I remember at the turn of the century buying Music Creator that came with mid i cables that were suppose to work in a serial port at Best Buy for $40. Then Cakewalk gave an offer to upgrade to Home Studio. That was their downfall for me since it came with an entry level FL Studio. Then I moved up to Sonar 2 XL. After Sonar 5 I started to dislike the cluttered GUI and the forum. That's when I started to look at that small version of FL. I liked their support despite not being a fan of pattern based DAWs. Cakewalk was getting like Finale with the yearly upgrade. Usually I'd get suckered into upgrades with nice 3rd party apps. They only license of Sonar I do not have is 6.
I'll never forget the shock of Cakewalk shutting down. Other developers were giving condolences as if someone died. I doubt there were celebrations for one less competitor. There was probably some fear that a DAW existing for 30 years ended it could happen to them.
I never doubted that someone would pick this software back up.