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Apple Buys Emagic
sapporo writes "Apple has apparently bought Emagic, developers of Audio Logic, music production software used by 200,000 people worldwide. Emagic will operate as a wholly
owned division of Apple, and the Windows versions of their software will be discontinued on September 30, 2002. Whoa!"
This is not only good news, but great news. Pardon me for feeling gleeful that Windows users will now feel the way some of us Mac users have felt in the past. It's about time that the Windows world lost a piece of software which is important to them. Although there are still options for them such as Digidesign'sProTools and Motu's Digital Performer, at least I can bask in the schadenfreude I have knowing they've lost a fantastic application like Logic Audio.
On to something more serious now, will this acquisition be good for Apple ? Certainly they've got the majority of Logic users, but can they improve upon this product to the degree that it will cause the Windows users to switch? I'm not sure whether they can. Getting someone to switch platforms when there are other solutions available is obviously not easy. But some of these audio applications take a lot of experience to master, and it may be cheaper in the long run for someone to buy a PowerMac instead of having to learn one of the other available applications for PC.
I do hope that everyone benefits from this, and that the small audio guy who only has a PC isn't left completely out in the cold, I do realize not everyone can afford a Mac. Hopefully the existing user base will not be immediately left out in the cold when they drop PC support. There should be some modicum of respect for the users who helped make Emagic as popular as it is today.
While I don't exactly approve of this "buy software and then kill the Windows branch" stragety, it's interesting to see it happening. As a shareholder, I'm curious to see if all these purchases are truly being made to improve Apple software, or just to limit Windows users access to such software.
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Let "them" know you're not a terrorist!
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Digital Performer overview can be found here.
This will probably mean that the Macintosh version of Cubase will die...
As a Mac user I love this kind of news. I do hope, however, that any ensuing product from Apple using Logic software isn't just "pro" stuff. In other words, I want an audio "iMovie" not just an audio "Final Cut Pro."
A free-with-purchase-of-a-Mac audio application... what would it look like? 8 channel recording, mixing, auido cd burning right from the app...what else? And what about microphone/midi input? I just bought Deck LE 3.0 (waiting for the 3.5 update for OS X!)... perhaps it would be a bit like that?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
1.Good strategy for Apple to ensure that it can't be killed no matter what.
2.A bit of Job's vengeance for Billg screwing him over all those years?
3.A bad idea to discontinue the Windows versions as this will surely encourage Billg to retaliate (no OfficeX updates?)
4.A good idea to get the market to sit up and notice those fancy Apple samba footwork moves?
5.An omen of more to come?
Well now that apple does control the home/semi-pro video market (they still need to kill premiere), they're going after a second "niche" market : audio.
.....
They already have iTunes/iPod, they Get Emagic, now who's NeXT ? Steinberg ?
When apple will hold the Audio market, they'll just need to push a little more their switch capaing.
The funiest about this this is that 10/15 years ago apple had to sign some contract with Apple records (no URL to give) the record compagny that did the beattles, in order to keep their name : to keep their name they had to limit the Sound capabilities of all apple Hardware
none Yet.
off the windows version is fine with me, but when it is 35% (inferred from statement that macintosh is 65%) of revenues sounds rather stupid.
not to be a troll, but it is stupid business decisions like this that hampers the growth of apple. steve jobs is good for some things, but i don't think long range planning is one of them (he is great for revitalizing the 'look and feel' of things though).
i wonder if stuff like this is filed into the memory of bill gates when he negotiates with apple? it could be on a list of reasons to discontinue ms office, or IE (no great loss that one).
As a registered user of Logic Audio Platinum for Windows, I'm very dissapointed with this. I've spent hundreds of dollars over the years buying and upgrading this software, only to have it discontinued right out from under me.
I'm kind of in shock right now - this just sucks! Good move for Apple, though - Emagic makes great software and is a well-run company.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
Apologies for the rant .. but I bought logic for windows and it NEVER bloody worked .. so as far as I'm concerned this is about time.. and they should give all their RIPPED off windows customers a refund (and pigs might fly)..
.. it never worked. I upgraded many times (usually at my cost) and it still never worked.. it wouldn't work with some video card or version of windows or whatever.
.. and then CUBASE!! .. ahh cubase on windows is unreal.
.. midi with transfer rates slower than my modem .. and less ability to keep a tight rhythm than a virgin on prom night leaves me wondering why they've never put a bloody ethernet point into some music gear!
My history with emagic on windows is awful.
