Sony Pictures Digital buy Sonic Foundry desktop products
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mikkie
wrote on 5/3/2003, 10:00 AM
Figure might as well jump in here too...
Most all the folks here are creatives, and they will continue to be. No matter the brand of brush a painter uses, the painter continues to paint.
I've been around a while, remember quite a few companies getting into financial difficulty and merging, selling, or disappearing. It can get quite nasty beforehand, and I'm very thankful this hasn't (to public knowledge at least) been the case at SOFO. Chrysler comes to mind, with their secret negotiations in South America with German automakers before the gov. bailout. Still came about eventually, but for a while there Chrysler operated in a Stalinesc mode.
I've seen plenty of decent tech companies go away, sometimes all at once, sometimes with a slow fade away. Metacreations is still around, after selling off software lines which included some of the best stuff available in order to survive. I hope SOFO has similar or better success.
I've seen Adobe survive over the years, in no small part due to the snob factor pursued by a lot of pro users in the print industry, users resistant to change up to the day many closed their doors for the last time. Adobe learned, bringing better, cheaper products to market. They responded to products like Vegas as well, improving their product line. I hope that this will continue so we'll always have pro quality alternatives - if Vegas lives on, it too will benefit from the competition. Most of us may not like prem, but I'm confident that if worse were to come to worse, all of us could use it (or the Avid alternative) productively. As long as there is a market, there will be competing alternatives, and there's always Ulead.
Point I would make is that life goes on...
IMO Acid will likely continue because it has such a huge place in the music software market that it would be simply foolish for it not to continue. On the other hand, it's somewhat of a niche product with increasing competition, so how far it will progress in the future is open.
IMO, Sound Forge is used by a huge number of pros but somewhat limited by the absence of companion products in or for the studio. It also faces a lot of competition, much of it lower priced. Sony could optimistically add to the music software line, making it (SF) part of a larger family, or they could let it fade.
I *think* the real interest from Sony was/is in getting the video based technology & know how. True, they could use something in the pure consumer end of things, but that's from a video oriented consumer point of view. The Sony version of Video Factory hasn't set any records, and with most low end, consumer mini-DV camcorders not even including firewire cables, can't see much motivation there really; the consumer spending more then $1k US on a camera would be more inclined to a more expensive and capable NLE like Vegas IMO, which is not likely a bundle product. I really don't see a path here fitting in with Sony's current consumer/low end prosumer lines - maybe with their Vaio PCs and Laptops.
Sony is involved in studio production hardware, and while I don't think they'ld go after Avid head on, there is an awful lot of development going on among the various manufacturers to come up with more reasonably priced, full digital studio solutions, the stuff from tape formats to decks to archiving and so on. Vegas could easily fit here IMO, or be continued because it is a product bringing in revenues as whatever technology is developed.
Sony is also involved in Hollywood, where a digital solution is being actively pursued. Last I heard the movie studios were extremely interested in mpg2-type distribution to theaters, but equally distrusting of an outside company boxing them in to a position where they could be held hostage.
A big part of the bottleneck involved the computer hardware in the theaters, where the hardware companies involved had to essentially speculate &/or risk huge sums of money, so there weren't all sorts of alternatives knocking at the door. Sony does have a fair bit of computer expertise.
Only thing I know is that it's going to be interesting... And that does sound vaguely like that Chinese curse...
Most all the folks here are creatives, and they will continue to be. No matter the brand of brush a painter uses, the painter continues to paint.
I've been around a while, remember quite a few companies getting into financial difficulty and merging, selling, or disappearing. It can get quite nasty beforehand, and I'm very thankful this hasn't (to public knowledge at least) been the case at SOFO. Chrysler comes to mind, with their secret negotiations in South America with German automakers before the gov. bailout. Still came about eventually, but for a while there Chrysler operated in a Stalinesc mode.
I've seen plenty of decent tech companies go away, sometimes all at once, sometimes with a slow fade away. Metacreations is still around, after selling off software lines which included some of the best stuff available in order to survive. I hope SOFO has similar or better success.
