This IS the Avid L2: [Avid-L2] Re: Stuff I wish they'd fix

Friday, July 19, 2013

[Avid-L2] Re: Stuff I wish they'd fix

Well said.

I think Avid has repeatedly released 0.95 versions of tools -- and then never finished or fixed them.

Customers typically start out asking very politely for those tools to be finished or fixed -- but their requests fall on deaf ears.

Then, after 5, 10 or 15 years of asking, customers start getting genuinely angry -- and they express their frustration in public forums such as this one.

However, one of the most interesting aspects of this story arc is watching Avid 'push back' when they are repremanded for not finishing or fixing a tool.

Listen, I 'get' that resources are limited. I 'get' that new features must be constantly introduced to maintain competitiveness and attract new users. And I 'get' that profit margins are squeezed on products that have been commoditized.

However, you should either do something right -- or not do it at all. Smart companies do not alienate their loyal customer base. And, smart companies understand the collateral damage to new sales -- when loyal customers publically complain about tools that haven't been fixed, finished or upgraded for 5, 10 or 15 years.

--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "Job ter Burg (L2B)" <Job_L2@...> wrote:
>
> On 19 jul. 2013, at 09:06, pat_adc <pat@...> wrote:
>
> > increasingly polished and capable tools
>
>
> I'm more pessimistic about this than you. I see the three A-companies spending most of their time catching up, rather than innovating. If they do innovate, they launch immature products or features. With Avid, statistically, you then have about 5% chance that the feature is ever developed beyond its .0 implementation.
>
> Script Based Editing stems from the 90's. Today, it still does not have 16x9 windows in the script.
> Change Lists were never developed since the 90's, even though the need for Change Lists is increasing.
> BWAV support is still as limited as it was 10 years ago, even though it is the de facto standard for production sound.
> SubCap, Find, Universal Mastering, ScriptSync, PhraseFind etc. were never completed, they are still at the level they were when originally introduced.
> v7 has Spanned Markers, FrameFlex and Target Masks, neither of which are fully functional, and there is no way to tell if they'll ever be fixed or finished.
>
> And that's just a few examples. They seem to tick the check box for a feature and move on, rather than properly thinking about what the underlying workflow problem or challenge the feature is supposed to help editors face.
>
> Some folks say these features are for a niche group, a group that cannot expect manufacturers to work on the stuff that only they need. Leaving this niche of high end professionals (for lack of a better desciption) without any choice, as all of the A-companies now focus on the middle end at the lowest cost, and only offer middle-of-the-road solutions that they have to market to generic users.
>
>
> I'd glady pay 5K for MC if they finally fixed and finished many of the features on my list. 999USD for a new MC license is great, but it does not raise more funds for R&D, I reckon.
>
> J
>