Hey all:

Does anyone remember the "Open Letter to Avid" thread started by Jon Moser in the PC Forum two years ago?  It was quite the discussion.  You can still check it out here.

Jon recently came to Tewksbury, sat down with Kirk Arnold and the Avid product management team and has spent the past month talking to customers, industry influencers and Avid folks to round out the story. 

The piece below will appear in the November issue of Post but is online now right here.

Check it out and feel free to post any comments you might have, including what you think about what has happened over the last two years.

Two Years have gone and many things have improved, not only on the software side, but still Avid marketing needs to be fine tuned, and, most of all, still Avid I/O hardware is insanely priced... the Mojo DX should be really really cheap, given its lack of analog I/O, and the Nitris DX should cost close to a comparable major competitor's peripheral, or slightly more as it is supposed to slightly accelerate Avid; both boxes should work with other non Avid editors, to compensate for the lost income because of the reduced price by selling to the outside world, and to help spreading Avid over (now) non Avid users; like Unity can be used with other NLEs, just to verify that Avid know what I'm talking about.

Avid please: open Your hardware by publishing software drivers that will allow them to be used with other editing/finishing programs, restyle the boxes and call them Mojo DX2 - Nitris DX2 if You wish, significantly lower the prices and leave the immaginary Avid-land to step into the real world and really compete with Your real competitors, really. When the going gets tough...

P   L   E   A   S    E   !   !   !    !    !    !    !   !

luca.mg:

Avid please: open Your hardware by publishing software drivers that will allow them to be used with other editing/finishing programs

Even the specialist manufacturers like Kona will be struggling as the mainstream display card manufacturers look to continue sales growth by adding more and more professional video support.  Visualize a card that gives better than double head 2K support with a third independent HD component/HDMI channel.  It won't look as glamorous as a Nitris or a Kona, but for a lot of the market it will get the job done.  Trust me - it's coming down the pipeline.

Since this would meet the needs of the bulk of professional editors for a decent low-cost monitoring solution in our more and more file-based workflows, who needs a Mojo?  So when this happens Avid will be left with two choices.  Either support such a third-party solution completely and lose a large part of their hardware market, or ignore it and slowly lose their entire market.

In such a scenario if there's a third choice that would allow Avid to keep Mojo alive in any form, I can't see it.

I agree completely, Luca... the improved economies of scale would have the potential result in the ability to lower prices considerably...while increasing market share of the Avid (hardware) brand. That would increase brand awareness and arguably result in increased sales of other Avid offerings.

It seems like Avid want to make the most profit with the less investment, which does make sense for any company, but the thing is that they only care about making money now, being too short sighted to see that they'll go out of business and stop making money at all in the long run, which does not make any sense to any company. Avid is just maintaining its tools, it has been an innovative Company but it's becoming a dinosaur now; they keep overcharging for their hardware like they used to do in the good old days when they had the NLE monopoly, and it's time that they understand that things have changed; if they want to survive, or even better make profits for the next decades instead of sinking in the next few years, they have to dramatically change their policies.

Let's face it: the Mojo/Nitris DX boxes are just cheaper to manufacture ABVB I/O devices updated to work with current computers and current broadcast technologies. Is this what You call innovation? But forget (and forgive) about innovation, You can't innovate forever after all, and think of the existing products: it took YEARS, for example, to have a 16 tracks audio mix tool in MC, just to mention a popular request out of many, and the audio subsystem has not yet been improved as much as many of us have been asking for. So, merely talking about refining the products, Avid please, as You used to say, do more! And do it now.

I know that many will disagree, but please merge Symphony and Media Composer for a start, this is the biggest improvement You can immediately implement to the editor at no cost, as the development of the Symphony only features should have very well have paid for itself by now, appropriately marketing this (no cost) BIG "innovation" could significantly boost the sales given the advanced colour correction tool embedded in the editor's GUI: an Avid only feature; and come out with a very affordable MC "rough cutter", as this is badly needed as a viewer/logger/producer's tool right now and it could be a smart way to introduce new customers to the Avid product line, some of whom will be attracted by the high end editor in the future, so think of it as an investment. If You don't want to drop the Symphony improve it with some new, unique and innovative (!) features if You can, or else face reality and kill it.

As in my previous post: lower the prices for the DX boxes and make them compatible with third party software, this is vital; think of Smoke, which is coming out with a new Mac/Aja compatible version, how many more customers is this going to drive away from the Avid platform? What if the Avid hardware was open? Wouldn't this allow customers to use the third party software of their choice without dropping Avid for being too closed? How many potential customers is Avid losing for the outrageously unfair cost of its hardware? What's the point of earning 100k (immaginary figures here) selling ten units and losing market share VS making the same 100k selling fifty units and growing/consolidating in the market? And given that the manufacturing cost of the Avid I/Os can't be that bigger than the cost for the competitors to build comparable products that sell for remarkably less, which option would give Avid a longer, more profitable life?

I know that MC 4 just came out, but it seems to me that it is just about time for a reshaped product line with a new improved (as in "Symphonized") MC 4.5 surrounded by fairly priced Mojo/Nitris DX "version 2" I/O boxes...

A nice sunday to You all.

Like you guys said. The moral of your posts has been posted many times before, for about 3-4 years I guess. If you include into the "open hardware" discussion also the pro-tools hardware you could even say 10 years.

From several, mails, interviews and other outings it seems clear to me the message has arrived in Tewksbury but till this day pro-tools can't work with a mojo/Nitris DX box. 3rd party support is coming... sure Avid, but when? How long have we listened to your plans, intentions, developments, etc... without ever committing yourself to a certain time-frame and communicating this time-frame with your customers?

Trust me, in another 10 years you'll be too late.