I've seen Adobe survive over the years, in no small part due to the snob factor pursued by a lot of pro users in the print industry, users resistant to change up to the day many closed their doors for the last time. Adobe learned, bringing better, cheaper products to market. They responded to products like Vegas as well, improving their product line. I hope that this will continue so we'll always have pro quality alternatives - if Vegas lives on, it too will benefit from the competition. Most of us may not like prem, but I'm confident that if worse were to come to worse, all of us could use it (or the Avid alternative) productively. As long as there is a market, there will be competing alternatives, and there's always Ulead.
Point I would make is that life goes on...
IMO Acid will likely continue because it has such a huge place in the music software market that it would be simply foolish for it not to continue. On the other hand, it's somewhat of a niche product with increasing competition, so how far it will progress in the future is open.
IMO, Sound Forge is used by a huge number of pros but somewhat limited by the absence of companion products in or for the studio. It also faces a lot of competition, much of it lower priced. Sony could optimistically add to the music software line, making it (SF) part of a larger family, or they could let it fade.
I *think* the real interest from Sony was/is in getting the video based technology & know how. True, they could use something in the pure consumer end of things, but that's from a video oriented consumer point of view. The Sony version of Video Factory hasn't set any records, and with most low end, consumer mini-DV camcorders not even including firewire cables, can't see much motivation there really; the consumer spending more then $1k US on a camera would be more inclined to a more expensive and capable NLE like Vegas IMO, which is not likely a bundle product. I really don't see a path here fitting in with Sony's current consumer/low end prosumer lines - maybe with their Vaio PCs and Laptops.
Sony is involved in studio production hardware, and while I don't think they'ld go after Avid head on, there is an awful lot of development going on among the various manufacturers to come up with more reasonably priced, full digital studio solutions, the stuff from tape formats to decks to archiving and so on. Vegas could easily fit here IMO, or be continued because it is a product bringing in revenues as whatever technology is developed.
Sony is also involved in Hollywood, where a digital solution is being actively pursued. Last I heard the movie studios were extremely interested in mpg2-type distribution to theaters, but equally distrusting of an outside company boxing them in to a position where they could be held hostage.
A big part of the bottleneck involved the computer hardware in the theaters, where the hardware companies involved had to essentially speculate &/or risk huge sums of money, so there weren't all sorts of alternatives knocking at the door. Sony does have a fair bit of computer expertise.
Only thing I know is that it's going to be interesting... And that does sound vaguely like that Chinese curse...
farss
wrote on 5/3/2003, 10:18 AM
Just read the news,
Certainly there's plenty of instances of this sort of deal going badly wrong but Japanese company's are very good at taking a hands off approach to foreign acqisitions in my experience.
I'm surprised though that no one has raised an issue of greater concern. At the moment there is a whole lot of new acquisition formats flooding onto the market, VV4 would seem an ideal platform on which to build support for all of them, obviously Sony is not going to want a subsidiary making life easier for a competitors product. Thats not to say there's anything wrong with Sony gear and the competition can always march to their tune.
So what if the price goes up a few hundred?
Obviously SoFo were setting their prices too low, perhaps if they had they wouldn't be in their current position. The staff providing the good customer service at SoFo have to eat too as well as te ones that cut the code in the first place. We are always obsessed by relative pricing, this isn't relevant if all the plaeyers in a market are going broke, ultimately we the users suffer when they are forced into mergers.
Certainly there's plenty of instances of this sort of deal going badly wrong but Japanese company's are very good at taking a hands off approach to foreign acqisitions in my experience.
I'm surprised though that no one has raised an issue of greater concern. At the moment there is a whole lot of new acquisition formats flooding onto the market, VV4 would seem an ideal platform on which to build support for all of them, obviously Sony is not going to want a subsidiary making life easier for a competitors product. Thats not to say there's anything wrong with Sony gear and the competition can always march to their tune.
So what if the price goes up a few hundred?
