Avid - "Fool me once..."

Dear Avid,

It appears that Apple has decided to abandon professional users of Final Cut Pro. Good for you. You have been given a reprieve. Don’t screw it up.

I hope you have a long memory, because your former users do. Do you remember when users of Media Composer left en masse for Final Cut Pro and your company nearly died as a result? I’m sure that there were as many reasons for switching as there were users.

My reason? I got sick of your attitude. Yes, you basically invented non-linear editing and we all owe you a debt of gratitude. You never let us forget it. You became unapproachable and arrogant – ironically, very much like Steve Jobs. After we spent over $100,000 on two of your editing systems, you never really knew us and didn’t care to.

For your second life, why don’t you try to do things a little differently? Instead of adversarial relationships with your customers, why don’t you try acting like we’re valuable to you?

For instance, I found it offensive that after spending $50,000 for an editing system, you required me to cough up an exorbitant annual service contract fee or $200 per incident to talk to a support person. How about a year of free support? You won't lose money. Most of your users are fairly smart people and The Cow is here for us too.

A credit card number as collateral for a defective board exchange? That really made me feel special. How about trusting the customers who have placed their trust in your products?

An ’80s era dongle? Yeah, I guess we’re all thieves lying in wait. Again, a little trust?

And two months after the last $50,000 editor we bought from you, you obsoleted all the Meridien hardware we had just bought and laughed when we asked for a way to upgrade. Boy did I feel like a chump.

Why don’t you take a few lessons from companies that do things right - like AJA. There is no charge for support calls – no service contract required. They are happy to talk to you about any problems you might have when using their products. They’ll even help you troubleshoot the products of others. They don’t mind sending replacement parts for troubleshooting and they won’t ask for a credit card before they do.

The way I figure it, Apple has given you a gift. You’ll likely have one more chance with many of us. But as the old saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me”. I'm probably gonna give you another chance and it’ll be the last one. Don’t blow it.

Sincerely,
Former and probable future Avid user, DR