While reading the D.I, thread it occurred to me to play devil's advocate as an exercise and that is what the following is:
1.What if Avid's long range projections show a quantum shift away from high end systems to lower end and "Cheap" systems? Perhaps the acquisition of Pinnacle fits in here? Where is the money and what about loyalty to high end customers?
2.What if Avid thinks they would rather be the Wal-Mart of video editing than the high-end industry leader? What if they want to position themselves at a lower price point on volume sales but NOT reduce the price points on the "high end" stuff. What if they are positioning for a major push to raise overall revenues by moving more product and less high end stuff.
3. What if they have decided that for those truly desiring fully integrated high-end systems do not care as much about price but just features. The kind of users who do not mind having to buy dual boot or any other expenses as long as they get the features they desire? [Have you ever noticed the dearth of subscribers for the movie industry hub in Southern California? Those folks are too busy raking in money to worry about price or at least they used to be].
4. If the price points and structuring of the entire Avid organization did shift lower how many heads would roll because the old commission structures would collapse?
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And finally I republish my rant from April 2004. How far off was I? :
I believe that DS must improve at an exponential rate in order to stay
at the "high-end box" price point [Iwas talking continued development here].
But their competitors must only improve steadily and not so rapidly.
I am not sure how long AVID can stay out front.
I have no love for FCP or any other system above DS but they are
beginning to more than nibble at the heels of the "high end" systems and doing it
quite effectively. There were many editing systems at NAB and they have
nothing to loose and everything to gain by taking little pieces of AVID's
business.
The MOST important thing for the health of AVID is that the visionaries
be allowed to develop cutting edge product and keep the system so advanced
that it is worth PAYING the high end price. Not every product has a budget
like Titanic or The Lord of the Rings. There must not be a barrier between
the creative/end-user and the R&D folks that put fuel in the gas tank of
the AVID product.
I am not so sure that is the case with all of AVID's ventures. I am
not slamming AVID. At least they had enough forethought to buy Softimage
when they saw the hand writing on the wall. Perhaps they would like to absorb
some more up and coming competitors but some, such as FCP/Apple are not for sale
are they? [Could not resist:-)].
Having been around for a few years I have seen RCA, Ampex, GE, Grass
Valley [US], Richmond Hill, ITC, EECO, Abekas, etc, etc, and many companies
come and go and their failures have always had one central thread;
Whenever the creative spark went elsewhere or offshore because creative people were not
sufficiently valued then the company eventually disappeared or was absorbed by the
competition.
One thing I do see happening more with some of AVID's competitors is
that the end users are being valued not for how much they spend on systems but
because, in the words of Sam Walton "The customer is always right". Their small
budgets to buy non AVID editing systems are treated with just as much respect
as the huge amounts we spent on DS. They are appreciated.
AVID Corp. is huge and may be breaking even [Well we know that is troublesome]. But they are getting so
large that the corporation and all the middle men require huge system price
tags in order to stay afloat. It is as if the little old lady who lived in a
shoe had too many children and eventually could not feed them all.
What is the answer for AVID? They had better cut and streamline to the
barest essentials in all areas except R&D, the creative areas, and
streamlined marketing. They should market systems that have all the features of the
little guys for a matched price and that create AVID compatible files. Keep
the high end systems but compete on price point as well as features.
2 or 3 ¢ worth of comment from the back seat
And with that I bid adieu to the DS(at)softimage.com list.
It has been a good long run folks. Something to be proud of.
Howard
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