Obviously SoFo were setting their prices too low, perhaps if they had they wouldn't be in their current position. The staff providing the good customer service at SoFo have to eat too as well as te ones that cut the code in the first place. We are always obsessed by relative pricing, this isn't relevant if all the plaeyers in a market are going broke, ultimately we the users suffer when they are forced into mergers.
BillyBoy
wrote on 5/3/2003, 12:24 PM
So what if the price goes up a few hundred? You kidding? While Vegas is starting to get the attention of more "professionals" it also has caught the eye for lack of a better term, semi-pros, and a bunch of avid hobbisits that don't have a pile of money. If the price goes up a 'a few hundred' those customers will be gone and worse many that have heard about Vegas, and were thinking about switching seeing the price if it goes up a lot will look elsewhere. Vegas is priced about right. Some would say already too expensive. Its the same old story. Would you rather sell X copies at N dollars or sell Y copies at a mucher lessor price. Snob factor aside (some base quality on the price of the software, poor fools) that isn't smart marketing.
kf
wrote on 5/3/2003, 1:13 PM
Will Sony inject more money to do more marketing stuff for the same price for vegas? This is all about Business. If the Balance Sheet look bad next year on all Vegas and etc, what will you do if you are Sony.
Zorro2
wrote on 5/3/2003, 1:32 PM
mikkie wrote:
"I really don't see a path here fitting in with Sony's current consumer/low end prosumer lines - maybe with their Vaio PCs and Laptops."
Let us not forget XPRI. Vegas with the right hardware will give Avid a run.
"I really don't see a path here fitting in with Sony's current consumer/low end prosumer lines - maybe with their Vaio PCs and Laptops."
Let us not forget XPRI. Vegas with the right hardware will give Avid a run.
barleycorn
wrote on 5/3/2003, 2:47 PM
> If the price goes up a 'a few hundred' those customers will be gone
I totally agree. A price increase would be very short sighted.
I totally agree. A price increase would be very short sighted.
HPV
wrote on 5/3/2003, 3:23 PM
Sorry to have been out of touch... what a suprise to come back to!
---------------
Glad to see ya around Marty. Hope all is good for you.
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that Sony is trying to buy an RGB NLE program. While one great RGB NLE program, YUV is where you want to be for rendering performance (IE RT). Total rewrite for Vegas to change. But, Sofo is knowen to have been working on 64bit code for Vegas. Hmmmm, could that be YUV and blow all our minds? Or will is stay RGB and still blow our minds because it's on a 64bit OS and CPU? The days of color correcting your entire Vegas project with no rendering could be near.
Cheers,
Craig H.
---------------
Glad to see ya around Marty. Hope all is good for you.
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that Sony is trying to buy an RGB NLE program. While one great RGB NLE program, YUV is where you want to be for rendering performance (IE RT). Total rewrite for Vegas to change. But, Sofo is knowen to have been working on 64bit code for Vegas. Hmmmm, could that be YUV and blow all our minds? Or will is stay RGB and still blow our minds because it's on a 64bit OS and CPU? The days of color correcting your entire Vegas project with no rendering could be near.
Cheers,
Craig H.
BillyBoy
wrote on 5/3/2003, 3:37 PM
If you really want to speed up rendering, write the application in 100% assembly language. Heck, I never peeked, what is Vegas written in? C or VB? or what?
teknal
wrote on 5/3/2003, 4:47 PM
TheHappyFriar, I agree with you. This is bad news to me. I started out using EditDV from Digital Origin. Shortly after purchasing EditDV it was sold to Media 100 and the name changed to Cinestream. It wasn't the same and they put in new features without fixing major bugs. It has since been purchased again by Discreet and now is at the end of it's life and is why I went with Vegas. Vegas just won't be the same without Sonic Foundry.
SonyDennis
wrote on 5/3/2003, 4:58 PM
BillyBoy:
Those days are long past. Critical loops, sure, but the whole application? That'd be silly. A rule of thumb is that the CPU spends 90% of the time in 10% of the code. Why should you spend magnitudes more time coding the other 90% in assembly language? In addition, the optimizing compilers have matured to the point where they approach assembly speeds for all but the best hand coders.
