Apple laid off 40 people off their Final Cut division.

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Avids integration with protools has gotten really good and is only going to get better, Avid owns protools. I have NEVER had my Avid crash, EVER! I know people who reboot their Avids once a year.
 
ChipG said:
Avids integration with protools has gotten really good and is only going to get better, Avid owns protools. I have NEVER had my Avid crash, EVER! I know people who reboot their Avids once a year.
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That's a big statement, The first AVID's on Mac were nowhere near as solid as you describe, then later, the First Windows AVID I owned was running windowsNT, it was a rock, if it did hic-up, it would only freeze for a few seconds then go again....unlike the Mac spinning beachball of death these days.
I have been running FCP since it hit the market, Bang for buck, is the reason so many use it world wide, simple.

Cheers
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au
 
Give me 5 minutes, I can crash any Avid. That said, its still my most trusted NLE. I believe their file management system, while archaic, gives the best hopes of recovering data after a crash. FCP, Premiere, and Vegas all crash just as easily, but they scare me much more.
 
Yak said:
In November Adobe let go 680 workers 9% of their work force and yet photoshop is not dead but we are now to believe that the loss of 40 people at apple means the death of all pro apps.
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It's not really an apples to apples comparison. Adobe is a software company that primarily makes apps targeted at professional users while Apple is a computer hardware/consumer electronics/content distribution company that happens to make some software targeted at professionals (in order to sell more their higher end hardware).


awelgraven said:
I think it's important to realize two things.

The Pro Apps/Computers section of Apple might not be their biggest cash cow, but it's important to present an upgrade path to people who might eventually need more than iLife and MacBooks. I seriously doubt Apple would want to stop offering such things, because they make the whole platform much more enticing. Just having the option to go to a more pro software and computer system is important to their image.
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I would be very, very surprised if Apple's ProApps aren't anything more than loss leaders to help sell Mac Pros. They typically buy existing software, rebrand it and drastically slash the price (the most recent example being Color which went from $25k to free).

Secondly, other than maybe a 64 bit upgrade in the FCS package, is there really that much to be done to the software that requires such a large team? Yes, there are features we'd like added and bugs we'd like fixed, but Final Cut is pretty well featured. I don't think losing 40 people means their shutting it down, they're probably just trimming the unnecessary.

Honestly, I didn't think going from FCS 2 to FCS 3 was a huge upgrade. There weren't that many "must have" new features... and if they aren't adding that many drastic "must have" new features to later versions, they probably just don't need as large a workforce as they have.

Say it takes 100 people (Just hypothetically, I have no idea about software development) to make a software package like FCS from the ground up and shipped out to customers. Does it really take the same 100 people to take that foundation and keep moving it forward? Probably not.

Final Cut isn't going anywhere.
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I don't think Apple is going to kill the ProApps soon either, but what I am afraid of is Apple letting them stall out against the competition. Companies like Adobe and Avid are obviously driven to have their software compete because that's all they got where as Apple delayed the finishing of Leopard so they could put more resources towards getting the iPhone out the door. I wonder how much farther down the post production rabbit hole Apple wants to go. At what point are they gonna say the product is 'good enough' and they don't want to invest any more additional time and resources into a loss leading, niche product line that primary sells powerful desktop computers (which are on the decline in terms of demand)?


PerroneFord said:
Meanwhile a published Survey in 2008 by the American Cinema Editors Guild placed their users at 21% FCP, and ALL others on Avid of some flavor.

I don't know anything about SCRI, but I darn sure know who ACE is.
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I was going to say something similar. There is a big difference between the entire editing market (which Avid has never gone after) and the broadcast and film market (which Avid does go after).


As and aside, Bob Sliga, a former member of the Color dev team, said that three staffers that worked on Color (1 engineer and 2 QA guys) were part of the 40 that were let go.


