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| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Windows - FORUM HAS MOVED! > Constructive idea and question for MM | Forum Quick Jump
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CraigP
Registered Member
      
Date Joined Apr 2013
Total Posts : 313
| Posted 8/27/2016 12:01 AM (GMT -6) |   | EpeeDad said...
I find myself more and more frustrated with Finale and am seriously considering making the investment in time to learn another product.
This is why I say MakeMusic really should come out with a broad and transparent discussion of their vision for the product. Dorico has forced the issue. With Dorico heading for an initial product by the end of 2016, this has forced others to put cards on the table. MuscScore, StaffPad, and Overture have been out there, mostly independent of the Dorico thing. But it seems pretty clear that the new Notion and Finale 25 were announced at least in part to get out ahead of Dorico's availability date.
We seem to be at a very interesting moment. 10 years ago, the conventional wisdom said that anybody doing "serious publishing" had to use Finale because that was the de facto standard in publishing houses, and really the only way to produce a commercial-grade score. Sibelius get into the picture and we had a period where the conventional wisdom said that for publishing, you "should" use Finale, but Sibelius is probably OK too.
I don't know that the publishers are really driving anything these days. And after a period where there really were only 2 "professional" choices, we now see that MuscScore, Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, Notion, and maybe Overture could all be considered "professional" choices. I suspect there will be a lot of people giving serious thought to where to go from here.
I hope MakeMusic will have enough awareness of this dynamic and enough consideration for what remains of their customer base to come out with a clear roadmap for their product. | | Back to Top | |
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Credo
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2016
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 8/28/2016 6:38 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm thinking of this version as "Finale Vista".
A new foundation has been set for the next generation of users. Old heads can still roll back to previous versions for specific needs (not ideal, but at least it's an option).
As an "Instructional Designer", I agree that Finale shouldn't fall into the trap of trying to clone all the features of the current competition. Instead, it should branch off in new directions that are SORELY NEGLECTED by the music world at large right now. eLearning courses for Music have been slow to develop, and are ultra expensive due to all the manual shuffling of rasterized data that has to be done. They're also pretty boring and static, with super limited assessment and feedback options...when they could and should be far more interactive.
1. Collaboration tools. Finale Note Pad is a good start....keep making that BETTER. Make it fast and easy to collaborate and exchange information on everything from smart phones to firewalled learning lab environments. "Swapping Scores" isn't good enough anymore. Teachers and Students need to be able to look at the same copy, at the same time, from different locations, while having a Video conference over it...where they can manipulate and hear the results 'together', at the same time. Cubase/Neuendo has this on the 'DAW' side of things...but it's overkill, and not particularly geared for 'Educators and Students' teaching theory, or instrument/voice lessons.
2. Produce modules that can export Courses and Lessons all ready to be plugged into LMS (Learning Management Software) like Moodle, Whiteboard, CourseMill, etc. Right now...creating a course or an interactive method book for the web is quite a monumental task full of intense manual labor working with very low-level tools (scripts and command lines). It'd be nice if some version of Finale were to evolve into something akin to "Trivantis Lectora Publisher"....where SCORM compliant lessons could be built and exported at the click of a mouse (Power Point Style...but with tools needed by Musicians).
3. Lead the way in creating 'interactive' lessons for LMS systems, and possibly even for MetaVerse environments (I.E. Secondlife and openSIM).
4. Ditch the internal host all together, and just bundle the thing with a special version of Bidule that's configured to look and work like the setup people are used to, but...also has the potential to dig into a full Bidule implementation for 'power users' who need it. Let Plogue focus on adding the plethora of possible audio engine hooks that are sure to develop. Plogue could even lead the way in hooking the 'playback' stuff into Metaverses for true 'interactive' collaboration.
5. (Really this is number 1) Fix all current bugs, and focus on making existing feature sets more user friendly. Perhaps even incorporate stylus/touch and Voice Command support.
6. Get OCR support back into the mix. It's fine if it's via secondary add-on application...but many people need this, and it must be very capable/powerful.
Over and over we see long wish lists to make Finale look and work like 'Studio DAW' attachments, requests to 'beef up the playback engine'. On and on with features that educators, composers, and publishers don't really need that much. Of course we'll welcome these advancements with open arms, but it's important to realize that plenty of R&D is already being done in these areas by several companies around the world. In contrast, almost NONE of them are bothering much with addressing Music specific eLearning needs. The ones that have real time collaboration in the works are overkill in all the wrong directions that those working with 'Notation' need addressed.
