I got a letter today from Avid CEO Gary Greenfield detailing Avid's reorganization to support its "New Thinking" initiatives (http://www.avid.com/email/2008_07_28_letter_from_CEO/index.html).  What got my attention and has put real fear in my gut for the future of my single-seat "boutique" Avid editing system was the appointment of Paul Lypaczewski to run the Video Business Unit.

I've spoken to Mr. Lypaczewski on a number of occasions in both journalist and user capacities and venues.  He did seem to me to be a nice enough man, a good-hearted human being.  However, as a video business unit manager, he is, I believe, the worst choice that could be made.

Mr. Lypaczewski is largely held by Discreet edit* developers, users, dealers and in-house support people as the person primarily responsible for the inside-out destruction of edit* through  persistent attrition of the development team, marketing dollars, dealer base and user support.  Insiders characterized Mr. Lypaczewski's management philosophy as focused on reallocating resources to development and support of high-end systems with very high prices and low sales volume while gutting development and support for low- to mid-level products with lower prices and higher sales volumes.  One tactic he was accused of using was to raise the pricing on the low- and mid-level products to the point of near insanity so that sales would fall to unsustainable levels, then end-of-life the product.   While I won't get into the details and timetables of  the politics involved, suffice it to say the way in which  this was done left a VERY bad taste in the mouths not only of users but also Autodesk/Discreet developers and customer support personnel that worked with these products.

I think the bottom-line problem is that Mr. Lypaczewski, if past performance is an indicator, will be all ears for the Symphony, Unity, server and distributed workflow product teams and users, while suppressing, alienating and atritting the lower end, more traditional "single seat" products like Media Composer.  The schizophrenic pricing of DX hardware may be a pre-cursor to MC software pricing jumping back up to $10,000 or the end of software-only sales and a return to expensive turn-key only Media Composer systems.

With all due respect to Mr. Lypaczewski, who as I said, is a decent, respectable human being, I (and I would wager, other former Discreet edit* yet current Avid users) will likely start a search for our next non-Avid editing systems as a result of his appointment.  I for one do not want to have to go down with the ship or be in a last-minute dash to find a replacement system when MC gets killed off  while  the company tries to hide the "writing on the wall".

Wow! I got the same letter. I don't know Mr. Lypaczewski - I've never even heard of him. I will say, though, that the rest of the letter was pretty optimistic - especially for "one seaters." Gary mentioned opening up to 3rd party partners. If he's talking about hardware partners, the "one seaters" of the world should rejoice! That's  just MHO.

 From the letter:

"On the service and support side, we’ve created a new Customer Success organization, led by Beth Martinko. Customer Success is an integrated team chartered with our technical service and support efforts for all of our offerings – from professional to consumer, and video to audio."

I'd sure like to hear some elaboration on this particular point. In what ways does this benefit the Avid user?

I cannot see any scenario where Avid kills MC, as that product IS the Avid brand.  Maybe Symphony, but certainly not Media Composer (whoops, near speculation!  Sorry!).  It would be interesting to know how and why Gary decided on this particular person for the job, in light of what seems to be a dismal record.  However, if consolidation is the goal, perhaps he is the right person for the job...?

Avid needs to change everyone's job position (except MichaelP) to marketing.  It doesn't matter if the next version of MC spits out diamonds....they have a rapidly shrinking time window to win over the next generation of editors, and they'll do that primarily through marketing.

wmcole:

Mr. Lypaczewski is largely held by Discreet edit* developers, users, dealers and in-house support people as the person primarily responsible for the inside-out destruction of edit* through  persistent attrition of the development team, marketing dollars, dealer base and user support.  Insiders characterized Mr. Lypaczewski's management philosophy as focused on reallocating resources to development and support of high-end systems with very high prices and low sales volume while gutting development and support for low- to mid-level products with lower prices and higher sales volumes.

