Nice post, Bill -- an interesting new twist on the conversation.
I'll preface my response with these basic statements:
Apple is having a wildly successful run in the consumer space, where they have delivered huge innovations by throwing out the rules, ignoring past conventions, and re-imagining existing product categories.
Apple used to cater to creative professionals, but this is a niche, and there is certainly more growth potential for them in the mass market. I fully expect that they will "support" professionals in the future to whatever extent professionals are able to integrate Apple products in their businesses. I doubt they will actively develop for creative professionals with complex needs they way they used to. This is more or less the same "suitable for professional use" versus "built for professional use" distinction I outlined in my first post.
I don't blame Apple for not being interested in serving my niche needs anymore. They are following the money in broader, lower-margin markets, and doing very well. It's just business.
[Bill Davis] "But one of the "keys" here is which is the question the broadest market needs answered?"
This doesn't have to be the question, but it's the direction Apple has chosen. They are trying to offer their product relatively cheaply to as large a market as possible.
Another equally valid approach is to tailor a much more targeted offering to a much smaller potential market -- but selling with higher margins. If Apple takes itself out of competition in some of these niches by not offering needed features, Adobe and Avid would be free to raise their prices (which already reflect a premium over FCPX's new low, low price). Apple is only a dangerous competitor if they are able to radically undercut for comparable value, as they did with FCP Classic -- but given the intangible good will they've burned in some circles, they will have hard time offering comparable perceived value even if/when they get the feature set up.
[Bill Davis] "Walter, I want you to have the solutions you need. I even want you to have an array of choices on how you solve your needs. But (and it's a HUGE "but") - I don't want you to have those solutions if giving those to you means that every single company that makes the solutions has to limit their thinking to how they are going to meet your needs. Because your needs are niche needs. And it's a shrinking niche. I actually think that is how innovation gets stifled."
Bill, I don't think the whole industry should be driven by my specific needs any more than I think the whole industry should be driven by the "broad middle" and democratization you've espoused. Fortunately, we have a functioning market that is doing a great job of ensuring all of our needs are met at various price points and on various platforms.
I can't understand your suggestion that innovation gets stifled by trying to build better mousetraps for demanding customers.
I assure you that FCPX does not represent the sum total of innovation in post production. What about products like RED or the Ki Pro? Software packages like NUKE or SCRATCH? DAMs like CatDV or the erstwhile Artbox/Final Cut Server? NLE features like ScriptSync or the Mercury Playback Engine, or Avid's and Quantel's experiments in cloud editorial?
[Bill Davis] "And in ways that those competitors CERTAINLY can't do if they have to keep their focus on a shrinking (albeit high end) market such as episodic TV and feature shops."
This isn't my market, so I really don't know -- but how is this shrinking? I know that big traditional post facilities are hurting, but aren't smaller shops picking up tons of work here? There are more television channels than ever, they all want fresh content, and
TV viewership still dominates video consumption [link].
There are also plenty of non-broadcast shops like mine, or plenty of freelancers, all spending several thousands of dollars a year on software licensing.
Do these numbers compare with the size of the mass market? Certainly not -- but it doesn't mean there's no money or room for innovation in niche markets. Consider the classic Honda/Mercedes Benz analogy, which I think neatly addresses both the opportunities for profit and innovation in smaller, high-margin markets.
[Bill Davis] "So while FCP-X may do nothing for you right now. If it catches fire over the next few years, It is GOING to drive innovation across the industry in ways that I simple don't think it's competitors can do."
Such as?
And so what? My whole argument since FCPX was released was that it's better to be nimble than faithful. I'm not adopting FCPX exclusively, but I'm not ignoring it either -- otherwise I wouldn't be here.
[Bill Davis] "That's a pretty scary scenario for editing as an industry."
Or exciting!
[Bill Davis] "I just think it's time to be very careful out there."
Meaning what? Prices are at an all-time low, development and release cycles are shorter than ever, and excluding FCPX, openness is at an all-time high. There's never been a time in our industry when the penalties for choosing the "wrong" system have been lower.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at
Keen Live
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