Looks like Avid is tanking...

[Navron]

Interesting article:
Avid, Maker of Pro Tools, Now Losing Money Faster and Delisted from NASDAQ

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Hmm. We were talking about this in uni today. The possibility of Protools being discontinued is a little worrying though, we'd need to set up every computer with something new when 11 becomes too outdated and something else becomes the industry standard. Although if it did get discontinued, most people using it would be able to get a fair while more use out of it before something else comes along and renders it outdated.

It's kind of surprising to see them flopping like this, they're practically at the top of the food chain with Protools.

[Navron]

In today's market, success comes with taking risks, changing the formula, and riding the wave of innovation.

That's why Google and YouTube change nearly every year, and while we usually complain whenever they change their layout, it's often for the purposes of catching up to that years technological advances.

ProTools may be a good DAW, but AVID hasn't shown to be a company that evolves their products. Instead they seem to repeat the same formula over and over, and eventually, it ends up becoming outdated. For example, because of people like Skrillex going mainstream, we've been having a sort of musical revolution over the past 4 years. Companies like Native Instruments have become huge due to the popularity of their synths, and while they offer RTAS plugin support, the majority of synths from other companies only support the VST format, which Pro Tools still doesn't support IIRC.

VST support isn't the only reason PT has fallen behind. Their licensing requirements are even more of a hassle than Steinberg. In short, if a PT user wants to get involved in the current music scene, they have to go through a lot of workarounds to get the same functionality as other DAWs. Combine that with the fact that PT is one of the more expensive DAWs, and their relatively minor improvements between versions, you can see why people are starting to branch away from them.

[ChocolateChicken]

Navron knows what he's talking about. Also, I don't think there will even be an industry standard in the future because as technology advances, studios are becoming more and more obsolete and useless. Studios are becoming more mobile and there are many great DAWs out there to choose from that will get the job done. Entire albums can be produced on a laptop and headphones in someone's bedroom, and there's convolution reverb to simulate acoustic spaces. Collaborations happen over the internet between people living in different countries on their computers…. blah blah blah you get the idea.

If there will be a standard though, it would probably be Steinberg and Cubase.