I used to be a very happy Atari ST owner running emagic's Notator and then fell for their marketing about the windows logic being the new best thing.. so I bought it.. I was a student at the time so it cost me an arm and a leg (or so it felt at the time)
I then found cakewalk (which I always found difficult to take seriously but it was heaps better than logic)
Unfortunately
Apple has purchased 2 companies with compositing software and now a company with audio software.
Where are they getting all this money???
And from what I understand, in all cases they are looking at discontinuing Windows support and posibly Linux as well.
I am all for Apple having strong authoring tools, but to buy out software that people rely on to do work and then drop support for their platform is pretty shadey. It is forcing us to move to a Mac or to find some other software, and in some cases, all the other software is a few generations behind.
I may not mind getting a Mac, but please don't force me into it.
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Sell that thing on ebay and get yourself a mac. You know you deserve it.
Never worked? What are you talking about? Logic has been fantastic at releasing software concurrently with OS's. Their patches were always released for Mac and Wintel at the same time. Logic 5.0 has worked flawlessly on both Mac and PC for me.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/a/aapl.html
cash: $12.17/share
shares outstanding: 355.7 million
total cash on hand: $4,328,869,000
As of their most recent earnings statement (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/apr/17earnin gs.html), Apple says they have $4.3 billion in cash on hand. I don't think where the money comes from is a problem for them right now...
> PC version consumed 70% of their development and support costs
That seems unlikely.
Cross platform software means portable software and will/should mean that when the next major OS paradigm shift happens it will be easier to update your application. In a well architectured program the fixes will not be platform specific and the project would be generally forced to be better designed in the first place.
Support costs for windows could probably be dramatically reduced by no longer supporting the windows 9x versions (flakey crud that they are and i still use more than i would like)
I think it would make sense to offer a lesser/crippled/promotional version of Appple software for windows and using the same user interface for both.
Apple are already provide windows versions of products like Claris aka AppleWorks and Quicktime for windows.
http://www.apple.com/appleworks/
I feel much safer knowing that a program works on more than one platform and it increases my confidence that the program will find its niche and survive. Who knows what platform we wil be using in 10 years time, the less portable a program is the less likely it is to be ported to the latest and greatest Operating System (even then see how long it took befor Adobe ported apps to OS X).
Only the Germans would have such a great word.
Word of the Day for Wednesday May 10, 2000:
schadenfreude \SHAHD-n-froy-duh\, noun:
A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.
The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
--Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin." New York Times, February 5, 2000
Often the people Pi met in Mendocino wanted to hear these terrible stories, the personal disasters, or they quoted them back to her from what they'd read, with a certain glitter in their eyes -- giving Pi the chance to wonder again as she once had in a Wittgenstein seminar why there wasn't a word in English for Schadenfreude, that very human pleasure taken in other people's misery.
--Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch
If self-replicating e-commerce baby tycoons get on your nerves, it's schadenfreude time. It's true that the Nasdaq rebounded after its staggering loss Tuesday. Nonetheless, what AP described as "the most volatile day ever for U.S. stocks" left a distinctly bearish aftertaste.
--"Market Motion Sickness." The Industry Standard's Media Grok, April 5, 2000
I hope this will be an eye-opener for many users of commercial software. This is what may happen to any such software. The only guarantee is to do like the electronics industry does, and prefer stuff that has more than one provider. In software the only way to do this is to go with Open Source. That always leaves open the possibility of hiring someone to continue to support the stuff, no matter what companies get sold, close down, or change strategy.
In Murphy We Turst
"I do hope that everyone benefits from this, and that the small audio guy who only has a PC isn't left completely out in the cold, I do realize not everyone can afford a Mac."
What exactly is the problem here? I get so sick of hearing this nonsense all the time? You'd think I was a multi-millionaire if I were to admit that-gasp, I own a Macintosh! (shudders)
This story is all about a move that Apple is making to get a corner on a very small share of a very small "market" as the suits like to call it.
And we're reading along and getting your expertise, which is worth more than a 2 in my book , but what's the big deal anyway. So after gathering in all this knowledge about of people that, last time I checked, weren't exactly rolling in dough, because, big surprise, they're not on a retainer from Lopez and Spears, but just love the music.
And so we've got these starving musicians living off their significant others in cheap walkups in The City or LA and......they running out and gobbling up these luxury item computers, Macintosh by name!!
Does anyone else feel cheated when you read this little insert of gratuitous comment in what otherwise seems to be a decent comment? I mean the cost of car insurance for a year is higher in some states than it is for some computer, PC or Macintosh.