Honestly, there's a wide open market for eLearning and Collaborative tools......we need them! Musicians are 20 years behind the rest of the world in this respect. Even the medical industry can collaborate over patient data (including real time surgical processes), and create super interactive courses...but musicians? We're still using Fed Ex and making expensive trips for things that should be fairly instant here in the 21st century.
Just like Composers and Publishers...Educators also need the core engraving features to be stable, easy to use, and super flexible. It's a pre-requisite for everything the Instructional Designer will do. The demands compliment one another...so much of the time spent polishing/developing features for Educators don't really conflict with the R&D needs of straight up 'Composers and Publishers'.
I wouldn't advise forcing a composer who doesn't need the ePublishing tools to buy "Finale ePublisher Edition"...it could be a different version, or plugin/modular based...but I think it is R&D that would benefit those folks as well...and allow Finale to forge and dominate a market that no one else seems to be bothering with at present.
I've got at least 6 high quality options for doing score translation and virtual mocks ups, and sync them to Video/Film/Gaming Engines. I have almost ZERO for creating a really nice interactive Music learning module, and easily injecting it into a Managed course environment. I still have to devote entire days to travel in person to flush out things with stakeholders that instructional designers working with other subject matter can shore up in a 3 minute video conference.Post Edited (Credo) : 8/28/2016 7:22:15 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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Ralph L. Bowers Jr.
Polymathist
Date Joined May 2012
Total Posts : 883
| Posted 8/28/2016 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | @ Credo,
What he said. +
Finale 2010b, 2011b, 2012c, 2014d, 2014.5 TGTools Pro, Patterson plugins, JW plugins (current for each Finale Instalation)
Sibelius 6.2, 7.1.3, 7.5.1, 8.4.2, Write Score Sound Sets, TMT Publisher Bundle Plugins, Bob Zawalich plugins, Dolet 6.6
Print Music 2004, 2010a, 2011a, 2014a
Progression, Progression 2, Progression 3, Notion 4, [Notion 5, (bought but not installed)update finally installed]
Pro Tools 9.5, Reaper
Kontakt 5
GPO4, GPO5, World Instruments
SmartScore X Pro, SmartScore X2 Pro, PhotoScore Ultimate 6 & 7 & 8.04 ( 7 has some utility----best of those available, 8 has some issues that need fixing)
M-Audio "Oxygen 25" Midi input keyboard (recent addition 2014)
Systems (5) // Windows XP Pro (32bit), 2@ Windows 7 Pro, 8.1 Pro, Windows 10 64 bit, 4GB - 16GB RAM
Paper & Pencil
BMus, MM (Musicology) | | Back to Top | |
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Credo
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2016
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 8/28/2016 8:23 PM (GMT -6) | | CraigP said...Credo said...
6. Get OCR support back into the mix. It's fine if it's via secondary add-on application...but many people need this, and it must be very capable/powerful. I can live with the separate apps that can scan docs into MusicXML. I only do this 3 or 4 times a year. But the pen input is a completely different animal. I have StaffPad and find it interesting, but too tedious for note entry. However, I'd LOVE to have the ability to open my score on a Surface or other pad product and do all the editing stuff (dynamics, slurs, expressions, articulations, etc.) That would be a revolution in work flow. If I could do that on a pad, I'd save all of that for a time when I am not in heavy composition mode. That is honestly one of the most interesting parts of the Notion announcement to me. I don't mean to be negative about FInale, but I don't believe they will survive much longer if they view a 2-year cycle as acceptable. I would like to believe that 25 is a foundation that allows things to move more quickly from here. But I'd really like to hear the strategy from the company rather than have to speculate about it.
Fair enough, and all your points are right on target from the perspective of many individual users out there.
At this time, I don't think they are in a position to 'announce' any long term 'strategy' just yet. Much of that will have to do with numerous third parties that have poured patented contributions in the product, and raising the 'financial and human capital' to pursue those strategies. Before they can set 'new strategies' they need to shed the dead weight, or even cut back on not so dead weight that they might not be able to afford to bundle into the product without jacking the price up so high no one will touch it.