Vegas is written in C/C++/Assembly/MMX with some "Managed C++" tossed in for scripting support.
///d@
Those days are long past. Critical loops, sure, but the whole application? That'd be silly. A rule of thumb is that the CPU spends 90% of the time in 10% of the code. Why should you spend magnitudes more time coding the other 90% in assembly language? In addition, the optimizing compilers have matured to the point where they approach assembly speeds for all but the best hand coders.
Vegas is written in C/C++/Assembly/MMX with some "Managed C++" tossed in for scripting support.
///d@
farss
wrote on 5/3/2003, 5:09 PM
I should point out that I paid for VV4 in Australian dollars (pesos?) so the real cost over here is about 50% higher than in the USA although I did get it at the introductory price so it didn't hurt that much. The point I'm really getting at though is that SoFo are not the only software company with financial woes. An aweful lot of good software houses are in the same boat, we might think its great when the prices come done as they all try to get some market share but its a dwindling market and ultimately its the users that suffer.
Just another thought though, would any of us have been happier if Sony announced they were buying someone else's NLE. How that plays out depends on how this deal went. If Sony had decided they wanted to get a serious NLE to go with their product line then I think we should all be greatfull they chose SoFo, what chance would they have if Sony were giving away Premiere with every Vaio?
Just another thought though, would any of us have been happier if Sony announced they were buying someone else's NLE. How that plays out depends on how this deal went. If Sony had decided they wanted to get a serious NLE to go with their product line then I think we should all be greatfull they chose SoFo, what chance would they have if Sony were giving away Premiere with every Vaio?
vicmilt
wrote on 5/3/2003, 5:25 PM
Hi all -
my two cents...
first, all this discussion is sort of like the two fleas on the back of my dog, discussing where the dog should sleep tonight...
anyhow, I personally would not buy any video system that is not Sony (given the choice). This from decades of super high quality, great service and hardware reliablity.
next... (and I know someone is going to shoot me down here, but...) wouldn't you think the Sony Playstation, one of the most innovative and successful games in the world, is software based??? So, Sony must know Something About Software, if not development, then definitely acquisition and delivery.
and... Sony had an awesome editing system, that was DV based, when my AVID was still crawling along in version 3. Not only did it do all sorts of realtime renders and effects, it would (using the Sony "Clip based smart chip" cassette), give you an immediate visual menu of what scenes you had shot. It would then download your selects from this menu at 4x real time speed. And this was at least 5 or 6 years ago, when hard drive space cost zillions.
Last... the Sony Walkman (revolutionized mobil music), the Sony BetaMax (revolutionized videotape recording and playback - and, by the way, a far superior system to VHS), Sony BetaSP (revolutionized professional videotape production and editing), the Sony VX1000 (revolutionized DV acquisition), Sony Playstation (revolutionized videogame production and distribution by using DVD based technology).
Now I don't know any more than most of you (85 posts on this topic, already... is this a record??) - but it did look like the Sonic Foundry company was having financial difficulties... and I, for one, don't resent the owners of said company from making their little fortune, by a gigundo corporate buyout. I wish Sony would buy my company.
I say lots of luck to the principals at SoFo, I hope that the "real" developers of ACID, Sound Forge, and Vegas, get a nice taste of "big bucks", and for the rest...
only the future will tell. There's no guarantees in life, except that your software will be out of date within six months, if it's any good, at all.
my two cents...
first, all this discussion is sort of like the two fleas on the back of my dog, discussing where the dog should sleep tonight...
anyhow, I personally would not buy any video system that is not Sony (given the choice). This from decades of super high quality, great service and hardware reliablity.
next... (and I know someone is going to shoot me down here, but...) wouldn't you think the Sony Playstation, one of the most innovative and successful games in the world, is software based??? So, Sony must know Something About Software, if not development, then definitely acquisition and delivery.
and... Sony had an awesome editing system, that was DV based, when my AVID was still crawling along in version 3. Not only did it do all sorts of realtime renders and effects, it would (using the Sony "Clip based smart chip" cassette), give you an immediate visual menu of what scenes you had shot. It would then download your selects from this menu at 4x real time speed. And this was at least 5 or 6 years ago, when hard drive space cost zillions.