-Andrew
 
Tom 4 said:
That's a big statement, The first AVID's on Mac were nowhere near as solid as you describe, then later, the First Windows AVID I owned was running windowsNT, it was a rock, if it did hic-up, it would only freeze for a few seconds then go again....unlike the Mac spinning beachball of death these days.
I have been running FCP since it hit the market, Bang for buck, is the reason so many use it world wide, simple.

Cheers
Tom K
olinevideo.com.au
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Bigger statement now:) no one asked the version or if it is on a unity certified system. I can also crash an Avid on a non certified computer, if you can the software developers will pay you to hear about it.

PC's are more stable than MAC's for a certified Avid btw.
 
plasmasmp said:
Give me 5 minutes, I can crash any Avid. That said, its still my most trusted NLE. I believe their file management system, while archaic, gives the best hopes of recovering data after a crash. FCP, Premiere, and Vegas all crash just as easily, but they scare me much more.
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I'll take you up on that on my system with a rep from avid watching.
 
Remember Filemaker...A likely comparison if Apple feels that they are unable to continue investing in FCP. Not a death but a rebirth. And I would venture a better cross platform product out of it.
 
I like FCP btw, anything I have bought from any software co. I have put the same anount into the stock, talk about being paid to use software.

If you spend $2500 on Avid buy $2500 in stock. They end up paying you in the long run.
 
8string said:
Remember Filemaker...A likely comparison if Apple feels that they are unable to continue investing in FCP. Not a death but a rebirth. And I would venture a better cross platform product out of it.
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Shake might offer a better point of comparison. Unlike Filemaker, Shake was produced by the same division at Apple that produces FCP. And where is Shake today? Discontinued.

Apple seems to be more interested in catering to the broader consumer market these days than they are in serving the much smaller (and much less lucrative) pro video/film customer base. If they don't outright kill FCP, I wouldn't be surprised to see the next version geared toward the iMovie crowd--home movie makers, wedding videographers, etc. Of course, they probably couldn't call it Final Cut Pro. Maybe just Final Cut. Or Death of a Thousand Cuts.
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
Avid doesn't have dividends, no payout... unless the stock price goes up.
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That's why you have to buy the stock with the product if you really think it is good, money where your mouth is type thing, ya know? Don't single out Avid, My $200,000K+ paid off if more ways than one, Stock is one of them, same with Apple, Adobe etc.

BTW thanks for the financial advise :)

Dividens? huh? Is that a good way to make money?
 
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Wow, I love this internets thingy. One tweet on Twitter has set off an amazing amount of speculation. In an economy where the official unemployment rate is right at 10%, where the unofficial employment rate is approaching 20%, and where almost every economist worth his salt is predicting a protracted period of high unemployment, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?hp the unfortunate loss of 40 jobs in and around Cupertino California doesn't mean sh*t. I just upgraded to an 8 core Mac Pro, with Final Cut Studio 3, and have no regrets. I will use this set up for as long as I can to make money. When I can't make money using my new Mac Pro and FCS, I will get something else. I am not going to lose sleep over it, because that ain't gonna be anytime soon.
 
I think the Twitter post was 18 words.

Beyond that, there no other confirmation of who was laid off, what they did, where they were located, or even if they were in the development team or remote contract employees.

There isn't a lot of information out there about what occurred or what impact it will have if any.
 
David S. said:
I think the Twitter post was 18 words.

Beyond that, there no other confirmation of who was laid off, what they did, where they were located, or even if they were in the development team or remote contract employees.
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The originator of that 18-word tweet, Pete Warden, also wrote:

I've had the reports confirmed by multiple affected colleagues, I'm surprised there's been no official word.

If anyone in the LA area is looking for super-smart creatives, product managers and graphics coders, please drop me a line at pete at petewarden.com​
 
Has anyone found any independent corroborating statement by anyone other than Pete Warden?

Any body who was actually laid off said anything anywhere?

Is there anything else substantive out there?
 
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