So much has been 'outsourced' for so long......and the older companies are still 'bound' to 20 year old agreements they can't get out of so easily. Meanwhile, Across the Oceans...governments around the world with near slave-like labor conditions are SUBSIDISING anything and everything that goes on with 'forcefully acquired public monies and 'acid backed bonds'', in order to flood global markets with products BELOW PRODUCTION COST. In a sense, it's an economically based WW III between 'free will' consumer/capital demand based markets, and force fed 'supply side' 'modernist' communist/socialist models. Proponents of BOTH models see a need to sit down and renegotiate things...all of the 'old contracts' has hands tied on every continent. All of these highways were paved with 'good intentions' for the betterment of all human-kind. It's just that Global planners forgot (and had no way to predict) things like tax evasion, inflation, fluctuating international currency values, and the list goes on.
I.E. If %50 of your gross is going to pay off royalties and patents to third parties (many of which were sold off over seas to evade various taxes and pensions responsibilities, so now your local governments are hitting you with %70 capital gains taxes to compensate for all the people who've lost homes and pensions)...then they're going to need to sit down and evaluate where it makes sense to 'switch horses', 'keep paying up', or 'just develop their own from scratch'. Even when they've pretty much decided from a 'vision' standpoint to take a new direction....they can't always just 'do it'...as contracts are involved, and armies of attorneys have to work out the 'divorce and marriage' terms for pretty much every 'change'.
If a software company doesn't have a skyscraper full of top notch, experienced coders...then they have to scour the globe and find existing bits and pieces of technology to cobble together into a product. Sadly, 'labor' is considered a 'liability' these days...few companies want 'their own' anymore, because that means they have to front the costs of collecting taxes from them all on behalf o their wonderful governments, and then match pension funds, etc.
Since all of these MM mergers and acquisitions have taken place...it'd make sense that their 'strategy' is still very much in a state of flux.
As for the 2 year upgrade cycle...that's actually a plus for many commercial ventures. It often takes them 2 years to fully implement and get trained bodies managing and using the version that came out 4 years ago. It's a very different world from individual users whipping out a credit card and installing bleeding edge software on a home PC and maybe a secondary Laptop. These sorts of customers (and they are probably lion's share in this case) really aren't at leisure to allow a third party to mandate their upgrade cycle. They need to be able to pay for it up front (often with Government or Corporate IOUs), and have full control over if and when they upgrade.Post Edited (Credo) : 8/28/2016 9:04:33 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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CraigP
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2013
Total Posts : 313
| Posted 8/28/2016 9:41 PM (GMT -6) | | Credo said...
As for the 2 year upgrade cycle...that's actually a plus for many commercial ventures. It often takes them 2 years to fully implement and get trained bodies managing and using the version that came out 4 years ago. It's a very different world from individual users whipping out a credit card and installing bleeding edge software on a home PC and maybe a secondary Laptop. These sorts of customers (and they are probably lion's share in this case) really aren't at leisure to allow a third party to mandate their upgrade cycle. They need to be able to pay for it up front (often with Government or Corporate IOUs), and have full control over if and when they upgrade.
Well, there are different business models, revenue models, organizational models, technology models. (I have a bit of experience with many of these from a supplier side. I am retired now, but spent 40 years in various aspects of the software and hardware development and marketing business.)
The most relevant recent experience I have as a customer is Cakewalk SONAR. I don't mean to suggest that Cakewalk was in a similar situation to MM, and therefore what works for Cakewalk may not be a good strategy for MM. But it does illustrate what is possible.
I believe the enemy is "This is how we have always done it. This is the only way it can work." Cakewalk struggled as an independent company. They were known for a very loyal customer base and some leading edge ideas, especially back in the days when we called it a "sequencer" instead of a DAW. But they could not sustain that business. They were acquired by Roland, which provided some financial stability, but seemed to slow development to a crawl. Much of the user base fled because there was an emergence of powerful new DAW products (just as we now seem to have a flurry of advancing notation products.) That very nearly put Cakewalk out of business, as I see it (I have no inside information on that.)
A couple of years ago, Roland sold Cakewalk to Gibson. As it turned out, the CEO of Gibson was already a SONAR user and really liked the product. And he also understood the business dilemma. After coming to grips with their new realities 20 months ago, Cakewalk announced a very aggressive plan. They would do INCREMENTAL development, with a goal of a new release about every month. That would be a combination of fixes and new functions. Some months would be lighter than others. For example, a couple of months ago, the package consisted mainly of some new skins and a handful of bug fixes.)
