Re: So if Avid goes under, then what?

[Craig Seeman] "[Gustavo Bermudas] "it's hard to assess if buying Avid will be a good investment for Blackmagic. "

Blackmagic has no problem with free and cheap to move people up their chain. Resolve Lite. Cinema camera including full Resolve and Ultrascope. For BMD it gives them a fully integrated post solution."

Remember there was initially great consernation about what DaVinci had to do with Blackmagic's core business. Well, guessing BMD's core business anymore is a mug's game. The fact is that Grant buys what interests him, based largely around his experience as a CUSTOMER of all this stuff. His first job was running a DaVinci, so he jumped at the chance to buy the company and fix it.

What then? Dropped the price through the floor, improved the interface on two rapidly-developed upgrades, took support to a level it had never been, breathed life not just into Resolve but to an expansion of grading in general. I mean, grading was already blooming, but bloomed even more. His timing was perfect, even if it looked like plain old insanity at the time.

So what might happen with Avid? Dropped price, new interface, better service, pour some energy into a market ready for new energy, even if it looks crazy.

I asked him about buying Avid point blank. He laughed and COMPLETELY CHANGED THE SUBJECT. Dude. Laughed and COMPLETELY CHANGED THE SUBJECT. But he talked a lot about how glad he was that Avid opened up, because when he was a customer, he HATED what Avid was doing to him, screwing him over price on a closed system.

That's what I love about Grant. Very blunt, not afraid to break balls, views everything from the perspective of a customer who, no matter how often he's been screwed, remains delighted with this business.

I know that there are people who have real problems with BMD, but I promise that this interview will be the most fun you'll have related to this business in the past year.

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/blackmagic-designs-grant-petty-we-w...

Anyway, I doubt that it'll happen for reasons that others have mentioned, but "incompatiblity with BMD's core business" is NOT among them. He's trying to run the table, and something big is going to happen sooner or later.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I'm, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.