I liken Vegas to AMD.

AMD didn't build as strong a brand as Intel (they did not invest millions to develop it). Hence, other things being equal, they could still make a similar margin (assuming they could control cost), by discounting the price, instead of spending it on branding. In AMD's case, they were then able to grab the price/performance position--better performance for the same price as a comparable speed Intel system.

When the newer CEO at AMD said they would charge comparable prices for similar performance, I cringed. As a former Sr VP of Marketing at a division of Motorola Semi-conductor, where the AMD CEO came from, I saw him ready to screw things up there, just like he did with the semi-conductor sector--thinking... another "engineer" leader, who couldn't spell the word marketing, trying to make marketing decisions. In other words, if AMD was the same price for the same performance as Intel, why would I go with AMD... when there is more brand value (in dollars, think resale value) of Intel over AMD. They need to either develop more brand equity with AMD, or find another advantage--of which I believe the price/performance was effective.

In the case of Vegas, they have not spent the money, or have years of equity (like Avid), to develop the brand . They are doing very little to build the brand for Vegas--I mainly see their money being spent on Movie Studio--even in Computer Videomaker, which is wasted ad coverage, since it is a convergence magazine for folks looking to go to the next level (Vegas, not backwards to Movie Studio). So, they should retain their price/performance advantage.

If Sony wants to invest as Adobe has (usually via Press), and ensures that the general professional editing community has the same positive perception of Vegas, then they can use parity pricing. I don't know the demographics, but it appears via this forum that Vegas has a large prosumer following. They don't want to loose this group via much higher pricing. I don't know how this market is broken down and how big or fast growing the prosumer segment is, versus the full-time professional segment. Who knows, the prosumer market may be a much better market to pursue--Avid and others are coming down to this market from their high-priced, hard-to-use software.

It should definitely be evaluated. With such a group as this forum, I'm surprised that Sonic or Sony hasn't requested several surveys--this is a stocked pond of information that could help them make their positioning decisions.

If they want to charge more, then they may need to segment their product (as Adobe has), to get the attention of the professionals. Folks who earn their money day in and out, are not as price sensitive, since they can recoup their investment through their work. Prosumers want to do the same cool stuff, but can't justify a real high price. For example, I would love to try some cool 3D with 3D max, but it is thousands of dollars... so I'll never use it or see if I might use it.

However, if Sony decides to further segment their product (they already have the low-end Movie Studio version (it even has some high-end functions in the consumer version that I don't think it should have (chromo key was the entire reason I upgraded to Vegas)), they need to ensure that their feature set is not so dummied down, that they do not retain their current terrific price/performance value to retain their loyal customers, and continue to recruit up and coming prosumer market. I'm also cautious about over segmenting a product (it's hard going back)--especially if the prosumer competition continues to add high-end features. This market looks to be merging quickly, hence the need to retain the mass and growing prosumer market, versus thinking short sighted and dividing a product prematurely. I inherited an over segmented product once, and the competition added just enough to their top product (that competed with our middle product) to essentially kill our middle product, and kill most of our top product. A slightly top-heavy middle product will often beat two of a competitors products--without diluting brand equity.

There are not a lot of great marketing folks that even understand and can leverage many of the 22 pricing strategies to properly influence buying behavior--let's hope Sony can get this right.

I responded quickly, so my reasoning may not be entirely sound here, but at least some of the options to consider are addressed.

"Professional or not anyone who WANTS to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple."

Yep, John . . . can't get much plainer or simpler than that. Short and to the point. I like that!

J--

Before I had an Editing Program I used to read the video Camera Magazines and wish I could have a good editing system like premier or avid ect. But the price was so high.

Then one day they done an Article on Vegas basicly saying it was as good as the top NLEs but at a bargain price. It now seemed like a viable proposition it was still borderline for me price wise but I took the plunge.

Am I glad I did Vegas has sparkle style and is like Walt Disney... I look at the heavyness that the other NLEs seem to have and realise how brilliant Vegas is

I used to hate school BORING but liked messin around after school with my friends and thats how I sum this up. Always something new and exciting. Above all loads a fun.

