No AVID at NAB 2008
 

**The following is from an official Avid press release**

*** Ethan's Commentary***

I don't understand what this means... anyone care to expound/speculate? Is this signaling a shift in their strategy, or is it simply a way to change public opinion of their company? I find it hard to believe that a company like Avid is forgoing NAB. Granted, they don't get much out of going. I mean it's not like they can even compete with Apple's hype machine that regularly blows them out of the water, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that they aren't going to be there. I'd love to hear some speculation on this one.

As big as their booth has always been at NAB (one year it was two booth spaces, for Avid and Pinnacle), it looks like they're going to save (rough guess here) about half a million dollars by not exhibiting this year. Thanks for the news,

Chris,
I understand money savings, and the fact that they are so established in the industry that they really don't NEED to be there, but it's still odd that they aren't going. I mean, have you ever heard of an industry leader not going to NAB? Maybe I just haven't been around long enough.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0016/t.9631.html

Here's a response from the new interim CEO pretty much admitting some strategic mistakes that Avid made. But also talking in "marketing speak" and buzzwords.

"She said Avid needed to deepen relations with its enterprise customers and she conceded that some products had been rushed to market, resulting in some dissatisfaction among customers"

(Alert URL for February announcements) www.avid.com/we-are-listening


I think they realize there is a lot of competition for attention at NAB and want to have a clearer message to customers.

We'll see what they do in February.

Interesting. I received an email request from Avid to participate in their online survey, and they indicated that the survey was directed towards professionals in the field and not just users of avid products -avid products were not even mentioned.

The thirty survey questions, save one or two, were not product focused or product specific either. I came away with the feeling that they were trying to improve either their communcations or customer service issues.

It's quite obvious that in a world of where many NLEs are on the same level of capability, that the clear winners are those whom are quick to answer the needs of users dealing with software and configuration issues and missing deadlines. Having an expensive booth is par for the course and really not solving a more dire problem -trust.

Thats my take.

Unless Avid would have some huge new product to show at NAB I see little point in them going. NAB is kind of a showoff PR stint in many ways and when you only have the older products everybody is used to people just walk by and go to the flashy new junk. Really it would be a waste of money and time for Avid to go this year if they have nothing new planned. I'm pretty sure everybody going to NAB already knows what Avid is and what their stuff can do.

Peter,
You make some nice points. While I was trying to figure out their move it struck me that while Avid is well known as an industry leader, they have an image problem to overcome. I've often seen it written on message boards that "I've switched to FCP (or Adobe) from Avid... god I hate Avid" but rarely have I heard it stated with the same disgust in reverse. It's usually a more muted, "well, I tried FCP and didn't find it to meet my needs, looks like I'm heading back to Avid".
My gut reaction to their announcement was that they are going to attempt to mend their reputation, while at the same time look to solidify their hold on the high end market, hence the lack of need to be put on parade for the masses at NAB.
I've been to NAB the last couple years and it's been much like this:
APPLE: *fireworks going off all over* wow! look at our greatly improved product!! and now we drink the kool aide...
ADOBE: (much the same as Apple, but without the kool aide)
AVID: hey... we added a tool bar to our already stable and well entrenched platform... anyone there... hello??

I agree, but I'll ask again:
Has anyone seen one of the major players in the video/film world not show up to NAB while they were still a major player? Avid not going is like Sony not showing up in my book.

Ethan, my take on it is that their decision not to exhibit at NAB is establishing a major precedent. They're making the bold statement that "we don't need to go to NAB" and for a company as big as they are, it is perhaps a big, new step to take in which a lot of other companies may soon choose to follow.

I've attended and worked a ton of trade shows for the last ten years and there's definitely been a drop-off in their popularity. NAB might still show increasing numbers, but I think that growth rate is slowing down. For Avid to bow out is probably the big move that some other companies, big and small, have been waiting on.

Who here remembers COMDEX? It was huge... and then it was gone.

I remember Comdex and had Compaq Computer as a client. They were I believe the first to drop out because of cost. Of course now they're HP.

But with the internet and everything I haven't been to NAB in over 10 years. I'm not saying NAB will go away, but is it really needed?

I can get most of the info on new products here at dvinfo.net for FREE!!!

Kicking the tires, I can get a demo at my local dealer or many times I can download a 30 day free trial.

This is Avid's chance to turn their reputation back around and they know it.
As a company they admit that they're perceived as arrogant and want to connect more directly probably like the early 90's.

I had the opportunity of attending 2 Avid User Forums back in 1994 and 1995. They were unbelievably useful. You got to talk directly to guys who were developing the application provide input into new features.

