Re: The Fog Thickens

[Craig Seeman] "If Avid sits still, they're going to be finished sooner or later. The question for me is do MC/Symphony have some value in the market? Of course maybe if some see it as shrinking value it may well simply go away."

The big question is, are Media Composer and Symphony still products that can attract new users at a rate at least sufficient to replace users who switch to other NLEs or decide they'd rather grow organic heirloom tomatoes than edit video? And I mean real new users, not FCP 7 defectors -- to the extent that occurs it's a one-time bonus, not a path to long-term viability.

I just have trouble seeing it. About the only new editors I can imagine adopting Avid's tools are film school students who buy into the "It's more professional" angle. That's a market, but I don't think it's much of one, numerically. Some established post houses might slowly add new seats, but traditional post houses are one of the top ten dying industries, so that's not exactly a growth opportunity. What's more, Avid's traditional pricing on MC/Symphony is clearly unsustainable in a world where FCP X is $300 and many get Premiere 'for free' because it comes with a copy of Creative Suite they'd have bought anyway. So as bad as things are now, these product lines could be looking at significant revenue declines.

[Craig Seeman] "If Avid rights the ship it may include a consolidation of MC/Symphony and that may be the plan with the current Symphony crossgrade upgrade."

Yeah, they'd be crazy not to consolidate.

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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

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