Users were given the proposal that this would be made available on a subscription plan, although Cakewalk hates to have it called by that term. The difference in this case is that you can stop the subscription at any point and Cakewalk grants you the right to continue to use the product indefinitely as it sits with no further patches. There was an element of trust involved because it sounded almost like a crazy plan to release every 30 days. But financially, it worked out about the same as if we paid for an upgrade every year.
Long story short, this has been an overwhelming success, The developers love it and the customers love it. There is new content frequently, but users have the option when they want to jump to the next level. You could, for example, accept only one release a year -- but why would anybody do this? You certainly have the option to install the updates after thousands of other pioneers have found it to be working well. Usually I put it on as soon as it is "official" and have never had a problem. The release is usually posted about a week before the "official" release for anybody who has time on their hands to have an early look.
Cakewalk has embraced this mode of operation. They talk rather openly about some of the innovations they have in the pipeline, and the customer base is perfectly happy for the company to say, "We can't say which release it will be in, but it is coming along. We'll release it as soon as it passes our QA tests." One might think that such a frequent release schedule would lead to many new bugs being introduced. In fact that has not been the case. It is typical that about half of the monthly releases are followed a week later by a cleanup build that corrects 2 or 3 loose ends. I have never been inconvenienced by any bugs introduced in the process. The code is far cleaner than it ever was when they were working on annual releases.
Part of the reason this has been successful is because there are people in charge who have a very clear architectural understanding and vision, so their new features are well thought out -- never done in a haphazard way.
The bottom line result is that this move has won back many customers an given Gibson the confidence to invest in the first Apple release later this year (Heretofore, SONAR has been Windows only), so Cakewalk is definitely poised for growth.
While most products have not embraced a development pipeline as aggressively as Cakewalk, it is very common for a software product to have builds every 2-3 weeks. I probably use 15 products that have more than one build per month, so I am not talking anything crazy here. The idea of going for 6 months or even three months with no fixes, no features, no anything strikes me as a very 1990s way of doing business. That won't fly today, IMHO. If there are customers that can't deal with patches, they are free to leave the code alone for a year, but that is not any justification for making the rest of the base live with ongoing bugs. | | Back to Top | |
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Credo
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2016
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 8/29/2016 1:17 AM (GMT -6) | | CraigP said...
While most products have not embraced a development pipeline as aggressively as Cakewalk, it is very common for a software product to have builds every 2-3 weeks. I probably use 15 products that have more than one build per month, so I am not talking anything crazy here. The idea of going for 6 months or even three months with no fixes, no features, no anything strikes me as a very 1990s way of doing business. That won't fly today, IMHO. If there are customers that can't deal with patches, they are free to leave the code alone for a year, but that is not any justification for making the rest of the base live with ongoing bugs.
Sorry, but I got regular patches and bug fixes even way back in 1992 for Cubase Score, EMagic Notator/Creator/Logic, Dr. T's KCS Omega/Copiest, etc....
My computers OS was burned into a ROM or EPROM, and not a likely candidate for any rapid developments....but free patches came on a regular basis none the less.
You got to retire...there were/are pensions available for your generation; however, all the cries for 'change' have pretty much ended that proposition for more than half of the generations alive today. They rack up many tens of thousands of dollars in 'debt' to become 'employable' but then discover there isn't any employment out there for them. Next they look into venture capital to 'create their own jobs', and all that is gone (overseas) as well. As old as 30...with advanced degrees, and employers won't touch them because they're 'too inexperienced' or are 'over-educated'. It's a real mess....and so many 'unpiloted rapid paced progressive changes' are a pretty big 'part' of the problem.
Finale has typically offered fairly regular patches and fixes in the past at no extra charge as well. Austerity policies in an attempt to keep companies with lots of overhead going here in the USA have caused a big slow down in that sort of activity over the past decade or so....but I wouldn't call that an improved 'progressive paradigm' for the better. Sure, it's busting some traditional paradigms that were put in place to protect jobs and standards of living, but that's not always for the better. More companies are figuring out how to tout all the virtues of 'change' to rush substandard products on the market, and to get 'free labor' (heck, they even CHARGE YOU to work for them now) and bounce cash all over the globe in order to skirt all but one simple responsibility (making profits). They've learned that if they toss the word 'change' out enough to the newer generations they'll cheer it on...even if the 'change' is all about making slaves of us all.