So could we go on to the real meat here, skip the gratuitous "too expensive" slam at Macs or "they'll cheap junk" at PCs and talk about software and hardware?
stage4 has a short article about today's announcement that Apple has aquired Emagic who make popular music applications such as Logic Audio.
The piece talks about what this will mean for users and how it will benefit Apple. The article ends by calling for Apple to release a rack mounted G4 designed for recording studio use.
I've been using Logic Audio Platinum for a number of years, first running under Windows 98 and then under Mac OS9. Though it has a somewhat high learning curve (setting up the environment you want, etc.) I have to say IMHO Logic Audio is far and above my favorite program for professional audio. Now that Apple is buying Emagic, hopefully they'll focus on getting a OSX version as LAP doesn't run under classic :o(
"Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space..."
YHBT. FOAD. HAND.
I do not know how great the products made by this company are but they have to be the best products in ther market niche in order for this strategy to be successful.
If Window customers can just buy another similar product (for Windows) it doesn't make a lot of sense for Apple to cut itself from its Windows customers.
More importantly, Apple's move highlights one thing: the fight against Windows isn't over! For my part I just thought that for whatever the task at hand you could use a Mac or a Windows box, that there was no real difference apart from personal preferences.
With these aquisitions Apple is trying to position the Mac as the (if possible 'only') platform of choice for specific tasks (mainly multimedia tasks I believe).
This is how Steve jobs is planning on gaining more makert shares. He wants to build a global value proposition that will make the Mac the only real choice for making professional jobs. I think this strategy makes sens.
So this is what they mean when they say "find your niche and own it."
What Would the Fab Five Do?
I get my morning coffee every day from a coffee shop down at the corner. The coffee shop owner sells his store to another company who only serves coffe in cups that are made from recycled cow dung. Do I try the new poop drink or do I just go a couple extra blocks out of my way to get some normal (yet slightly different than what I am used to) coffee served in a poop-free cup?
The FSF strives to create the same situation as you are describing. The FSF wants free software to be the best. If it is the best then people will use it because it is the best tool for the job.
Take a look at the FSF Web site. They go into this subject quite deeply. The perspective is a little different. They expand on how using non-free software enslaves the users.
with the recent purchases, and likely forthcoming purchases, as well as new hardware and a g5 on the 12 month horizon, apple will most certainly not be in the position of a couple years ago. i swtiched to windows2000 just to get familiar with the eventual os. productivity dropped quite a bit, i have to say. but, when these applications are bundled and linked correctly--adobe with photoshop and illustrator--apple will be in an unbelievably great position with respect to media software. the prices will likely be lowered also, which is always nice. but, unlike ms other software will not disappear or prevented from working well. i doubt that qbase is going anywhere. i would imagine that similar percentages in terms of os breakdown exist. steinberg has a loyal following.
I don't fully understand the shut down Windows access to software "strategy" that people keep on bringing up - there are exponentially more winware developers than macware developers in the world. Thinking that someone could "buy up and dry up" winware is a little difficult to swallow. I don't care how much cash on hand you have - it's a futile and senseless task, and one Apple isn't doing.
What they are doing - and quite a few people have pointed this out already - is mimicking the strategy behind their recent successes with iTunes, Final Cut Pro, and DVD Studio Pro: buy someone else's technology, optimize it for your hw and sell it at a (relatively) low price point. iTunes was Soundjam. Final Cut Pro belonged to Macromedia. DVD Studio Pro was developed by Astarte.
Personally, i don't care who wins the "My Billionaire CEO can beat your Billionaire CEO" contest (if there even is one). I'm not important enough to care. I'm just looking forward to seeing what audio editing and video compositing software comes bundled with my next iBook.
SOURCE: Apple Computer, Inc.
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple® (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) today announced it has acquired Emagic, a leading provider of professional software solutions for computer based music production. Emagic's most popular product, Logic, is actively used by over 200,000 musicians around the world. Emagic will operate as a wholly owned division of Apple.
Apple Acquires Emagic
CUPERTINO, Calif. and HAMBURG, Germany, July 1
"Emagic has set the industry standard for professional music creation and production," said Sina Tamaddon, Apple's senior vice president of Applications. "We're very excited to have the Emagic team join Apple and create more amazing products for musicians."
Macintosh®-based products account for over 65 percent of Emagic's current revenues. Emagic's Windows-based product offerings will be discontinued on September 30, 2002.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
This press release contains certain "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from the expectations contained herein. The forward-looking statements contained herein include statements about the consummation of the transaction with Emagic and benefits of the pending transaction with Emagic. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include the inability to obtain regulatory approvals and the inability to successfully integrate the Emagic business. Apple Computer is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple's PR website ( www.apple.com/pr/ ), or call Apple's Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.
Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE: Apple Computer, Inc.
Maybe you should have bought a Mac from the start?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
As has been pointed out here, buying up software companies and killing their Windoze versions is a good way to annoy users, unless there is a process by which they can be encouraged to make the transition to Macs as painlessly as possible.
The whole SWITCH campaign may be part of this, but I'd hope they're going to do much more. With these companies come their lists of registered users. I would not be surprised if Apple didn't offer favourable deals on hardware purchase to help users of these packages move from Windows to Mac. This is one way to reduce the bad PR that comes from such, frankly, Microsoft-like actions, and it could even be turned into good PR given the right spin.
But are they going to do this?
- Overpriced proprietary hardware
- No way to upgrade
- Poor price/performance ratio
- Sloppy security
- Gay user base
I'm sorry, but when I show up for my local AUG meeting,I don't want to be hit on by the boys in pink.
"Dude, you're getting a Mac!"
Lies about crimes
Real musicians don't need computers.
Emagic's Logic has one unique advantage over all other audio sequencers - the Environment. This is a patchbay-style event routing development tool. Not (IMO silly) virtual cables as in Reason but logical schematics of devices and event paths. There's active third party development of support for hardware synths, rhythm machines, utilities ... (mostly by tweaky musicians and studio engineers). Environments often have many hundred components. ....
The Environment internals haven't seen much development lately other than a few new modules.
Now imagine that Apple uses this technology to make environment.framework integrating it with low-level midi and audio events and high-level apple events. All developers can publish environment modules.
Talk about digitial hub: doorbell plays your latest riff, a keyboard run starts the coffee, pet door takes a snapshot and mails it to your phone, sprinklers dance,
I guess Apple is trying to build some sort of FCPro/Logic Audio combo that works like the Avid/ProTools one: a complete Audio/Video(/cinema) NLE solution, as the nucleus of a video/cinema postproduction complete solution. One wonders if they'll feel the need to add a 3D app to the mix (a bit overboard I think: there is a good range out there, from the 3DToolkit/Electricimage to Maya, with whisperings of Softimage thinking about porting to Mac OS X).
This is big news, for two reasons:
1. Logic Audio is quickly becoming one of the most used pro audio sequencers. I'm not sure where it stands next to Cubase and Protools (the other two big names), but it has gained a lot of market share lately.
2. We've been waiting for the OS X version of Logic for over a year now. This damn well better mean that it come out really soon, otherwise Apple owns a company that only creates MacOS 9 software!
Apple is really kicking into high gear with the same kind of galling behavior that has angered much of the free world at Microsoft over the years: using a position of power and capital to limit choice in the marketplace.
Historically, Apple has done a decent job of trying to build its success on the strengths of its hardware and software platforms, and should be commended for this. Now, it looks like they are willing to do what they can to force consumers to operate on their hardware no matter what. Previously, Apple's more cut-throat decisions could be seen as specifically targetting Microsoft and company, but the primary victim of this kind of tactic is the consumer.
The most galling thing about this is how this treats Apple's own customers. By buying up this firm, they picked up a non-trivial group of Windows users as customers. They way they greet these new customers amounts to saying, "Thanks you for buying Emagic. Sadly, your choice in platforms doesn't fit Apple's plans for niche market domination. Please reward us for canceling support for the tool you value by buying one of our machines. Otherwise, go check your own filesystems."
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Apple seems to be shooting itself in the foot by getting stuck on hardware. By sacrificing sales of software to non-Apple owners, they are vastly limiting their potential income. I firmly believe they are getting much better margins on their software products, which suggests that they really ought to be using the hardware to sell the software, not vice-versa.
Remember, Emagic sells MIDI and audio interfaces and the superb new Logic Control DAW control surface as well. I'm getting visions of an Apple mixer with an embedded Mac, Logic, CoreAudio plugins, maybe hardware expandability, all in icy white. Like a Mackie Digital 8-Bus, but (maybe) (a little) cheaper.
Oh, who am I kidding. If Apple makes a mixer it'll still cost tons of money.
My take? Apple is driving towards a future of multimedia as structured MPEG-4 streams, with easy multi-platform exchange. Logic already does ProTools' Open Media Format, which has been the closest thing to a DAW interchange format. But a structured multimedia document format, like full MPEG4 profiles, is much more likely to end up in audio manufacturers' hardware too, making for seamless integration between some future Apple version of Logic and those popular Fostex, Akai, Roland, Mackie and Alesis hard-disk recording-studios-in-a-box.
