Mike, you have described very well the early cash-rich behavior of Avid. Hubris explains why management felt THEY could take a failing company -- which typically was failing for deep reasons the buying team never saw -- and manage them into a positive cash flow business. Google did it a few years ago with Motorola. Total fail.
But, that's only a partial explanation. Avid's complete inability to see the future where NLEs would be dirt cheap led them to not see the need to invest money within Avid itself to prepare for this future -- so they were always late to market. Avid seems to have always been surprised that Apple kept finding ways to increase system performance. Did Avid have no idea that the MC codebase would need re-writes every few years to keep up with the Apple?
By the time Avid MAY have realized they needed huge R&D spending to keep-up MC up-to-date, their cash was gone (along with many engineers)mand they now have nothing to sell that will bring their cash back up. Each year the MC falls further behind and available cash Avid cash decreases.
But, users may be partly to blame. Many may be asking for more than what one price-point can supply. I have V6.0 and it edits, adds FX and Titles, and has -- compared to FCPX -- a very useful CC. It imports DNxHD and ProRes. It exports QT movies. Smart Tools -- which made possible my Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer V6 at http://www.scribd.com that was written when FCP X was released -- nearly eliminates worrying `90s "modes" so one can use MC like FCP.
I'd gladly pay $500 for it -- if it ran on current shipping Apple computers. My ideas: eliminate tape, DVC-based codecs, SD, and add AVCHD, AVC/H.264, and XAVC as a standard import formats. No AMA. Allow one-size above FHD -- UHD. MC, also has a ton of film stuff that can go! And, there are the old off-line formats. Plus, dozens of functions and features that support only the high-end market.
Why not sell the Super MC version for $2500/$3000. In other words, tie needed R&D expenses to incremental profits.
Unless there is a way of boosting sales to individuals who have several easy to use low-cost choices, while getting lots more money from the istalled-base -- I don't see how this ends well. Revenue has to come from someone. And, the number of users must grow.
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