I didn't need to give Finale reps my credit card numbers on a third party server and pay them X amount a month (even after the 'initial purchase' of over half a grand under some of the subscription plans out there) to get those 'updates and fixes'. For many years they didn't even need my 'name' for me to get up and running. I didn't have to be 'bonded' for sums of tens of thousands of dollars at my workplace to get access the tools needed to do my job, and have every port I need scrutinized by 'ethics' committees who are always looking for excuses to 'cut some spending' (I.E. Sarcasm on ethics, but accurate to the sorts of things that happen to Educators who manage to get access to 'subscription' services: "Oh dear...someone downloaded a CHRISTMAS SONG with this service...we can't mix religion and public business...so this 'service' will be 'suspended' until censorship of all 'religious music' from this account has been implemented!"). I didn't need access to networks and clouds to simply install the thing. I didn't need special 'application managers' running in the background at 'all times'. I didn't need massive interdepartmental 'Implementation Plans' (With a 98% chance of outright rejection due to its cost and complexity), or to reclassify a simple tool purchase as an ongoing 'service' with 'recurring fees' to get the folks holding the purse strings to approve and draw up a purchase order for it.
Same for the Windows and Mac OS. They don't charge me $X a month to beta test for them either. Nor did I have to sign use agreements that put all the decision making on implementation and upgrade scheduling in 'their hands'.
There's a big difference in charging every customer X amount per month to 'beta test' your software, and being 'aggressive developers' of 'stable releases'. Rapid Prototyping is an innovative approach to software development in many ways for sure...but it's not for everyone, and people should be GETTING PAID to participate...not being FORCED TO PAY THEM 'monthly fees' to alpha and beta test their ideas out in the mission critical wild.
The 'advantage' to the subscription model is more for the company's revenue stream than for the consumer. Asking this of the lion's share of 'traditional notation' users, is like squeezing blood from a turnip. They've got liability insurance to pay for (policies covering hundreds of kids at a time), and need a safe and secure building to meet in with AC, chairs, and music stands much worse than they need software.
Much of the "Finale" user base also has outright 'Mission Statements' in many cases to get kids to put down their Xbox controller long enough to do some activities that get heart rates up, work the whole body, and are NOT 'totally' grounded in 'virtual reality'. It's not that such Mission proponents see Virtual Reality as a bad thing...it's just that all sense of 'balance' between face to face to face business and social models, vs a matrix-like existence for new generations is getting seriously 'out of whack'. Serious health and psychological issues are popping up from lack of social and physical activity in younger generations...and good eyesight is becoming a 'rarity' rather than the norm. Kids don't even bother to tie their shoes anymore! They don't 'walk' enough to notice how much better their feet fare (and subsequently their entire spinal column and nervous system) if they wear good fitting shoes and tie them! Kids don't tuck in their shirt anymore...and while it's touted that this is a glorious social revolution to be 'free of stupid cultural norms'...the fact is they're not neglecting or consciously rebelling because they think it promotes 'freedom' or makes them 'look cool'....the reality is that they're not doing it because they don't have the energy, strength, and physical coordination to reach around their own bodies and do the job! As absurd as it sounds...those of us who work with kids daily, in environments where uniform codes are appropriate to enforce...we see with our own eyes that kids as old as 11 and 12 don't have the dexterity and strength to button or zip coats...can't tuck in shirts, and can't even keep balance long enough to bend over and tie their own shoes. It's pretty insane that these days conditioning programs rather late in life are essential to get kids that are strong enough to carry a marching snare, work a trombone slide, or even play a piano etude on a real baby grand :( We used to hand out rather challenging grade 4 and 5 pieces by the 10th grade....but now we're just trying to get them strong enough to be outside on a hot or cold day for 10 minutes, stand at attention, and hold a trumpet to their face and play 'four note Go Blue Go' in an amazing 'half octave range' without passing out (or quitting because it's too stressful/painful for them).
Virtual Reality, and eCollaboration is here to stay, and it's a critical part of any successful modern venture, but it's not the only experience people will pay good money to have, preserve, and maintain.