Cubase is good enough. Just like Windows is just good enough. That's why Apple didn't buy Steinberg.
Logic is (except from the user interface point of view, but don't worry, Apple is going to fix that) an excellent and very versatile program that goes WAY further than just putting sounds and midi events in sequence. It's in use by composing professionals, that play around with programmable algorithms.
So if you are happy with Cubase, have fun. If you are serious in making music, from now on you will have to buy a Mac.
When you actually make a profit each quarter, invest in other entities that build your balance sheet and you definitely don't spend more than you consume you will have a growing outstanding balance sheet of positive equity.
Ok I have read almost every post so far and people are forgetting to mention that Apple Doesnt Have good audio cards in their computers, they are all intergrated POS audio. With basicly a in and a out. While windows users have a much larger range of sound cards to use. Yes there is a sblive for the mac but their still is no Macosx drivers for it. Hopefully this new "buy" will make apple think about releasing a more powerfull sound card into their future computers. Also I dont like when apple buys companies because they stop production on the most important thing (flexablity) I bet the only reason Emagic is so big is because of the wide range of platfoms it supports, If apple takes away 80% of their user base it will be a loss for everyone..
keanmarine.com
And I don't believe they ever had a version of it for Windows.
I beleive Apple is dropping the Windows version of Logic Audio because of PC-related support costs, not because it simply wants to make Logic a Mac-only software. Supporting PCs and all the various hardware combinations that can be found on Windows-based computers is a real headache and a major expense for small companies like Emagic. Macs, in contrast, are all made by Apple, and developers can be pretty sure what hardware is at work in each and every model. This is why Emagic's competitor, MOTU, makes Digital Performer, its flagship music sequencing software, Mac only. They don't have to hire a huge PC support staff in a market that is by its nature small and still very Mac dominated.
Apple is a for-profit company. You can bet if the Windows side of Emagic were profitable, Apple wouldn't kill it off. Just look at Filemaker, a 100%-owned Apple subsidiary. Filemaker continues to make Windows versions of its outstanding database products because Windows accounts for a large -- if not a majority -- share of the Filemaker user base, and the Windows side of the business is most likely very profitable.
This means I'll still probably hear "What's a 68k mac?" when I call sales and ask for an older version. I'm not going to upgrade my perfectly good Quadra 840AV just so I can run a legal copy.
First, Apple is, and always has been a large successful company with a very large warchest. The years when they were loosing money weren't nearly as bad as they were made out to be by the press- cause the press are idiots who think any company that looses 700Million one year is going under, but a company with $7billion in liquid assets can handlea couple down years.
And buy lots of these really tiny companies.
Secondly, of course they are discontinuing Windows support and Linux support. There is no reason to continue unprofitable and secondary platform support.
If you want to work with digital media, the Mac is where its at and it has been since Apple invented the market by releasing Quicktime in 1991.
There's nothing shady about what they are doing. If you don't like the Logic product, switch to a competitor. Soemehow, though, I doubt you've ever used logic and are just complaining.
As to force, this is a silly thing to complain about- you aren't forced to do anything. ITs not force when you freely choose to use the better project.
OH, Apple! You made the Mac SO GOOD I was *FORCED* into buying one! How dare you!
Come on, its obvious you're looking for an excuse to dislike Apple. People have been grasping at these straws since 1984. Its unfortunate that our society hates intellectualism so much that it bashes companies that put out great products and praises companies that use anti-competitive measures to succeed. Microsoft is a half assed operation all around, while Apple is first class...
I think there's a connection between this and the pro-football anti-education attitude of our school system.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I'm not flaming you for repeating this statistic-- its been repeated so much that when Apple says "if we get another %5 we double our market share!" its a joke! (Yet many people don't realize it.)
I don't think Apple has ever had only %5 of the market. And I'm certain the way this is calcuated- counting new machines sold from only *some* sources- is wrong. For instance, the way the %5 market share figure is calculated, ALL apple sales made thru the Apple store and thru local Apple dealers are ignored. Ising' that a huge chunk of apples sales?
Furthermroe, "Marketshare" is the number of machines that are in use-- that people can sell software into." That is not the same as the "number of machines sold". And its certainly not the same for "consumer" or "business" machines.
If you're making a video editing program, say, you don't assume that every business machine sold is a potential candidate-- cause a large percentage of those machines are servers, not client machines.
At one point Apple had %25 of the market. This was 1997 or so. And this was based on a scientific evaluation of the maket.
I think Apple's market share has slipped and is only %15 of the market now.
