New Licensing

[ronwasserman]

Since we're using cars now. WHICH I LOVE, I think Tesla would be HD. Lamborghini is a little to rare and high end to be used as a comparison.

[propower]

I am a (2) person and I think this group is still misunderstood !

I am the type who owned a 3340 - 16 track ADAT - PT HD since 1998 - now HD Native... These were NEVER cheap systems! I suspect a great number of 2's are not the Vanilla crowd at all ! They are the ones buying in the old days a significant amount of HD systems and today maybe even the majority of HDN systems with some doing HDX as well. We are the buyers of 002 and 003 systems with CPTK - not cheap at all - We are the buyers of $4000 + Apollo racks with plugins - $5000 Symphony systems as well as racks of 500 series goodies - boutique preamps, compressors and mics... We (I believe) are the only growing market for this stuff...

But we don't HAVE to - we do it cause we WANT to! We don't own boats or motorcycles (well maybe) - or vacation homes - we have recording studios

WRT Vanilla - it has to have the features that (2)s want or they will move on. $899 to the (1) crowd with limited features - I agree this will erode. But don;t forget that a key market for the high end stuff (at least so I think! ) is the (2)'s... pricing and policies that only appeal to businesses is (IMO) a risky strategy...

[WombatStudio.Org]

Originally Posted by Alfalfa

Like it or not, there is also the issue of brand dilution, akin to a Lamborghini mini. If such a thing existed, who would buy it, and what good would it do to the brand name?

Yeah, who would buy an H2 or H3 when there's only 1 Hummer?

[Chingy]

Originally Posted by propower

I am a (2) person and I think this group is still misunderstood !

I am the type who owned a 3340 - 16 track ADAT - PT HD since 1998 - now HD Native... These were NEVER cheap systems! I suspect a great number of 2's are not the Vanilla crowd at all ! They are the ones buying in the old days a significant amount of HD systems and today maybe even the majority of HDN systems with some doing HDX as well. We are the buyers of 002 and 003 systems with CPTK - not cheap at all - We are the buyers of $4000 + Apollo racks with plugins - $5000 Symphony systems as well as racks of 500 series goodies - boutique preamps, compressors and mics... We (I believe) are the only growing market for this stuff...

But we don't HAVE to - we do it cause we WANT to! We don't own boats or motorcycles (well maybe) - or vacation homes - we have recording studios

WRT Vanilla - it has to have the features that (2)s want or they will move on. $899 to the (1) crowd with limited features - I agree this will erode. But don;t forget that a key market for the high end stuff (at least so I think! ) is the (2)'s...

Yup - exactly. There's significant money in this group, but it is easy for it to go elsewhere if we're unsatisfied.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Chingy

Yup - exactly. There's significant money in this group, but it is easy for it to go elsewhere if we're unsatisfied.

Avid's issue is significant profit. What good is dominating a market were you can't break even selling at a competitive price?

[noiseboyuk]

While everyone argues over the (2)s, I think (3) needs to be split into music and post. 3A - music and 3B - post. I can't think of a rational reason why 3A should need to stick with PTHD, and I don't think they will. With my music head on, PT HD doesn't interest me at all. I can do anything I need to in C8 Pro - and much, much more. Talking purely music, PTHD is the poor relation, imo, despite being almost 10x the purchase cost and 6x annual costs. It matters a lot less if you don't use VIs, mind but nevertheless I think we'll start too see PT's universal dominance in SOS's contemporary music features erode as the change from the bottom filters inexorably upwards.

3B is much more difficult - I think it's gonna happen, but it will take a lot longer. But with my Post hat on, I'll perhaps be taking more of a serious look at the next release of Nuendo.

But I still don't buy the premise that all this is how Avid think, casually writing off the music market as an irrelevance. Look at the current marketing deals to old PT7 / 8 owners to upgrade for $199. Why are they doing that if those customers are irrelevant to them? They want as much money as they can get from as many users as they can get at whatever level they will bear. Cashflow dictates that this needs to be regular, guaranteed income. I guess the investors are buying the strategy, it must look great on their powerpoints as all these users jump on board eye-watering annual subs charges. I don't think the market will reflect those powerpoints, however. As PT moves into the mandatory annual subs / rental model, I think the move away from PT for 2 and increasingly 3A is inevitable.

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

For Vanilla the option if you don't renew the plan in time is to either stay on t+he current version that you were at the time the plan expired. pay the licensing that will be shared in time. Or buy a new license which comes bundled with a year of SAS. For HD no news yet.

... pay the licensing that will be shared in time.

If you're thinking of being able to pay a "catch up" fee, I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Just to make sure we're talking the same thing...

Assume we are starting with the purchase of a new one-year "vanilla" service plan for $899 on January 1, 2017.

On or before January 1, 2018, you could extend your service plan for another year for $199 but you elect not to...your license has become perpetual so you can continue use it .

If you had renewed your service plan on January 1, 2018 by paying $199, on or before January 1, 2019, you could extend your service plan for another year for $199. Since you had already converted to a perpetual license on January 1, 2018, you will continue to use the same perpetual license.

On January 1, 2020, your original service plan, purchased on January 1, 2017, has now been expired for two years. You want to purchase a new service plan and are expecting to pay $199 x 2 (years) or $398.

I don't think that is going to happen. You are going to purchase a new plan...I imagine you will have to pay the same $899 you did when you bought your first new service plan January 1, 2017.

I could be wrong (although I never have been before ) if the difference between $398 and $899 was going to be a big one for me, I'd budget $899.

First, if one of Avid's goals in moving to the service plan model is to insure a continuous and repeatable revenue stream, and I think it is, allowing a "re-up when you want to" model is antithetical to that goal.

Second, it would be a pain in the azz for Avid to keep track of who has what when and don't you dare even pause until you finish reading that

Third, Avid is a US corporation, subject to US accounting rules, while Waves is an Israeli corporation, subject to a different set of accounting rules, so No! Waves doesn't do it. (see, I knew you were going to say, "But Waves does it!)

Again, this is just my opinion...everyone is entitled to their own, but I would urge you to do your own research before forming one, or more importantly, before setting up a budget over the next couple of years...

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I work for a thousand a day if I believe in the project...

What a ripoff!

I'll do it for $999.99 per day, plus I'm prettier than he is...

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by ronwasserman

I don't think they care about that part of the market anymore.

Do you think we could get a group buy on Dumpsters?

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by seanbil

For sure. That became even more evident the day they decided to price a new Pro Tools | Crippleware license at $899 and then ask for an additional $299 every year after just to maintain it. If they were serious about conquering the entire market, they'd have priced it accordingly and/or made it a lot less crippled.

As much as they may not want to admit, this software is for post and might as well be called "Post Tools". I think the days of it going back to being touted for what it really is rather than what it is not is probably a lot closer on the horizon than what they'd want us to believe. As another pointed out earlier, the market will determine its ultimate fate and not the will of the marketers.

For the past six years Avid pretty much spent the entire time rebuilding the wheel for the benefit of post, meanwhile, its competitors steamed along building innovative tools for artists. There's definitely room for both, but it's getting a lot clearer where things are heading for PT from where I stand. It is what it is. So I'll probably continue to use my perpetual 10 & CPT licenses for as far as they'll take me and then just let them fade to black.

The "vanilla" service plan renewal is $199, not $299...