Finale is more about communicating new musical ideas, and preserving/passing on old ones than producing movie scores and iTunes hits. It's a product with a very different 'soul' and 'history'. Its heart and soul centers around real people, in real rooms/arenas/etc. struggling to keep large 'people oriented' performing arts programs on the map. It's still pretty nice to walk in a room and see 250 kids playing REAL violins, or look out on the football field and see a REAL MARCHING BAND, and recognize the human faces as people from your own community. This sort of scene is the backbone of Finale's user base. One guy in a studio can't pull it off...it takes an entire community.....using countless products and services from countless enterprises. While there's plenty of profits to go around in these sorts of programs...it's not the ultimate motive.
So...go ahead, just give them an excuse to give up on commercial software...MuseScore (or even...gasp, a pencil and paper) is there and waiting.
Cakewalk may have 'won back' a few customers who'll 'subscribe a few months out of the year' (as opposed to committing to some $800 cash layout to get a non expiring key) and let it lapse when they're done with a project, but it also LOST some hard core people who just need a stable release to use 'a few minutes' EVERY DAY for common and repetitive tasks without having to constantly 'patch and update' their system with an endless barrage of 'pushed' beta releases. I'm one of them (though I fled Sonar when it was still under Roland's reigns...the whole subscription thing is why I'm not interested in looking back at this time....I'd rather have a dongle and quarterly free 'updates' for a huge myriad of reasons).
I'm glad rapid prototyping models exist for people who like them, and work in environments that tolerate, or even SUPPORT the philosophy. Thing is....a loud minority is trying to FORCE everyone on board, and it's not in 'everyone's best interest' to take on that model. As long as it is a 'user choice' to live off 'personal' plastic accounts and participate in rapid prototyping, with viable choices and alternatives out there for people who don't desire, or can't afford to participate...I'm all for it. It just seems like there is a disturbing trend to strong arm EVERYONE into such models simply because it's in the interest of the most powerful 'think tanks and lobbies' right now....and it's at a time when personal debt across the civilized world, and a collapse of 'basic' infrastructure is on rapid increase (water quality sucks because municipalities have not been updating the pipes all these decades, power grids can't support the loads because they've just added users and taken money to 'horde overseas', but haven't been beefing up and modernizing, roads are in shambles for all the same reasons, schools look and function more like boxy cardboard prisons wrapped in razor wire and guard towers than inspirational learning environments, etc.).
Due to all the mandated 'change' we've been sold over the past 20ish years or so....we don't even make AC transformers to hang on our Canadian Timber utility poles in the USA anymore. That's right...even our power grid is at the mercy of folks thousands of miles away.
"The People" don't have much left in them to have squeezed out anymore............particularly for so many 'soft products and services' when the 'hardware' and 'social/cultural' constructs of their businesses and communities are pretty much in sorely mismanaged shambles. We're 'in debt' up to our eyeballs (and it's not even things we wanted or asked for...society just began to MANDATE we rob all our general maintenance, pension, and insurance policies to have and pay for it all)...and even our 'debt' is taxed three dozen times to keep bailing out all these new age ideas that have been pushed over and over again on GLOBAL SCALES without so much as a single 'seriously valid' pilot test before hand.
Having gone on that long rant........
I don't mean to suggest US companies should 'stagnate' and 'do nothing' to improve products......
It's just time to start innovating some of our own things, in untapped areas instead of scrambling to 'copy' the stuff others around the world have already patented and nearly perfected and still be forced to charge more than everyone else in the world for the privilege to use it. We don't really need another DAW right now...there are many strong and viable options for that kind of work. Even Mix Craft, as inexpensive as that is, is a powerhouse of a little DAW for the price.
What we need are more and better tools, at affordable prices, to support a massive renaissance of 'people oriented' fine and performing arts programs, which also happen to build strong 'local' communities, sense of citizenship, real world situated cognitive constructs, intelligence, confidence, social skills, agility, appreciation for team work, and over all personal stamina. All those other products are great for sheer creativity and cranking out yet more 'passively consumed' products...but we really need something that'll get folks as excited about MAKING REAL MUSIC 'together' as they are over playing Pokémon Go.Post Edited (Credo) : 8/29/2016 8:52:26 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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CraigP
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2013
Total Posts : 313
| Posted 8/29/2016 11:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Credo said...
