Avid Sells Its Consumer Divisions
In a press release today, Avid announced the sale its consumer divisions along with a restructuring that together will result in a 20% staff reduction, and an intensified focus on professional markets. Consumer video (ie. Pinnacle) was sold to Corel and consumer audio (m-Audio) was sold to Akai. The consumer divisions were only responsible for about 13% of the company’s total revenues, but Avid’s stock rose more than 5% on the news. This couldn’t have been an easy decision for Avid management, and I hope that everybody who was let go finds new work quickly.
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Splice Now 
July 2, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Just the opposite of Apple!!
July 2, 2012 at 4:51 pm
ive been a die hard avid user for about 8 years now. Since im starting to shoot now and want to only work w/ native formats im forcing myself to learn premiere + cs6. although for music videos i may stick to media composer, nothing has been able to beat its multicam features.
July 2, 2012 at 7:19 pm
although with blackmagic cinema camera recording mxf it may be pointless to switch. decisions decisions
July 3, 2012 at 3:34 am
My sympathies to all those who have produced an outstanding product and who now find themselves redundant. It is a tragedy that the companies with all the money (Microsoft, Google etc, in this case Corel) can ruthlessly swallow up any competition and drag them down to mediocrity. I suppose that it must make financial sense but it leaves a very bitter taste.
July 4, 2012 at 12:41 pm
One of Avid’s problems has always been its small size and its resistance to change. I remember how long it took to get to the software only version — I am sure that lack of manpower was as much a factor here as corporate philosophy. But that saddled Avid, probably unfairly, as a too-pricey alternative to FCP at a time when they needed the educational and indie market which was moving to FCP.
This was a combination of corporate blindness and a small development team. (When I look at how drastic the changes in Premiere have been over the last two years, I sigh.)
I find the divesting of the consumer side interesting, though I have no idea how that will work out.
• Where will new users come from? (Not that Pinnacle was ever a gateway product to MC, the way that iMovie was to FCP). But Avid needs a growing base of users, not legacy only markets. Many of those markets are doomed to disappear or to change in drastic ways, and Avid may or may not be able to go along for that ride when it happens.
• What happens to the educational market?
• How will publicity and marketing work?
• Will the emphasis on pro products mean that outreach to the middle market (wedding and event videography, corporate video, K-12 educational, et al) end or gets shorted? That’s the market that moves up to “Pro” market.
• And, finally, will this send a positive or negative message to those people on the higher end who were looking to MC as an alternative to FCPx? Right now I’m seeing a number of people changing to both Avid and Adobe products. Hopefully, for Avid’s sake, this will not tip the scales into Adobe’s corner.
July 5, 2012 at 1:05 am
To abandon the current Academic pricing would in my opinion be a big mistake especially now when many are transitioning away from FCP. Education is a great feeder for eventual pro sales.
July 5, 2012 at 8:19 am
Bill,
I completely agree. Though I think it’s more than pricing, it’s the commitment to tutorials, publicity and marketing to that market.
July 5, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Absolutely. Students need training. Mind you the net provides a lot of good tutorials which help. It is up to the teachers to provide the added “industry” bits with visiting professionals etc. Once again Avid sponsored webcasts with pros could help there.
It’s one thing to know the software it’s another to understand storytelling and yet another to know the work ethic and practices of industry.
July 5, 2012 at 8:20 am
And, and let’s not forget that education isn’t just about K-12 and college. It’s about outreach and education to users — new and old.
July 5, 2012 at 1:54 pm
A composer friend of mine just noted that Sibelius pretty much just shut its doors. He’s super bummed.
July 5, 2012 at 3:03 pm
The problem with Pinnacle and Avid was that there wasn’t a compelling way to migrate from Pinnacle Studio to Media Composer — it was never going to be a ‘gateway drug.’ Maybe this will free up resources to create that application.
July 5, 2012 at 3:27 pm
You’re right. There was pretty much no easy way at all. Not very smart. I had hoped the iPad app would help that, but not really.
July 5, 2012 at 4:04 pm
My own brief fiddle with the Avid iPad app left me remembering iMovie which I had tried to forget. Still for editing those home videos shot on the iPhone it’s much better than nothing.
July 5, 2012 at 4:09 pm
My fantasy is that we can find an NLE iPad app that is simple enough so producers can pre-select sound bites and directors can easily select performances and pass them along to me, in much the way that I used to learn about their preferences from dailies screenings.
Yeah, I AM dating myself.