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AVID GOT SOLD

satya

By satya
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Grem

Grem

Posted
Posted

That's a lot of money.

They would need over a million users paying $299 per year, for five years, to get back the initial outlay of capital.

They would need over 2 million users paying $599 per year for two years to make back the initial outlay.

 

That is a lot of dedicated users!!

Full disclosure: I am no financial expert. :)

 

 

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kitekrazy

kitekrazy

Posted
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2 hours ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

https://musictech.com/news/avid-bought-by-stg-for-one-point-four-billion/

AVID acquired by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $1.4 billion

CEO Jeff Rosica hails STG’s “expertise in the technology sector and significant financial and strategic resources”

.

I interpret that as eventually they will find a way to screw over the end user.

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Bapu

Bapu

Posted
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Just now, Bapu said:

Agreed. ProTolls is probably not even 20% of all AVID products.

That said, as long as my perpetual license remains valid I will continue with annual Maintenace fee of $199 or less. If maintenance fees rise too high, I may just freeze wherever I left off. ProTolls is like 3rd or 4th on my most used DAWs.

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Lionel

Lionel

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Grem said:

That's a lot of money.

They would need over a million users paying $299 per year, for five years, to get back the initial outlay of capital.

They would need over 2 million users paying $599 per year for two years to make back the initial outlay.

 

That is a lot of dedicated users!!

Full disclosure: I am no financial expert. :)

 

 

Or, just increase the price of subscriptions ?

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Lionel

Lionel

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Zo said:

I gave upo on PT long timle ago , keeping my licence for cours ...but might get rid of it even !!

Subscriptions were a deal-breaker for me.  Too much competition in the DAW arena to offer subs.  If they ever go back to just perpetual licences, I'd most likely be a Pro Fool again ?

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Bapu

Bapu

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, Lionel said:

If they ever go back to just perpetual licences, I'd most likely be a Pro Fool again ?

Um, maybe not perpetual only but you can still buy a new perpetual license Pro Tools Studio Perpetual

 

And, since I was already in perpetual, when the chite hit the fan, they reverted back to offering perpetual licenses, they said all existing (under maintenance) are still perpetual.

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iNate

iNate

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Posted
On 8/11/2023 at 7:38 PM, Lionel said:

Subscriptions were a deal-breaker for me.  Too much competition in the DAW arena to offer subs.  If they ever go back to just perpetual licences, I'd most likely be a Pro Fool again ?

You can still buy Perpetual Licenses, but the manner in which they handle support and updates means that their software is practically subscription de facto, anyways.

I think Windows users are safer than macOS users.  If you're on macOS, you basically can't risk not keeping the support contract running because any fixes to allow it to run on new versions of macOS (which are eventually going to hit you, since you can't keep running the same machine forever) will force you to either renew the support (if possible) or move to a subscription.  The risk is high because of how volatile Avid can be regarding re-upping lapsed support contracts for Perpetual Licenses.

I think you either have to accept their business model or opt out of it in its entirety, even though you can still buy perpetual licenses.

Every time they "kill perpetual licenses," third parties continue to sell them until Avid inevitably "bring them back" ?  I do think the only Perpetual Media Composer Licenses you still purchase buy are Educational.

I think Media Composer is a more important product to Avid than Pro Tools, at this point.  Post houses will continue to use Pro Tools because of how it plugs into the Avid ecosystem, but Studios all have viable options unless they are using hardware that only works with Pro Tools.  For Post, work can be done in Pro Tools, and Media Composer can natively open the Pro Tools session when they send it back.  The entire workflow works nicely there and Pro Tools integrates with Avid Storage/Collaboration systems that they have in place for those market segments.  I don't see anything displacing it, and a large reason for that is the fact that no other NLEs have been able to compete well against Media Composer in those market segments.  Media Composer props up Pro Tools in the Film Post market, which trickles down to other market segments.

While I don't absolutely hate Media Composer in terms of workflow - it works very well for what it is designed to do -  I dislike how it is designed to be installed and run on end-user machines as if it is on a turnkey system.