We'll see in February.

long AAPL, short AVID has been a nice pairs trade for about 3 years running...Avid earnings has been flat to lower in the past year, while Apple's growth in the multimedia space has been through the roof....

my speculation is that Avid is trying to do a better job of servicing their existing customers, because they are not doing a good job of attracting new customers. re-trenchment is not a bad idea, it's quite common actually, for a business to try to extract more dollars from deeper pockets than to try to find new pockets.

i'd say this is more about Avid than NAB, though NAB will undoubtedly feel the blow of losing a large vendor. it's a good strategy, to thumb their nose at NAB, though, because it distracts from the fact of Avid is currently a no-growth business, and they can add those dollars to their bottom-line. even if you add that half-million to their bottom-line, however, while it helps staunch the bleeding, the actual earnings scenario is still flat, at best.

it might be a good turn-around play, eventually, because they are still a profitable company with a great client list. but certainly not right now, not with a Hollywood strike on the table.

It's still perceived in the industry that FCP is the editor of the working man, and Avid is the professional's choice.
In my opinion, it would be wise for Avid to stop wasting time and resources chasing the lower to middle tier editor (me) and focus on the segment of the market they still dominate and that's still hugely profitable for them. I mentioned this in a discussion on the Red forum, but since Avid has a history of buying up companies who can be of benefit to them, why not go after Assimilate (makers of Scratch) and bring an industry leading finishing tool into their arsenal, making them the high-end user's one stop shop. Makes sense to me... but I'm not Avid, nor do I know if Assimilate is for sale.
They've lost the war in the lower end of the NLE market in my opinion. Go back to doing what you do best and that's expensive gear for those who need and can afford it, and possibly keep some iteration of Xpress around for multiple workstation environments like news rooms, but also sell those guys your high dollar Unity servers as well.
Maybe I can send this in an email to Avid and ask if they'd pay me an analyst fee?

Having attended NAB for the past 8 years, I could see how AVID would make this decision. Their booth was always close to Apple's (except for last year) and the Apple booth was always packed and the AVID booth was much more empty. I have used both products exclusively and AVID support is awful. The company I used to work for spent $300K one year on edit systems and it was horrible trying to get support from AVID. Our Unity had more than half of the drives in it fail within a one year time. Each drive was replaced by AVID as long as we had our support contract up to date. It cost us $13K a year just to be able to pick up the phone and get tech support. We also had to pay for minor software updates. I got tired of the "we are AVID so you have to pay for it, we are the only option out there" attitude.

AVID has had some great products, but the ROI is not there anymore.

One more thing, I used to work in the high tech field in the late 90's and early 2000's. When a company make a major move to not attend a trade show like NAB, it can be a sign that things are not right. It will be spun as a cost savings move, but more than once I have seen it be a sign that the ship is sinking.

Just my .02,

Daniel Weber

I'm not sure their ship is sinking, but they do need to bail some water. Sounds to me like they're regrouping, re-evaluating, and rethinking a few things. I'm not sure they have something in mind like I proposed a few posts ago, but it really does make sense to me if they go that route. Keep the big fish (or as Avid themselves say "Avid needed to deepen relations with its enterprise customers") and let the rest go. They may not be able to dominate the market, but if they play their cards right they can still own a profitable and high profile segment of that market.

Just some thoughts
 

I'm a FCP guy who was trained on Avid, cut my teeth on Avids, and came to realize that FCP was where I needed to be for a price/performance standpoint. I got my former employer out of their $100,000 (circa 1990's) Avid systems and into FCP when we needed to go HD back in 2003 - 2004, and although he was a die-hard Avid guy who grumbled about FCP all the time, he didn't switch back. How could he?
The bottom line was that FCP could do almost all of what his Avids could do at a fraction of the cost, and he wasn't tied to hardware that was aging and being phased out with no economical alternative for upgrading.
In my mind, this is when FCP really took hold in the market. It's ability to work in HD on a budget at a time when working in HD on an Avid meant another $30,000 to $40,000 upgrade to an already aging system was the breaking point for the company I worked for and I'd venture a guess, many other companies like us.

Now the question remains, what will Apple do with their status as the leader in the lower to middle tier of the market? This of course supposes that Avid is conceding this segment of the market, but bear with me here. Once the innovator becomes the top dog, generally speaking bad things happen. Watch for a competitor to arise in the next 5 years. I'm not sure who it is yet, but you betcha when I see someone come along who reminds me a lot of what FCP was about 4 years ago, I'm buying stock... especially if I see Apple making the same mistakes that Avid did, namely, attempting to dominate an entire market and moving their focus from their core customers to a segment that they just can't compete in. We'll see.

