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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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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?
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.
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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.
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.
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The sensibility of this decision rather depends on how much of the Emagic's expenditure went into the PC version, and supporting the myriad hardware combinations and windows versions that the PC environment has.
If the PC version consumed 70% of their development and support costs, but only provided 35% of their revenue, then it's probably a sound business decision to cut it off, regardless of the advantage Apple would gain from the software moving to a single platform only.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
True.
But I don't want a Windows or a Mac solution.
I am happy with my Linux farm. With an investment of 500 machines, I don't want to have to change because software had been rendered useless due to some marketing strategy.
From what I understand from others in the movie industry, the studios are looking at packages for a feature, not packages for long term use. I think all of this stems from the way software vendors create a product, rest on their laurels, and then get replaced by somebody else.
Being in a smaller shop, I don't know if we can play that game. We are trying to finish a 3d movie using composer as our compositing software and it is a major bottle neck. Composer is good, don't get me wrong, but the software runs on older, slower SGI boxes. Shake and Rayz are what we are looking at in the future, but neither may be arround for Linux in 2 years.
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
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!
...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.
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