I hope the price dos'ent go up but I dont want to see it cheapened either.

I want people to have respect for Vegas and by default me as a user.

Another OM1 owner wow, now that is a camera, I think they've been going up in value lately.
I don't think software or even hardware becomes obsolete any where near as fast as you think. Superceded for sure. I know of very few people who run anything either hadrware or software at anything like the latest. I know lots still running Win95 or 98 on totally way past it hardware. Same even goes for Mac users.
Most of the clients we hire to have systems bult before firewire was invented, I cannot understand why they put up with the daily dramas of getting media in and out of their systems. These aren't amateurs BTW, their mid sized bussiness.
From my experiences and this always startles me, it's the guys who are the serious hobbyists that tend to be always upgrading, the pros will use it till it rusts away.

>>>>"Professional or not anyone who WANTS to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple."

Yep, John . . . can't get much plainer or simpler than that. Short and to the point. I like that!<<<<

LOL - I'll bite. Just afew top of my head things....

I would gladly pay more to purchase:

A car with an engine.
A car with windows.
A car with windows that work.

A camera that can focus.
A camera that can shoot moving images.
A camera that captures, in some format, what it shoots.
A camera that captures, in higher qulaity for my needs, what it shoots.

A VCR of any type that allows for playback.
A VCR of any type that allows for recording.
A VCR of any type that allows for recording in the format that I use.
A VCR that allows for output of material that was being played back.

A television.
A Color television.
A large screen television.
A Hi Def television.
A large screen Hi Def televsion.
A large screen Hi Def television that was in NTSC (Because here in the US they just don't broacast in PAL)

Feel free to add on things....what would you pay more for? ;)

LOL - I'll bite. Just afew top of my head things....

I would gladly pay more to purchase:

A car with an engine.
A car with windows.
================================
Presumably this means that there is a market for cars without those things

===========================================

A camera that can focus.
A camera that can shoot moving images.

=======================================

I guess you started out with a lot less than the rest of us.

=======================================
A VCR of any type that allows for playback.
A VCR of any type that allows for recording.

========================================

You must have purchased those from a sidewalk peddler on the streets of New York City.

========================================

A television

========================================

I have an old tube TV. It displays a green black and white image, but I'll sell it to you for $1000.....OR MORE if you insist.

===================================
Feel free to add on things....what would you pay more for

===================================

Don't you mean..........what would you BEG to pay more for?

Answer: Nothing.

"Professional or not anyone who WANTS to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple"

The preceding post would be a rock hunter's treasure chest.

John

DELETED!

Interesting discussion. My opinion is Vegas's price can't rise a whole lot more. For 1695 CAD or less than 995 USD you can buy the Matrox X100 Pro which comes with Premiere Pro, a decent DVD authoring tool, an audio editor PLUS Real TIme editing and MPEG2 encoding. Vegas and DVD-A are not a lot less than 995 USD.

I just bought the Matrox and a custom built box to run it and, frankly, it is very quick. Yes, I will continue to use Sound Forge and Vegas for my own straight cut stuff but I have taken to using the Premiere titling tool and when my wife lets me try the Adobe DVD authoring tool I'll have an opinion on that too.

I have stated before that although we have AVID Composers at work, we use Vegas and SOund FOrge for all our audio editing. That is not likely to change. Would I pay 995$ for Vegas and DVD-A version 2? Somehow I don't think the cost benefit is there.

After being paid to shoot and edit pro video for over 20 years I am definitely not a hobbyist. Flame if you like but weigh the pros and cons of hardware vs software, real time versus rendering etc., all at the same price point.

Peter

> it's priced too high, they'll more than likely lose alot of this group. I figure we make up a good percentage of the user base, maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it

I’m not sure if we (the avid hobbyist) are Sony’s target market for Vegas 5. I expect to pay up to $199 to upgrade my Vegas 4+DVD but can’t afford to spend much more than that since I make no income from the purchase. Most of my video work is done for free for volunteer organizations that I belong to (the rest is for my own family videos). I upgraded from VideoFactory to Vegas and would hate to have to go back to Screenblast because I can no longer afford Vegas.