Someone get this internet thing away from me. It's sucking up all my time.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Apple will become the leader.

If Avid slips, it's more likely that we'll end up in a situation similar to the camcorder market: there will be four or five big brands each with there own following and market niche.

Avid's problem, as I see it, is that they are an elite (not implying that Avid users are elitists) and expensive brand in a market that is becoming more democratic and affordable each year.

If you carefully read what I wrote, you'll see I was saying that Apple will become the leader... of the low to mid range niche. I never implied that FCP would overtake Avid on the high end. That's Avid's niche, and I believe they can hold that piece of the pie for years to come unless they mess it up somehow.

I'd venture a guess and say that FCP is 'already' the leader in the midrange boutique market.

And Avids problems stem from having to compete with themselves, NOT FCP. Avid has a long entrenched high end market to protect. They COULD unlock all the power of Media Composer, or Symphony in a software ony package, paired with third party cards like AJA, but then they'd 'piss off' the high end market and lose the lucrative 'service contract' business. (Before you say "Tough Shite", think about how pissed you get when you buy software, and it goes on sale, or gets bundled or upgraded and other people get a great deal a month later... now think in terms of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pissed.)

Is that a smart business plan??? No. I think we're all on board with that, but turning AVID around is like turning around a battleship.

Before they started offering discount upgrades from AXP to Media Composer, I suggested they simply ellimiate Xpress Pro, and offer a straight, low cost one time upgrade to Media Composer. Price MC just slightly higher than FCP, and let us upgrade for the difference. But what about the people who already bought a copy at the much higher price? Easy... give them a second copy for the same upgrade price difference. Now you've got people happily editing away with shops full of Media Composers... only ONE version of the Software out there... make it run with a third party card like AJA, and you're good to go head to head in the small shops against FCP, and you can STILL buy the adrenaline, for bigger faster power.

But do they listen to me??? Hell, my wife and kid don't listen to me.

Sigh. I'm buying a MacBook Pro this week, and I'll load my Avid onto it, but I'll also get a copy of FCP. Gotta keep all the bases covered, all my options open.

As to why they are a no show at NAB - Hard to say. It's radical enough that they COULD be trying to turn the battle ship a little sharper... but I don't think so.

I still remember when Ampex went to a small booth in Amsterdam and then no booth at NAB. The message received was "we give up. we're dead."

I think missing NAB is a big mistake. Without NAB you lose mindshare.

Then again... maybe this is a temporary reset. They want a smaller booth, but that sends a "dying" message. So, in 2008 they announce a big strategy with no booth. In 2009 they announce that they are back. The booth is small, but bigger than zero. And the excuse is that the bigger space was no longer available.

Kinda like a corporation taking a big loss all in one quarter.

It could be that in this age of the internet and immediate information dissemination that Avid feels the trade shows like NAB are arcane and a waste of money. You can roll your products out through press releases and fancy websites. Get some posts going on industry discussion boards and there you have it... instant, cheap(ish) product roll-out.
BUT, even if that's what they have in mind, I'm not sure I'd want my company being the first to buck the trend of NAB. It's just such a huge event in the industry, and being a high profile no show... it just doesn't look good. Throw in an ambiguously worded press release about your decision on the heels of a major company shakeup and it seems like an even worse idea.
Who knows, maybe we'll look back on this one day as the beginning of the end for NAB type show... but I'm not so sure.

Agreed, in my opinion this is most likely the real underlying motive here.

As for myself, there's only one reason I still attend NAB: the social aspect -- it's a chance to see friends. I don't care very much about the exhibits.

Right. It definitely takes guts to do this, but I'll bet now that Avid's done it, more will follow.

Ethan,

How much longer do you expect Avid will be able to "defend the high ground" on existing deep-pocket customers w/o going after new blood before it finds itself knee deep in the eroding waters of cheaper/faster hardware and software? I've seen a number of posts by "Avid guy's" saying Avid needs to get out there and compete more and think the company will die if they take a more defensive position.

On the other hand, how much of Avid's business really is w/"Hollywood"? I was speaking w/a rep from a very large LA rental house a year or so ago and he said while TV shows and movies were high profile customers for Avid, they didn't make up a similarly sized chunk of Avid's revenue. Maybe Avid can afford to serve only the top end of Hollywood because other parts of the company will keep the company afloat? Kind of like how other parts of Apple generate enough revenue for Apple to sell FCP at a loss.

It's interesting to say the least. I don't want to see any major player go under though 'cause competition is always the consumers' best friend.

-A

Andrew,

If I can chime in. While Avid is losing in lot of areas including small medium post houses, they still dominate feature film and broadcast editing. But, even Hollywood isn't their most profitable market.