There are a lot of factos that people forget-- most PCs are discarded within 2 years, while a Mac's useful life is about 4 years. A large number of PCs end up essentially DOA because they die within the first year and are replaced, etc. And on top of that, most Apple sales are not counted by the Microsoft paid "Analysts" who say they have %5 of the market.
That %5 figure is due to the fact that hey can't say "zero %" and microsoft wants them to be enough to be competition but not enough to look like a threat.
Its essentially, a completely fabricated figure.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
This is on topic because we're talking about software CHOICE- and whether Apple's pruchase of Emagic reduces it or not.
The FSF is right out of orwell-- they're NON-FREE software is "free" and those who use other software are "slaves".
First off, "free" software will never be the best. The draconian terms of the GPL mean that most professional developers will support BSD or free licenses, ratehr than the GPL. This means the GNU software gets less mindshare.
Secondly, you are not enslaved by non-gnu software. In fact, you are more free, as you can ship a product and actually sell it along with supporting the (truely) free software.
The communists in Russia claimed they were going to make everyone free, while they were actually acting to enslave everyone. FSF advocates this same party line-- you don't have the right to the output of your labor (if its software) it belongs to anyone who "needs" it.
Open Source (not "free") is a good idea-- and it will succeed where it does give people extra choices and provide good quality. Linux is a good example of this, and OpenBSD and its projects are another good example.
But you will never get innovation out of open source and certainly not out of free software. This is because innovation is really expensive, and there is no profitable business model yet for making back those costs with open or free software.
This is why proprietary software will continue to rule when it comes to innovative categories-- but commodity software, such as operating systems, will become open source.... because when its a commodity, the improvements you get are more valuable than the lost income. When its innovative, there are less people who can improve it and the expense is too high-- you have to recoup it.
Media software is the most innovative group right now-- therefore, Apple buying these media companies is giving it a lock on innovation. In 10 years, this will all be commodity software and the best software will be open sourced-- but only because the createor chose to give it away.
Certainly not because FSF crated it-- I waited a decade for GNU, and their failure to deliver the OS was for exactly these reasons... and that's why its called Linux.
There's a connection there.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
> PC version consumed 70% of their development and support costs
That seems unlikely
No, I would expect that to be the case. Usually it is that way when you release a product on both platforms. I know this, I've done it.
Your costs on the PC side are much higher-- both in initial development, and in support. This is due to the poor quality of the development environment for Windows and the poor quality of the machines people buy- bad power supplies cause memory corruption, causes your program to crash and the computer illiterate mother isn't going to think that maybe she shouldn't have bought a computer from some fly by night company for $400-- she's going to wonder why your software doens't work.
Developing software for Windows is also more expensive because in order to get a unit of sales you have to spend more money to reach the customers-- there's a lot more competition. Whereas on the Mac side, getting the same unit of sales is a lot cheaper because theirs less competition for it.
The reason companies support windows at all (given this situation) is that marketing guys are idiots and not businessmen-- they never take into account the costs of development and costs of sales, they decide based on the size of the market. And non-marketing CEOs believe them.
There's a great opportunity for Mac software developers... but so few have taken it, that apple has started doing it itself.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
They don't charge, strictly speaking, for this stuff. Only the people who have older machines that want it have to pay for it. If you have a new machine, it comes pre-loaded. This is a lack of revenue. The pay $$ for something, and then get very little return.
That's funny. Final Cut is $1000. So is Cinema tools. Shake and Rayz sell for tens of thousands of dollars right now, I doubt they will be coming "pre loaded" on machines.
Sure, Apple took final cut and made an iMovie version, and that is free, but that just causes lots of final cut sales. final cut has been a HUGE success-- pretty much taking over the low to mid- range video and film editing industry.
But then, I don't think you really know what you're talking about so you wouldn't have known that.
Not a good idea for Jobs to piss off Gates over something insignificant, to lose something of value. Gates has shown he is willing to lose $$ in the short term, on hopes of banking in the long term
Yeah, you really don't know what your'e talking about. Office is on the MAc because its extreemely profitable for Microsoft. I know this for a fact. If MS wanted to withhold it, they would be in trouble because Apple has a contractual obligation from them for it-- (and I'm not talking about the agreement that expired.) MS can't withdraw OFfice for the MAc, and they won't because even MS likes the couple billion in revenue it generates each year.
ANd hardware is not the market to make money, otherwise it would be Intel telling Microsoft what to do, not vice versa
I don't know of any evidence that Microsoft tells intel what to do. Intel tunes its microcode to support windows because it knows windows is a large customer. But Intel is not beholden to Microsoft.