I actually think Avid keeps their software expensive purposely - so they don't have to support the consumer market.  Instead of selling to that market at cheaper prices, they simply sell to their primary market segment at a premium to make up for it - since those users are more likely to invest in other Avid hardware and services.

Their support contracts guarantee specific turnaround times in each tier, so they wouldn't be able to support millions of consumer-level products... and they would get absolutely swamped due to the way their software is installed and runs on end-user machines.  Even teh Standard Support's 24-48hr turnaround would destroy them just with the volume of installation support queries.  In the up-market segments where they are dominant, turnkey systems are more common, and those system eliminate a lot of the issues that would cause the average consumer to contact support for help.  They're also rented/leased and the hardware + software is supported as a single entity/product.

It will be interesting to see what they do with the software, but I don't think Pro Tools ranks super high as the market segments where it is most used see less innovation overall and studios are fine sitting on older versions of Pro Tools for several years.  There is less need for aggressive development there, particularly since they are not really aiming to be a generalist on the level of Cubase or Logic Pro.

In the video market, people are forced to upgrade by virtue of technological inertia.  It's why something like Photoshop CS6 is actually still very viable to use for graphics design, but Premiere Pro CS6... ... not so much.

That would also explain why Avid has been MOST aggressive pushing the subscription model with Media Composer than Sibelius or Pro Tools.

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Bruno de Souza Lino

Bruno de Souza Lino

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 8/11/2023 at 4:00 PM, Bapu said:

Agreed. ProTolls is probably not even 20% of all AVID products.

We don't have to speculate that. Avid is a public traded company and their financial records are public.

https://ir.avid.com/financial-information

One point of concern here is that I did some quick research and STG only owns stuff which has nothing to do with music. While that doesn't necessarily mean they'll screw the pooch, it doesn't paint them in a good picture.

Edited by Bruno de Souza Lino
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User 905133

User 905133

Posted
Posted (edited)
23 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

We don't have to speculate that. Avid is a public traded company and their financial records are public.

https://stg.com/news/stg-raises-4-2-billion-in-oversubscribed-fund-vii/

https://stg.com/news/avid-technology-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-be-acquired-by-an-affiliate-of-stg-for-1-4-billion/

Quote

Stockholders to Receive $27.05 Per Share in Cash

Transaction Represents 32.1% Premium to Avid’s Unaffected Share Price on May 23, 2023

Avid to Become a Privately Held Company Upon Completion of the Transaction [emphasis added]

It seems to have jumped up to $26.66 at the close of trading Friday, August 11th.   

Anyone who bought shares of AVID between Summer 2003 and the end of 2005 and had been holding on all this time hoping for another bubble might feel lucky to be getting $27.05 after the long slump. 

Edited by User 905133
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Bruno de Souza Lino

Bruno de Souza Lino

Posted
Posted

At least on their last report, they list an operational cost of around 250k with profits of about 400k, which is not a lot considering the size of the company and the amount of products they sell.

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

https://stg.com/news/stg-raises-4-2-billion-in-oversubscribed-fund-vii/

https://stg.com/news/avid-technology-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-be-acquired-by-an-affiliate-of-stg-for-1-4-billion/

It seems to have jumped up to $26.66 at the close of trading Friday, August 11th.   

Anyone who bought shares of AVID between Summer 2003 and the end of 2005 and had been holding on all this time hoping for another bubble might feel lucky to be getting $27.05 after the long slump. 

I was refering more to Avid's 2022 finantial report

https://ir.avid.com/static-files/2c6b49ef-aa5c-4f5d-ae9f-5ef61271aad7

Around page 40, they list their gross revenue and operational costs.

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User 905133

User 905133

Posted
Posted

No controversy here.  I was just adding information / sources. 

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

Avid to Become a Privately Held Company Upon Completion of the Transaction 

 Privatizing publicly traded companies brings changes.

Disclosure: I have never purchased or sold shares of AVID. 

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