However, the company is a little more diverse than we realize. Pinnacle is #1 in consumer PC editing software.

That being said, the company's most profitable areas aren't just film/video production. Avid's Digidesign group is considered the standard in digital audio recording and the Forensics products are selling very well to govt. agencies and command a premium price.

The other aspect to Avid's business is that they offer a total enterprise solution for editing, large media databases, graphics, media playout for very large TV networks worldwide. This is mission critical stuff. They just installed a large turnkey solution for France 24. They're in CNN, NBC, CBS, BBC,etc. etc.

The broadcast market is what they will defend Apple mightly because one sale could be in the millions.

Apologies to Ethan, didn't mean to speak for you for I know Andrews question was for you.

Cheers..

Yes David, bow before me... cower in fear, for I AM ETHAN!!!!!

Actually you answered much better than I could have with little facts and tidbits that I didn't know. And I agree with everything you said.
... and you're good looking.
... you smell nice too.

Off topic but maybe not.. those people in Aus worried about Avid, but are hoping to go to Digital Media Festival to see the Sony EX1 will also be disappointed as Sony (Hardware and Software divisions) have said no to this as well, simply because the DMF is more of an educational hub than anything else.

So yeah, if you were going to DMF and hoping to get your grubby mitts on an EX1 for a play, you might come across one from a 3rd party distributor, but there will be no official stands in any case (for Sony Pro or For Sony Media Software)

I was pretty disappointed with DMF this year - No Sony, No Apple, No Videocraft. Was that because they were all at SMPTE earlier in the year? Pity I hadn't decided on what I wanted then and was hoping to have a final play with what I needed before I purchased.

Here's a short article where Avid's VP Graham Sharp explains (or spins?) the NAB no go...

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6503817.html

BTW - Ethan, I did read your post carefully. To put it another way: I think I that Apple's market is a lot more competitive than Avid's was. And if they have a lead in innovation it's very narrow. So I don't think FCS will ever be as comfy in their lead as AVID was. That's all.

Let record show, I too bow before Ethan. :)

Yup, I'd say that article is a fair job of 'spinning' rather than explaining. "We're not going to show up, because we're not interested in the small, or mid level sales growth. We already have the top broadcasting execs' numbers in our rolidex, why should we try to reach out to anyone else?" Yup, sounds like smart marketing to me... (snark)

Hey Richard,

You think Mr. Sharp would take us to a 4 star restaurant and order a 40 year old bottle of wine and a 10 oz. steak with lobster? I guess you have to have call letters for that meal.

They did say however that they would set up at a Vegas hotel during NAB to meet with "key" customers.

It is "retrenchment" marketing, but it is probably their best marketing move at this point.

Regardless of whether they go to NAB or not, they have to innovate with better products. Otherwise it is moot.

I'll admit that I haven't been to NAB in a long time. But I hear the Avid party last year in vegas was very lame. Maybe they're moving dollars to the party. Also, I would rather to go an Avid User Forum any day of the week than NAB. I agree with him about the "noise" and trying to talk to a sales rep.

I mean usually the sales rep doesn't have the answers that you need anyway. Back in the day of the user forums you got to talk to the software engineers who really knew the answers to your questions. Very cool events.
And the we, the users, paid our own way!! Still worth every penny. In 1995 at the Avid Users forum in Florida, a girl won a 9 gigabyte Avid hard drive worth $3,000 in a giveaway. We were all trying to convince her to play us in poker for that drive. She lost but wouldn't give it up.

In the meantime, I think I'll call Mr. Sharp and see if he would at least take me to Burger King for a kid's meal.

Wanna come along??

Cheers.

Hey, I do a lot of freelance for MCTV here on the Penninusla,... I got a T-Shirt with call letters and the words "CREW" on it.... somewhere. Maybe even a baseball cap with a logo on it... I must be SOMEBODY... Please AVID, answer my calls.

No, its for the simple fact that these "festivals' aren't bringing in much cash. Last one we did cost us over $12k (about 5 years ago from memory) and it really wasn't worth our time.

This is a very bad move, IMHO. You don't begin to listen to your customers more by ignoring the single biggest customer gathering.

This is poor body language for Avid: Are they so desparate for cash that they need to save the cost of going? Are they afraid of being over shadowed by Apple? Are they retreating from the middle market, even though a lot of its members get promoted to the upper market? Do they have nothing impressive to offer?

To be honest, I think Apple's Final Cut can do to Avid what Microsoft's Excel did to Lotus 123. Lotus was a firmly entrenched product in the professional world, but Excel was considered more user friendly and reliable. People coming out of school liked Excel more than 123, and Excel played extra nice with an OS on the scene that was gaining ground: Windows.

