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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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Apple hardware still too expensive for you? How about a raffle ticket?
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Let "them" know you're not a terrorist!
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
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
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?
Emagic already have a free version of Logic, called Logic Fun, that roughly fits the bill.
m l (this page is in German, but the application is English language)
It's only got 4 tracks, and no CD-burning built in, but it's free, and comes in Mac and PC flavours (for now)
You can download it from http://www.emagic.de/german/education/download.ht
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
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
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!
> 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
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.