There's a big difference in charging every customer X amount per month to 'beta test' your software, and being 'aggressive developers' of 'stable releases'. Rapid Prototyping is an innovative approach to software development in many ways for sure...but it's not for everyone, and people should be GETTING PAID to participate...not being FORCED TO PAY THEM 'monthly fees' to alpha and beta test their ideas out in the mission critical wild.
Well, if you are referring to my example with Cakewalk SONAR, it is not prototyping. It is a different development model than you are describing. As I said, they are introducing significant new features almost every month and doing so without causing any significant quality problems. Indeed, the quality under this rapid cycle program is far higher than it ever was under the annual release mode. Clearly they have done a very good job of embracing modular techniques and well-conceived object orientation so that they can extend the system this way. I would like to think that Finale took the opportunity of the various "rewrites" the last two releases to improve the internal architecture so that such continuous improvement strategy could be viable.
When you look at the payment model, if the company has decided to deliver features every month, then there really is no sensible way to talk about paying for major releases only. Cakewalk's plan was quite acceptable. What they said is you can pay a small bit monthly and receive those monthly updates. If you stop paying, you keep what you have and live with it. Alternatively you can make annual payments that are about the same as what people were paying for the "big bucket" updates. But you receive new features anywhere from 11 months to one month earlier than you would have under the "big bucket" plan. And you are also free to stop at any time and keep using what you have. And finally, for their long-term users, they recently offered a one-time price for subscription for life. That was less than 2 years of the subscription price. I took that deal in a heartbeat. I fully expect I will get at least 5 good years of product development before the world moves on to something else (or I move to the great beyond.)
Again, while Cakewalk may be an extreme example, I simply do not believe that in 2016 it makes any sense to talk about a 2-year cycle between functional enhancements. That is not a viable business plan IMHO, considering the rising level of competition in this field. I would really like to hear the Finale folks share their strategy.
You mentioned Cakewalk losing users. There is a continuous ebb and flow for a variety of reasons. But I believe you have a completely wrong idea about how this new delivery model has worked. It has restored SONAR to be among the most reliable of DAWs while remaining near the leading edge in capability. It is an exceptional value and the user base is happier than ever. There are far more people coming than going, and that is about to accelerate rapidly with the introduction of their first Mac version. And to that point, they were able to do this Mac introduction because they chose development tools that make that a low cost, rapid delivery option. This is 2016. It isn't 1995. The world is fundamentally different now.Post Edited (CraigP) : 8/29/2016 11:52:18 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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Credo
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2016
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 8/29/2016 1:54 PM (GMT -6) | | CraigP said...
When you look at the payment model, if the company has decided to deliver features every month, then there really is no sensible way to talk about paying for major releases only. Cakewalk's plan was quite acceptable. What they said is you can pay a small bit monthly and receive those monthly updates. If you stop paying, you keep what you have and live with it. Alternatively you can make annual payments that are about the same as what people were paying for the "big bucket" updates. But you receive new features anywhere from 11 months to one month earlier than you would have under the "big bucket" plan. And you are also free to stop at any time and keep using what you have. And finally, for their long-term users, they recently offered a one-time price for subscription for life. That was less than 2 years of the subscription price. I took that deal in a heartbeat. I fully expect I will get at least 5 good years of product development before the world moves on to something else (or I move to the great beyond.)
If you can still do a PO at the end of two years, and get all the fixes and adds from the past two years, for a similar total price as someone who paid 'monthly' it's fine. If you can still arrange to pay for what you are getting NOW, and clearly document what tax dollars ARE BUYING TODAY, it's fine.
You're right, it's not 1994 anymore.
Subscriptions are a major pain for people in institutional settings to get budgeted. Unlike the office suite, every teacher on campus doesn't need it, and music doesn't get equal priority to all of the other needs of a school district or university. Many states only have specific budgets that can go anywhere near a 'subscription' or a 'service' with 'recurring fees'.
When a PO is drawn up for a 'hard good or service', one has to list 'exactly' what every penny is getting on a specific date....not next week, not next year. Dates of 'actual delivery' must be included, along with paper receipts, and it has to go on inventory. We once could get software with hard budgets (and still can for some titles), but now it's increasingly difficult.