With Apple's money and Steven Job's savy, the only ? in my mind is if Apple wants to essentially wipe out Avid in ~ ten years, not if they are realistically capable of doing it.

I purchased my own personal Avid back in 1996. Back then it was
the way to go and that interface for cuttiing is still elegant in its simplicity.
Apple got most of FCP from Avid.

That said, my view is that Avid is hurting big time. Apple has cut into
their territory and is running away with all the clients who don't need
Avid's massive, and massively expensive, media sharing network.
READ: Almost everyone!
The highest end clients are still Avid's and will be for a while longer,
but between FCP and Logic, this is the first sign the giant has
stumbled while grasping for his heart.

More info on the Avid rumor mill. I just spoke with a long time
Digi employee. He said that the Avid board forced out David Krall,
a good guy, and put in some woman who has no idea as
to what a pro tools rig does other than, "puts music into the
computer." She is the interim CEO, and she decided to bail
out of NAB, because the story goes, she does not really know
much about Avid or Digidesign or NAB for that matter.
When that decision was made, Avid stock dropped $3 that day.

This could be wrong, but that is what I have been told.

WMMV.

My thoughts on this:

1- Avid doesn't seem like they get what's happening with the desktop NLE market.

1a- Having a booth at NAB is a good way to reach this market. For the high-end market you can simply do your own thing at a hotel (Sony and some other companies do this) and be successful at it since you are dealing with a very very small # of customers. But the desktop market is high volume (e.g. 700,000 registered copies of FCP)... having no presence at NAB sends a bad message and means that these customers can't talk to Avid.

1b- Free DV is finally discontinued, and likely a sign of poor management. Ok there is some concern about cannibalizing sales. But it looks like they spent a lot of development effort crippling the product and not a lot on actually making sure it met its goal (getting people to learn the Avid user interface). It was too buggy for people to give it a fair shake.
And did they not learn anything from Pro Tools Free? Watered down, didn't work (crashes every other command on average... literally), and finally discontinued.

1c- They need to get rid of Xpress (or Xpress Pro) and just sell software-only Media Composer (or Symphony) at a similar price to FCS. The professional offline editing market is going to bottom out because of FCP... so there's little to gain from protecting it while Avid could be going after FCP's 700,000 users (and Adobe and the others). But by watering down its product into Xpress, Xpress just isn't a very compelling choice compared to FCP.

2- Bad marketing and public relations. Their press release backfired on them as most people picked up on the "not exhibiting at NAB". I'm not sure what message they were trying to send with the press release, but I think a lot of their customers are getting the wrong message... e.g. "not exhibiting at NAB because we can't afford it / we are on our way out". The information about their new marketing strategy is extremely vague... "we are changing our marketing strategy, but we can't tell you what it is yet".

The press release is just written really badly since the first line is not written for news. The most newsworthy/important piece of information needs to be in the very first line. The message of their press release seems to be "we are changing our marketing strategy, but we can't tell you what it is yet"... unfortunately that is not newsworthy (or not written in a way that lends itself to be newsworthy). So most people picked up instead on "we are not exhibiting at NAB"... which is the newsworthy bit in their press release.

The intended message and mechanics of their press release is really bad. They should have been saying something like "we are increasing our marketing budget". Or they should not have even released it.

I think one should keep in mind that both companies aren't solely in the NLE business. Most of Apple's business is in iPod, Mac computers, and in cell phones. I'm not that familiar with all of Avid's holdings, both I believe a lot of their holdings aren't in video editing (e.g. Pro Tools, playout, etc.).

I believe Avid's best longterm hope is to be bought by or do some type of partnership with Microsoft. Avid can't even turn a profit, how can they realistically compete with Apple for the long haul?

Loyalty...
They rely on existing loyalties to keep them afloat.

To be honest, I see more people (we're talking high end studios) jumping to Matrox Axio and Vegas. Price is good, and functions are ideal. Working side by side they scream productivity, much more than Avid or FCP could ever be.

hmmm. Could 'ever be'? Those are pretty strong words. That line of thought would imply that both companies (avid and apple) are not constantly improving their product.
Being a former Vegas user myself, I find the ergonomics and workflow of HD in FCP much more conducive to me being a more productive editor than Vegas 8 at this time.

best regards...

New CEO for Avid
 

http://www.avid.com/company/releases..._ceo_avid.html

Change is coming. For better for worse.

Well, he seems to have great credentials for acquisitions and mergers... is that a good thing or a bad thing? Would have been nice to have someone with a little production in his background.