In defense of this - smoke, flame and inferno have maintained their niche market viability while software based solution like AE, Motion, Shake, Boris, etc continue to mature. edit* had no chance. Trying to elevate it beyond what it was would have probably taken down the entire company. Discreet continued developing what they where good at - niche FX boxes. In hindsight, the abandoning of the lower market probably saved the company. Remember at that time it was a noisy NLE industry - several competing products to name: Avid Xpress, FCP, Premiere, in sync, MSP, couple more I am forgetting.

Not saying this should apply to Avid since higher-end products like Unity and Symphony are directly  related to the success of MC. Without people editing in MC, Symphony onlining becomes less attractive. No large MC user base means Unity loses its main advantage - Avid project sharing.

.02

Larry Rubin:

 From the letter:

"On the service and support side, we’ve created a new Customer Success organization, led by Beth Martinko. Customer Success is an integrated team chartered with our technical service and support efforts for all of our offerings – from professional to consumer, and video to audio."

I'd sure like to hear some elaboration on this particular point. In what ways does this benefit the Avid user?

That seems long on jargon, short on substance.  Methinks I detect the delicate whiff of snake-oil.

Larry Rubin:

 From the letter:

"On the service and support side, we’ve created a new Customer Success organization, led by Beth Martinko. Customer Success is an integrated team chartered with our technical service and support efforts for all of our offerings – from professional to consumer, and video to audio."

I'd sure like to hear some elaboration on this particular point. In what ways does this benefit the Avid user?

 I was thinking the same thing when I read that letter.  Good to hear I'm not the only one!

I wonder, though, why did someone rumored to be the downfall of another editing software get a job with Avid?

 I've read that statement over and over again, and it makes absolutely no sense to me regarding what message they are trying to convey to the users. I agree with John that this appears to be "smoke and mirrors" language that tells you absolutely nothing understandable.

it makes absolutely no sense to me regarding what message they are trying to convey to the users

I must agree.

But mostly, bluntly put, I just don't care how they do it, I just want to see it done.

Zigsta:

I wonder, though, why did someone rumored to be the downfall of another editing software get a job with Avid?

I don't see it that way. I see an executive who successfully completed a reorganization of product lines based on corporate goals he was given. Yes, EDIT* died but I, personally, believe it was for the betterment of the rest of the company.

As I understand, Paul Lypaczewski will be head of NLE product developments, not the marketing and strategic corporate development. He may be a better product developer than a marketer?

The major new in the letter is that Avid will be one company, not a coglomerat of differnet companies with one owner. This is the good news. This will in future give us compability between ProTools and Media Composer.

That was the way I interpreted it as well, Berga.

 Resurrecting an old thread here...

I briefly had the opportunity to use Edit*.  I strongly considered purchasing it in the late '90's when i got into editing, but instead elected to go with Premiere and then Avid.  The main thing that scared me away was the $12,000 price-tag for a piece of software with no hardware!  My complete turnkey costs with everything I needed for my Edit system were so appallingly high that I elected to go a different route.

Can someone please explain to me what made Edit* such an amazing piece of software?  I've seen screenshots and recall my own experience with it, and it was its own animal.  Its interface had nothing to do with smoke/inferno, though so many people just rave about it.

Not trying to start a war here, nor am I dissing former Edit users.  I'm just curious as to what it was about the product that made it so great.

FWIW, if discreet/Autodesk were to put out a software-version of smoke, I'd be on that in a heartbeat.  I'd definitely keep my Avid, but I'd love the ability to work with "Smoke soft."

I'm also concerned about the future of combustion...one of my all-time favorite programs.  I love it more than After Effects, even though it's not getting much development love from the company.

Dom Q. Silverio:

In defense of this - smoke, flame and inferno have maintained their niche market viability while software based solution like AE, Motion, Shake, Boris, etc continue to mature. edit* had no chance. Trying to elevate it beyond what it was would have probably taken down the entire company. Discreet continued developing what they where good at - niche FX boxes. In hindsight, the abandoning of the lower market probably saved the company. Remember at that time it was a noisy NLE industry - several competing products to name: Avid Xpress, FCP, Premiere, in sync, MSP, couple more I am forgetting.

;-)