Re: So if Avid goes under, then what?

[Oliver Peters] "The key ingredient is that Quantel has successfully marketed a value-added product line and restructured costs to match."

And Avid hasn't and shows no signs of doing so.


[Oliver Peters] "One is to go back to private ownership. Possibly with venture capital backing."

That would work. The shedding of pay roll and the lack of debt makes them a good target for "somebody." The key piece is a viable business model. Without that they fail. So far they are without that as it stands.


[Oliver Peters] "You could, for instance, sell off just the NLE software to a company like BMD. Then re-package Avid as a services-solutions vendor dealing with enterprise customers for turnkey news/SAN/edit installation."

This too would make sense. Again I don't think Avid products will disappear. I think they are a good acquisition target and every step they are prioritizing seems to indicate that will happen at some point.

Avid, as they now exist, can't be around much longer (2 years maybe) whether it's under the same brand name, going private with venture capital, being bought by piecemeal or entirely by other established video company. It's going to change.

For me the biggest question is how the services-solutions aspect will be handled.