Last... the Sony Walkman (revolutionized mobil music), the Sony BetaMax (revolutionized videotape recording and playback - and, by the way, a far superior system to VHS), Sony BetaSP (revolutionized professional videotape production and editing), the Sony VX1000 (revolutionized DV acquisition), Sony Playstation (revolutionized videogame production and distribution by using DVD based technology).
Now I don't know any more than most of you (85 posts on this topic, already... is this a record??) - but it did look like the Sonic Foundry company was having financial difficulties... and I, for one, don't resent the owners of said company from making their little fortune, by a gigundo corporate buyout. I wish Sony would buy my company.
I say lots of luck to the principals at SoFo, I hope that the "real" developers of ACID, Sound Forge, and Vegas, get a nice taste of "big bucks", and for the rest...
only the future will tell. There's no guarantees in life, except that your software will be out of date within six months, if it's any good, at all.
BillyBoy
wrote on 5/3/2003, 6:10 PM
Well knock me over with a feather. I didn't know how much compliers improved. Shows how rusty I am doing any serious programming. I think I swallowed a snow job from Stevie Gibson over at GRC, (Spinrite, Shields Up, etc.) ie Mr. Assembly, who's always bragging he writes all his applications in assembly. Thanks Dennis.
jboy
wrote on 5/4/2003, 3:32 PM
Does anybody know if Sony is just buying the product line in question, and running with it, or offering a sort of partnering arrangement with SF in exchange for exclusive use of the package ? Partnering sounds like it might be good. Simply removing the apps in question from SF's product line sounds bad. A creative collaboration with an infusion of cash would be the best of all possible worlds..
Blackout
wrote on 5/4/2003, 5:00 PM
Sony brought Vegas to "value add" to their multitude of portable consumer video cameras, its gotta be obvious...i speculate that it will be pushed downwards in scale, not upwards. Certainly a Vegas Lite will arrive, and it will work better somehow with sony cameras than others, and will probably be given away with camera purchases. And the Full-blown Vegas will probably change in appearance to somewhat of a simplified interface, something like VideoStudio (which has an insultingly simple interface if you ask me)..
Blackout
Blackout
BillyBoy
wrote on 5/4/2003, 5:16 PM
You can read the official "spin" on the deal here:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=536&CatID=
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=536&CatID=
xgenei
wrote on 5/5/2003, 3:00 AM
I'm bound to get my four cents in. I haven't been able to sign on for a month or two.
I look at Sony's experience with Columbia and Peter Guber and Jon what's his name and how they foundered until they renamed the old lady, and created Sony Pictures. THEN they started making money and had a future, but it took five years or so.
Meanwhile Sony is foundering a bit (effectiveness-wise for sure) with its PC hardware, hard to believe I know. And it has stiff competition from the big players in video. It is trying to get to some kind of content-appliance-production synergy and that's where SF comes in. SF should take it as a high compliment, and we users should be grateful, you all called it right.
But as a personality I think that Sony will be better off trusting the SF vision than in re-branding, because Sony's vision for any of the above has been as bad (just inherently mediocre) as compaq's and HP's and IBM's (for example.) My point is that SF has managed to come up with some very effective software that could be ruined by being cast as "Sony Pictures" software. It is, after all, Sonic Foundry semantics that produced the mindset that produced the software.
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away ....
One thing I would suggest is that the SF product line, like any other software, needs ever-better testing methodology. This Sony could implement from outside and maybe gain some backward synergy for it. Including, for example, a capacity to produce more sophisticated "workstations" instead of only thinly-veneered Windows computers. This I have a few Ideas I'd like to talk to the Sony people about.
Not to be pessimistic, and I don't know if this was already mentioned, but all the work for a uniquely competitive product line could now be over. Kaput. If Sony bought the farm and paid for the milk in advance. I am speculating based on what I know about free enterprise and what happens when the entrepreneurial spirit is brushed aside for professional management.
