From a post on the Propellerhead User forum:
Quote:
Avid announced today that it is downsizing and getting out of the consumer audio and video business.
The company’s consumer audio products are being sold to inMusic, the parent company of Akai Professional, Alesis and Numark, among others. The products involved in this transaction include M-Audio brand keyboards, controllers, interfaces, speakers and digital DJ equipment and other product lines.
Avid will continue to develop and sell its Pro Tools line of software and hardware, as well as associated I/O devices, including Mbox and Fast Track.
Avid also plans to reduce the number of its employees by about 20% through the sales and layoffs.
Quote:
inMusic today also announced its acquisition from Avid of the AIR Software Group and M-Audio.
The AIR Software Group and M-Audio join a family of music brands that includes Akai Professional, Alesis, Alto Professional, ION Audio, Numark, plus another recent addition, Sonivox.
“With the addition of AIR and M-Audio, we’re in an even better position to push the boundaries of computer-based composition, production, and performance,” said Jack O’Donnell, owner and CEO, inMusic. ”This will be very positive for musicians, who will get better software, better hardware, and a much more integrated music-making experience as a result.”
The acquisitions also signal a new relationship with Avid. Select Akai Professional and Alesis products will also now include Pro Tools.
M-Audio and the AIR Software Group will join the other brands at the 2012 Summer NAMM Show in July and plan to debut a number of new products at the show.
I didn't see Sibelius Notation mentioned.
I guess it makes sense to sell the consumer video software to Corel, since what Corel already offers in Video Studio X5 isn't much different in look and feel from Pinnacle Studio and Avid Studio.
Below is a part of a letter I sent to Jack O'Donnell, CEO of inmusic, the company that bought m-audio:
Dear Jack O'Donnell and anyone concerned with the future of m-audio:
Congratulations on acquiring m-audio.
I am a long-time end user. I have purchased and enjoyed their products since the late 80's and the days of midiman. Mixers, midi interfaces, monitors, keyboards, pci soundcards --
Midiman/ m-audio made a name for itself by making very reliable and affordable products AND by making it very easy to talk to someone if you needed help.
That all changed when Avid bought the company.
The products were still good, but customer service and technical support dropped into a chasm. It became much harder to access technical support. You had to pay for access, it was hard to reach them. They frequently would not get back to you.
In my view, Avid ruined the great customer relationship midiman/m-audio had built over the years.
Midiman/m-audio became a hot name - and had fiercely loyal customers - because they achieved the rare triple threat in modern commerce: great products, very reasonable prices and fantastic customer service and support. Most companies, whether they realize it or not, cut corners in at least one of those areas.
In acquiring m-audio and mapping the future, I hope you will look to the past and what originally made midiman/m-audio such a great name: the triple threat.
Want a great start? How about the first USB 3 audio/midi interface or a reliable and affordable PCIe audio/midi interface card - and rebuild customer support to it's pre-Avid days.
Here's to hoping that you can restore m-audio to it's former glory, and I wish you every success.
Thanks, John.
What has been your experience with m-audio customer service in the Avid era?
For me, it changed a lot after Avid bought the company.
John
Avid always made money on high end turnkey apps. When I was chief training we decided on a corporate standard in avid. Then the purchasers got in there and demanded Dell. Avid said hp. Deadlock. Then avid wanted windows 2000 and the corp. tech support said no. I paid 9k for support and got a system thrown in.
The local tv stations had some of the same avid stuff. Once it ran and they configured it it was perfect. They. Had zero flexibility. I got myself in hot water for operating outside the city's policies.
They cut my budget by 40 percent but I saved .8 of an employee and turned a pair of training officers into a monster system with 2huge screens, 2sony pro video cams and 12 DVD writers to send one to each station.
It was Slow. It took 6 hours to write one set of 12 DVDs. At the end of the day tracking 500 firefighters and their training was a huge undertaking.
I got 3 paid days off for being disrespectfull.
Very nice letter John....well said and well written.
Jeff
I just hit the Avid site because this is 2nd hand news & did not see any of this. Anyone have a link to the official announcement?
I never had a reason to call M-Audio, and in fact never even had to visit the web site, so I don't know if their tech support is any good or not. PG has spoiled us anyway, so....
Thank You dcuny....must be the heat.....that's it.......fried brain pan.....
I have the Fast Track Pro, a 61 key controller (for sale, BTW), a 49 key that I have a remote power supply and wireless MIDI unit for (also M-Audio) that hangs on a strap so I can roam the stage with it, a 25 key Oxygen, a Trigger Finger MIDI pad controller..... never had one problem with any of their stuff.
They sold the Pinnacle consumer video biz to Corel.
Just come back after a quick look at the MMF forums where I found this little gem about Avid.
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2...th-of-july.htmlDumped all their UK employees in the skip didn't they.
Strikes me that Avid couldn't run a booze up in a brewery.
How many people was "all"? Business decisions like this are never popular to the people losing their jobs, but as much as I have seen happen in the last 12 or so years I need to know more before I'd have an opinion. What kind of operating expenses this downsize eliminated, international travel costs to be saved, warehousing, salaries... that's why I wonder how many people were involved. If it was 12 programmers and 2 in shipping, I can see why they'd close that down.
Being in IT and watching what has happened to my field, I understand the concept. How many help desks have sent their first tier operations to India where they work for less than we tip in a night out? Called anybody for tech support lately and talked to "Carl"?
If you want to see downsizing go look at the Eastman Kodak Company. This is the company I spend 39 years in R&D. It went from a high of 60,000 employees to now 4,000 employees. Fortunately when it came to downsize our department I was old enough with enough years in to retire at the ripe old age of 58.
Never had to call for support on a M-Audio product yet. Tell Karhil I said Howdy!