I can imagine that Vegas 5 will add a lot of professional features that hobbyists will have no use for. Perhaps the new DVD Architect will add subtitles, multiple angles, multiple audio streams, etc. all stuff a hobbyist has no need for. It will be most unfortunate if I have to shell out a lot of money just to get simple features like end-actions added to DVD Architect (an unfinished application if you ask me).

It would be nice if Sony could sell some of the hardcore pro features as add-on’s or if they could make an intermediate level version somewhere between Screenblast and Vegas 5. Perhaps a Vegas Lite for the prosumers.

I wouldn’t mind paying more if Sony enhanced Vegas’ audio features to compete with Sonar 2. If they added MIDI support and VST/DXi support that would make the upgrade worth it to me. I’m also a musician and would love to use Vegas for multitrack recording. I would imagine I’m in the minority on this one though. ;-)

~jr

For those you, like John I guess, who didn't really get the joke I'll try to explain -
orginal comment, not made by me, was: "Professional or not anyone who WANTS to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple"

So being funny I made my little ironic post. Someone says to you "I will sell you a car for 20 bucks!" Hey, that sounds awesome! Who wouldn't want a car for that price? The buyer then tells you: "Well it has no engine, the tires are missing, all windows are broken, it is dented, the seats are ripped and the gas tank has a hole in it." So now would you pay more for a car that is in better, running, condition? Most poeple would. If you need a car most people would like one that runs, at the least. From the original comment everyone who pays more than a few bucks for a car has rocks in their heads.

Same for VCR's. I see VCR's for sale all the time for 5 bucks or less - they also say "Doesn't work" on them. If you like to tinker this is great, if you need a cheap prop this is ok. However, professional or not, most poeple want a VCR that works not only for playback but for recording and output. Perhaps all VCR's should be priced at one point...all VCR's should also be exactly the same, formats be damned. Just because someone goes out and buys a Digi-beta deck and another goes out and buys a sub $100 VHS VCR doesn't mean the person who pruchased the Digi-Beta has rocks in their head for spending more. It means their needs are different.

Now if the orginal post has said "Professional or not anyone who WANTS to BEG to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple" and not "Professional or not anyone who WANTS to pay more for something has rocks in their head. Plain and simple" I would have agreed with that because most people like to barter to pay less, not beg to pay more. My post was simply saying that people do expect to pay more for certian things and many people do *want* to pay more for certian things. Would I pay $1,000 for a black and white tv? Not when I could buy a HD capable TV for that amount. On the other hand if the black and white TV was an extremly rare piece and I was either a collector or a museum maybe $1,000 is a great deal.

Huh??? C'mon, JR! Improve Vegas audio support to match Sonar's support??? You know I'm a huge fan of Sonar, so I know my beans on this one. Vegas already is way superior to Sonar. Perhaps you mean the VST option. Well.....with FXpansion's VST 2 DX, it already works. As far as midi/VSTi, that doesn't belong in Vegas, and I pray it never is in Vegas. ProTools tried mixing midi and audio, it was a dismal failur as a single app. Sonar does midi great, but audio is currently very clumsy at the pro level. 3 is better than 2 of course, and it's the sexiest interface I've ever seen. But it's audio tools are still weak. Machine/HUI interfacing is nice, and it would be cool if Vegas went down that road.
You're right, DVDA isn't finished. I think the folks at Sony know that. While it's not the most feature-rich tool, it is the most stable, and most compliant.
Zippy, the Vegas Pro comment from Bob Ott was not a coded message that the name is changing to Vegas Pro, anyone reading that (except you, perhaps) can clearly see he's trying to define the difference between Screenblast and Vegas.
Sony's marketing folks are savvy, they know what folks are saying.