The Disney-fication of a productive reality (by professional managers) CAN result in delay, loss of vision, loss of purpose, and loss of any business justification, in that order.
Part of the reason this gets done is in the numbers: whereas a million copies of software sounds great to SoFo HQ, it's (again) peanuts to Sony. Disney-fication is a gambit to produce bigger sales numbers. But SF really has a limited audience, albeit growing as value grows. You can't turn this stuff into a "me-too" product and keep its core values (and audience).
So we'll see.
Okay I think that's four cents worth if anybody is bored enough to read it.
John (Xgenei)
I look at Sony's experience with Columbia and Peter Guber and Jon what's his name and how they foundered until they renamed the old lady, and created Sony Pictures. THEN they started making money and had a future, but it took five years or so.
Meanwhile Sony is foundering a bit (effectiveness-wise for sure) with its PC hardware, hard to believe I know. And it has stiff competition from the big players in video. It is trying to get to some kind of content-appliance-production synergy and that's where SF comes in. SF should take it as a high compliment, and we users should be grateful, you all called it right.
But as a personality I think that Sony will be better off trusting the SF vision than in re-branding, because Sony's vision for any of the above has been as bad (just inherently mediocre) as compaq's and HP's and IBM's (for example.) My point is that SF has managed to come up with some very effective software that could be ruined by being cast as "Sony Pictures" software. It is, after all, Sonic Foundry semantics that produced the mindset that produced the software.
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away ....
One thing I would suggest is that the SF product line, like any other software, needs ever-better testing methodology. This Sony could implement from outside and maybe gain some backward synergy for it. Including, for example, a capacity to produce more sophisticated "workstations" instead of only thinly-veneered Windows computers. This I have a few Ideas I'd like to talk to the Sony people about.
Not to be pessimistic, and I don't know if this was already mentioned, but all the work for a uniquely competitive product line could now be over. Kaput. If Sony bought the farm and paid for the milk in advance. I am speculating based on what I know about free enterprise and what happens when the entrepreneurial spirit is brushed aside for professional management.
The Disney-fication of a productive reality (by professional managers) CAN result in delay, loss of vision, loss of purpose, and loss of any business justification, in that order.
Part of the reason this gets done is in the numbers: whereas a million copies of software sounds great to SoFo HQ, it's (again) peanuts to Sony. Disney-fication is a gambit to produce bigger sales numbers. But SF really has a limited audience, albeit growing as value grows. You can't turn this stuff into a "me-too" product and keep its core values (and audience).
So we'll see.
Okay I think that's four cents worth if anybody is bored enough to read it.
John (Xgenei)
TLT
wrote on 5/5/2003, 12:52 PM
Speaking of marketing, If I were in charge of marketing Vegas, I would send every High School in the U.S. ten FREE copies of Vegas with manuals.
decrink
wrote on 5/5/2003, 1:54 PM
Well then, lets not put you in charge of marketing.
How many high schools? What kind of PC's do they have? What teachers are going to implement the Vegas software into their curriculum? Postage? Quite a bundle you just spent.
Yep, you just spent a lot of useless money on marketing.
The old guy was better and he was no gem.
And you thought the SF business plan was lacking...
How many high schools? What kind of PC's do they have? What teachers are going to implement the Vegas software into their curriculum? Postage? Quite a bundle you just spent.
Yep, you just spent a lot of useless money on marketing.
The old guy was better and he was no gem.
And you thought the SF business plan was lacking...
BJ_M
wrote on 5/5/2003, 2:07 PM
i just hope the interface stays cleans never becomes "quicktime" icon'ezd (or default XP'zed) and all curvy and ugly .. really makes a "pro" product look like a toy.. one good thing Blade has going for it -- to anti-curvy GUI (also AVID) ..