Since "hardware isn't the place to make money" do you think Sony is stupid and should go into the software business?
Do you think Apple doesn't make money from software?
Interesting.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
See, since ugly old trolls like you never buy Macs or come to the AUG meetings, only the good looking boys in pink show up!
It sure makes for some fun meetings, but then, you wouldn't enjoy it so, we're glad you stay away!
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Oh, and to the guy who complained about soundcards - guess what? You can buy all kinds of pro soundcards for Macs, too.
Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Of course, I am a troll, and you're a zealot, so we know who is right.
html might help (this so makes me look stoopid) Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
check out the URL, Apple has a showcase on Cubase SX and Nuendo for Mac OS X so the software is about to be released very soon!
e rg /
http://www.apple.com/creative/musicaudio/steinb
With all Apple's recent acquisitions of audio and video software producers and their existing strengths, I wonder whether Apple is trying to "pull a Microsoft" in the area of audio and video authoring.
Microsoft beat out their competitors and made their office suite the de facto standard for business users (who happen to be the biggest Windows customers anyway). Maybe Apple has decided to let Microsoft keep the business software monopoly, and is now trying to build their own monopoly in audio and video production, so that if you want to work in this field, you have to buy Apple software, and maybe even a Macintosh. Seems like a pretty sensible strategy for Apple, capitalizing on their existing strengths.
and not a single GATES or JOBS among them.....stfu you stupid troll...I shouldn't even be feeding you
It's true that the music industry is one of the slowest areas to move to Mac OS X, but Apple could do more for the industry by getting 10.2 (Jaguar) out of the door quickly – Cubase SX for example won't be available on Mac until it is.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
There's currently a discussion on this very topic on MacSlash, but a few /. people may be interested in some Apple ramblings too:
.bomb bubble burst.
Strategy: Buy Low, Sell High.
How low can the stock values of companies go? Since last fall, many in the tech sector have certainly been trying to find out. This is a great time to buy companies or technologies and lately Apple has been wisely acting when opportunities arise. Even if Emagic GmbH, Spruce Technologies, Nothing Real, and Zayante in the last year had all been privately held, they would have still been sold at a favourable price compared to buying them before the
Strategy: Niche Market Growth.
It's clear that Apple wants to defend the Macintosh strength as a music & audio creation tool in the long term. Since pro audio software has been lagging on the march to MacOS X, Apple is at least applying heat to developers if not exactly lighting a fire under them. Logic and associated software & hardware on the Mac will mean that Digidesign, Twelve Tone Systems(Cakewalk), MOTU and Steinberg will have to take the market segment more seriously (although MOTU & Digidesign have historically been great friends of the Mac already). The way it's looking is that a larger majority of pro audio will be done on the Mac. Can Steinberg, Twelve Tone et al. risk being caught with their pants around their ankles if this happens?
Strategy: Technology Cross-Pollination.
Now that Apple has a substantial video-production, streaming, compression, audio & other technologies, they may consider adding many good features from one to another and developing truly feature-rich packages. It dosen't take a dreamer to see the possibilities, from unheard-of professional solutions to trickle-down pro capabilities in new iSoftware (eg. look how technologies purchased from Marcromedia were crafted into Final Cut Pro & iMovie). This is one area that users, down the road, can really cash out with if Apple encourages the flow of technologies between it's new divisions.
Strategy: Sorry, Mac-Only.
One thing that is a bit sad about this, ironically enough, is the immediate cancellation of the Windows versions of some software (notably Shake & Logic) with this strategy. While perhaps more upfront than an MS-style purchase and feature-deprivation in non-Windows versions, Apple still isn't making any friends (and perhaps losing potentially loyal customers & money) by doing this. Still, one cannot say that it's not what happened to Mac users through the late 1990s (even now - look at Bungie) but it would be better karma to be more merciful once the shoe is on the other foot. Apple would be smart to mitigate the anger of Windows users by offering discounts on upgrades to the next Mac version.
Next Strategy: More Vertical Markets.
The Macintosh still has a real chance at gaining significant market share if it can be a strong alternative in enough vertical market segments. Apple is rightly building on it's strenghts, but should diversify enough so that the Macintosh is not pegged as only good for those niches (remember what happened to the Amiga? Games machine!)