Spot,

Sorry, Bad use of the generic term "audio". I didn’t mean to imply that Sonar has better audio support than Vegas. I agree with you that Vegas is better than Sonar in that department. I was only referring to MIDI. I play keyboards so having MIDI support is critical to me along with VSTi support. I’m trying to decide what I should use to do my MIDI compositions. I was using Cubasis VST but I don’t like the interface. A lot of folks (including myself) asked for MIDI/VST support on the Vegas Audio forum so I thought that if that was going to be a feature of Vegas 5, I could save myself some bucks by waiting for Vegas 5 instead of buying Sonar now. ;-)

~jr

Awhile ago I posted that based upon this thread which is now up to 169 replies:

http://www.mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=214828&Replies=169&Page=1

I felt that the biggest improvement in the next version would be in the audio department. What I don't want to see is a huge price increase for Vegas 5 which I probably won't want to buy, but being stuck buying it in order to get a decent version of DVDA which wasn't worth it's cost last time. I want a seperate REASONABLE price for a newer version of DVDA since it shouldn't have been released in that state last time.

John

The Sony website hasn't risen.

BH Photo Video (www.bhphotovideo.com) hasn't risen.

Video Guys (www.videoguys.com) hasn't risen.

Maybe they decided to wait a couple more days?

Mmm... but it could be seen the opposite way: if Sony offers more for almost the same price (ie **slight** increase), the other so said "pro" companies will have to LOWER their prices to even up with the new "leader", hahaha!

It has now increased on BH and Videoguys

BH didn't go up much, but video guys did. about $100. Didn't go up on the sony site. Maybe they raised the price they sell to distributers. Maybe they want more people to buy directly from them. :)

I recently ordered a new computer that will be 100% dedicated to audio & video recording/editing. Because of this, I purchased a SECOND copy of Vegas 4/DVDA from Video Guys for the new computer. Man, am I lucky because the price was still $499.00 for the software!!! I JUST beat the price increase because I noticed the next day that the Vegas/DVDA program was going for more $$$.

Vegas 4 is such a great program. It will be interesting to see how much the Vegas 5 upgrade will sell for. . .

Ted

Uh Ted... You were aware that you can have Vegas on two separate PCs right? As long as they aren't being used at the same time.

M

VideoC:

Not only am I not offended, but I share your views. I have been a Sonic Foundry customer for almost 10 years because it is fantastic software at a "fair price."

SOFO has traditionally been a small company compared to the likes of Avid, Adobe and Apple. But for as long as I've been using thier software, SOFO has produced "value" for me that these other companies never did. I think the fact that SOFO has survived all this time -- considering the goliaths that SOFO competes with -- speaks volumes about the quality and value that thier products have provided to thier customers. This is also the reason I held on to all my SOFO shares even after the stock price tanked, as I believed that a company that offers so much value to its customers was going to make it in the long run, no matter how dire things were looking in the short term.

Sure enough, the Sony aquisition seemed to justify this belief of mine, e.g., Sony would never have bought the SOFO software products if they had no percieved value. Now that Sony owns the products, though, I think it remains to be seen what thier true intentions were in making the aquisition.

Sony does have a track record of price gouging customers, especially in the professional video markets. So even though I'm happy the development team in Madison now has the financial backing to keep improving the software, my verdict is still out on the Sony aquisition. There's no doubt it was a major turning point for SOFO. But wether it was a blessing in disguise or a pact with the devil I expect remains to be seen.

Sincerely,

Nate

My guess as to why SOFO sold the products to Sony was due to the tremendous amount of debt that SOFO had. They were banking on the broadband "revolution" to occur much faster than it has, and they had spent lots of money ramping up thier media services division in anticipation of that. The result is they were in debt up to thier eyeballs.

Even with the massive debt load, however, thier software sales continued to do well. In fact they even continued to increase.

It seems that Rimas was making some small victories in getting the bottom line out of the red and back into the black, but the debt load was huge, even considering the good software sales.

I'm not trying to imply that SOFO just sold all thier software products just to get out of debt. On the contrary, I know SOFO and Sony had a "friendly" relationship that goes way back, and I'm sure that the folks in Madison are happy to have the opportunity to be affiliated with Sony because it finally gives them the resources and infrastructure to market and compete with companies like Avid, Apple and Adobe (the "axis of A's").

But with that said, I'm quite sure that the tremendous debt load at SOFO was probably a big consideration.

Sincerely,

Nate