Chanimal
wrote on 5/5/2003, 3:17 PM
I am saddened and relieved by this news. Saddened because Sonic Foundry is one of the exciting, scrappy--competitive teams that has shook up the big players, both with their technology, and their good positioning and marketing. Saddened because I have never seen such a company retain their competitive "killer" culture, when gobbled up by the Borg (as a VP of GE I have done some gobblin').
Also, as a VP Markteting at a few other well-known companies, having gone through five aquisitions--purchased by Motorola, Thompson, etc.--multibillion companies (and launched over 400 products (including Netscape)), and having helped many early multimedia companies such as Creative Labs, ATI, Autodesk (the original Animator), etc., I have seen how difficult it is to survive in this space--so I am relieved for SF to be able to keep the doors open.
We should be able to get a good release out of them before everything starts to dramatically slow (bog) down--especially with the big company politics, policies and even stricter budgets (I have typically seen promotions decrease, rather than increase, after being purchased by a large company). They will also have to change their culture a bit and I'm afraid they will loose that fiesty drive that makes us all want to root for them. Also, marketing will have to wait in a que for a press release, everything will start to follow the corporate look and feel (even if the look and feel doesn't pull), Sony may just get in the way, etc.
They can leverage the Sony name, but Sony is not known for software (i.e., Motorola tried to retain my previous company's name equity--since it was notoriasly bad with software). I would rather they had been purchased by Adobe, Autodesk, or another multimedia software company--who would know what to do with them, and could gain some economy of scale. The price sure seems low...I hope the employees had enough equity, since Wisconsin isn't exactly a hotbed for unemployeed software folks.
Good luck, the paychecks will continue, we'll see what happens.
Chanimal
www.chanimal.com (Chanimal - The Ultimate Resource for Software Marketing)
Also, as a VP Markteting at a few other well-known companies, having gone through five aquisitions--purchased by Motorola, Thompson, etc.--multibillion companies (and launched over 400 products (including Netscape)), and having helped many early multimedia companies such as Creative Labs, ATI, Autodesk (the original Animator), etc., I have seen how difficult it is to survive in this space--so I am relieved for SF to be able to keep the doors open.
We should be able to get a good release out of them before everything starts to dramatically slow (bog) down--especially with the big company politics, policies and even stricter budgets (I have typically seen promotions decrease, rather than increase, after being purchased by a large company). They will also have to change their culture a bit and I'm afraid they will loose that fiesty drive that makes us all want to root for them. Also, marketing will have to wait in a que for a press release, everything will start to follow the corporate look and feel (even if the look and feel doesn't pull), Sony may just get in the way, etc.
They can leverage the Sony name, but Sony is not known for software (i.e., Motorola tried to retain my previous company's name equity--since it was notoriasly bad with software). I would rather they had been purchased by Adobe, Autodesk, or another multimedia software company--who would know what to do with them, and could gain some economy of scale. The price sure seems low...I hope the employees had enough equity, since Wisconsin isn't exactly a hotbed for unemployeed software folks.
Good luck, the paychecks will continue, we'll see what happens.
Chanimal
www.chanimal.com (Chanimal - The Ultimate Resource for Software Marketing)
Wondering
wrote on 5/5/2003, 8:02 PM
Well, games over.
Enjoy it while it last, ....
Enjoy it while it last, ....
TheHappyFriar
wrote on 5/5/2003, 11:54 PM
I'd just like to point out something about the Sony Playstation you didn't: it was designed by Nintendo, but since the Sega CD flopped, they let the manufacture, Sony, use the design. So, in a way, Sony didn't do squat but slap their name on it and bring back the joy all of us had while waiting for other players to join in a game of "Rise of the Triad" (if anyone here has played that game, you'll know what I mean.. Waiting for Player 2 reminds me of... :) )
I've also had bad experience with Sony customer "service." All I wanted was a replacement part for a Betacam SP player, and it took me 3 days to convince them I DIDN'T want to send the player back and that I knew what was wrong and knew how to replace it.
I've also had bad experience with Sony customer "service." All I wanted was a replacement part for a Betacam SP player, and it took me 3 days to convince them I DIDN'T want to send the player back and that I knew what was wrong and knew how to replace it.