A Holy Grail almost as worthy as dominating the business market for Apple is the scientific & engineering markets, often with high software margins all around. A purchase or substantial investment in Autodesk à la the MS $150M in Apple would make Apple a huge player in the professional engineering, architecture, and manufacturing industries overnight. Considering Autodesk is not the most expensive stock right now, with a market cap of approximately USD$1.4B, Apple could conceivably purchase the entire operations in cash and still have about $2B in the bank. Autodesk's Design Segment develops AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Architectural Studio, Autodesk Map, Lightscape, and Autodesk Land Desktop, to name a few (most industry-standard in their fields) and the Discreet Segment develops 3D Studio MAX, Animator Studio, flame, inferno, smoke, combustion, cinestream, plasma, cleaner, MPEG supercharger, Topper, and many others.
With a stable of industry-dominating software products as great as this, such a purchase (or even investment ensuring MacOS X compatibility) would send massive shockwaves across the engineering & architectural markets, and ripples in the scientific & pro graphics markets who are by now used to this. No immediate cancellation of the Windows version would be posible here, rather a years-long strategy to ensure first Mac versions and then Mac feature-parity. A purchase like this too rich for Apple's blood? Try something smaller like privatley-held ESRI (makers of ArcINFO, ArcView, ArcGIS & associated imaging systems), or continue to add strength in the crucial areas of coming scientific importance such as biotech and bioinformatics, in which Macs already have a growing following as you can see.
Boom She-bop Hey! Let's go for the top Sookie, Sookie, Sookie Can't tell when to stop!! (Pom poms flailing) Go Apple Go!! Ssssh! Boom Bah!! Go Apple Go!!!! Now if Apple will buy out Maxon Cinema 4D they will get a good edge on the 3D graphics packages. Cinema 4D is so cool and growing.
...do it yourself. Apple's probably getting sweaty palms that the major audio apps are dragging their feet porting to OSX.
It's been over a year now and NONE of the big players have ported, preferring to point the finger at Apple. There's a major hole in OSX software and it's music/audio composition, good on you Apple for filling it.
Cubase has been slowly but surely becoming more windows focused, like the wait for vst32 and now SX.
POKE 36879,8
These aqusitions makes a statement saying that the Windows platform is not safe. That your Windows based work-environment might be discontinued.
proprietary.
I sure hope apple gets it's ass kicked to this kinda anti-competitive behaviour.
Apple has got more than 4 billion cash. There's where they're getting it.
Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread on Apple buying Emagic is the issue of quality. I was a Vision user for years and it was a good application, but crashed far more frequently than any of my other apps. I cross-graded to Logic last fall and, before I upgraded to OS X (stupidly believing Emagic's claims of the pending OS X release of Logic!), had similar experiences. I expect Apple will try very hard to release a more robust and stable application. (And probably one that conforms more to Mac OS X user interface standards.)
While the whole story strikes me as marginal at best, since Wintel user base of the Emagic is only about 1/3 of quoted 200,000 (and as a comparison Cakewalk's Sonar -- a Wintel-only product has roughly one million users), and Apple needs to urgently establish a good Sequencer for the OS X to bridge the current MIDI woes that have been plaguing the OS, then it is a rather obvious move on Apple's part.
What really interests me now is since Apple's new anti-M$ policy obviously involves buying out popular software and cutting Wintel support, is how much longer will M$ sit idle before it strikes back with some punitive measures, such as dropping Office support, or some other similarly devastating blow to the Apple's OS. Or perhaps M$ won't do a thing due to current legal problems it's been having (or maybe there is a silent agreement between the two in terms of division of the market)?
think about it this way. apple wants everyone on OS X. i think a lot of people want to be using OS X. the audio community *cannot* migrate yet because Core Audio just isn't finished... and ll the vendors are waiting on that. to really get moving on their work.
apple just hired James McCartney, the author of supercollider, which is arguably the best optimized, most elegantly designed piece of audio code out there. now they've acquired emagic. apple is sending a very clear signal to the pro audio crowd.
(i doubt that any successor to logic will be free, or even cheap. apple also gets a bunch of hardware development through this deal.)
[|]
That would be the Mac app to kill if Ms want to cause maximum pain. What would the publishing industry do then?
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
Was the $ too high for MOTU? I assume they are the Mac market leader in digital audio/sequencers and seemed a more logical fit.
I was wondering what Roger Powell's role at Apple was going to be. Since they have done nothing with OMS to this point, I assume he made the recommendations for the purchase of Emagic.
But then again, since Apple aquired the rights to OMS... I assume Logic uses OMS??
Apple is starting a dangerous game with Microsoft - buying software companies and discontinuing the Windows versions. M$ has more money to burn in this game. If I were Apple I'd be fearful of M$ retaliation - they could drop Office for the Mac. M$ could also purchase acquire Adobe and discontinue all Mac products, which would hit Apple in their core market.