They already have it in HDX, but more AAX-DSP plugins are still much needed.

UAD2 Ultimate costs 5999usd (US VAT) and HDX card costs 5690eur (EU VAT) so all is required is Avid selling those cards as themselves and not bundled as a system.

But that is a UAD satellite, not a UAD Apollo.

An Apollo is a fantastic interface with on-board/console DSP and (two Apollo) daisy chain capability. HDX (or hell even modern fast native) does mean you don't need the on-board/console based DSP processing. But what Avid did not do was replace the 003 family. And I suspect folks here can argue over that forever. AUD with the Apollo and Apogee with the new (and even old) Ensemble and others did a good job owning that 003 (well 003R) space. I am not sure Avid should be in the interface business in any way below HD/TDM interfaces and it better find a way to modernize those high-end interfaces, to migrate off the old TDM/Digilink standard over time, maybe to incorporate thunderbolt (better than the current Thunderbolt native boxes) and/or AVB technologies soon, get the Omni or a replacement to it to be more capable--it is embarrassingly crippled compared to say an Apollo or Ensemble interface.