If a product states in its requirements a need for internet access...again, it throws the purchase into a whole new class. You can't just 'buy it and use it' anymore. It's got to be approved by a dozen other ethics committees, financial offices, and installed by yet another departments, and maintained by yet another...and each of those divisions have some veto power over you getting it AT ALL.
Of course much of bureaucracy is open to interpretation depending on who's in charge on a given day....but I've seen enough musicians trying to get goods and supplies for their programs get their POs rejected to know that subscriptions and keys held/managed by third parties on the cloud make it way more difficult. Where they once could simply order the stuff from a music store, inventory it, and use it 'as is' until such time they could find funds to upgrade....it's not so simple anymore.
People who work on grants and endowments get a lump sum to work with. It's not always possible, legal, or ethical to buy 'services' with these grants. It's often 'forbidden' to put the money into a personal credit account to pay re-curing fees. Even cooking the books and list buying paper, but really getting software (or whatever) to make it 'appear' as though they got everything they paid for 'delivered' at the time of purchase can get an individual in trouble, or disqualified for future grants.
Things in terms of developmental progress really haven't changed that much. We've always been able to go online and get hotfixes as soon as they're available. We've always been able to sign up for beta teams and toy with 'new features' hot off the code repository. We've always been able to call customer support to report an issue (and they often sent a 'patch' as response).
Again, it's all fine as long the solo music director out in wild-town USA doesn't keep getting PO's rejected before they make it past the first two officials because it is only offered in a package as a 'soft service' with 'recurring fees'.
"Sorry, you can't buy that with this budget."
"So what budget can I use? Sorry, we spent that one already."
So...technically more than enough money is somewhere in the system to get the stuff...but you can't use it for 'this class' of product..........Post Edited (Credo) : 8/29/2016 2:18:44 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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CraigP
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2013
Total Posts : 313
| Posted 8/29/2016 2:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Credo said...
If you can still do a PO at the end of two years, and get all the fixes and adds from the past two years, for a similar total price as someone who paid 'monthly' it's fine. If you can still arrange to pay for what you are getting NOW, and clearly document what tax dollars ARE BUYING TODAY, it's fine.
Yes, they did announce a policy for that. I wasn't interested so I didn't pay much attention, but I think the policy was something like "If you suspend your subscription, you can continue using the product as it existed the day your subscription suspended, but you will have no access to any updates or enhancements. If you decide in the future to resume, there is a fee to get current". I don't remember exactly what that fee was. It might have been simply the sum of the payments skipped, or it might have been a new annual subscription. In any event, it was not onerous -- something like $100-$150 as I recall. So if an institution didn't want to pay an annual subscription fee, they could certainly suspend and periodically issue a new PO to get current, and the overall cost would not be much different from what had been paid in the past.
And I emphasize this thing I call "subscription" is vehemently objected to by Cakewalk. They insist it is not like the subscriptions one gets from Adobe or others where you must keep paying or else they shut you down. It is simply a payment plan that fits the new incremental delivery model.
I should also point out I was quite a skeptic when Cakewalk said they were going to go to this delivery model. I thought it was not really sustainable more than a few months. But they are still at it in its 20th month now and the quality and quantity of updates far exceeds my expectations. | | Back to Top | |
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Credo
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2016
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 8/29/2016 6:34 PM (GMT -6) | | CraigP said...Credo said...
If you can still do a PO at the end of two years, and get all the fixes and adds from the past two years, for a similar total price as someone who paid 'monthly' it's fine. If you can still arrange to pay for what you are getting NOW, and clearly document what tax dollars ARE BUYING TODAY, it's fine.
Yes, they did announce a policy for that. I wasn't interested so I didn't pay much attention, but I think the policy was something like "If you suspend your subscript ion, you can continue using the product as it existed the day your subscript ion suspended, but you will have no access to any updates or enhancements. If you decide in the future to resume, there is a fee to get current". I don't remember exactly what that fee was. It might have been simply the sum of the payments skipped, or it might have been a new annual subscript ion. In any event, it was not onerous -- something like $100-$150 as I recall. So if an institution didn't want to pay an annual subscript ion fee, they could certainly suspend and periodically issue a new PO to get current, and the overall cost would not be much different from what had been paid in the past. And I emphasize this thing I call "subscript ion" is vehemently objected to by Cakewalk. They insist it is not like the subscript ions one gets from Adobe or others where you must keep paying or else they shut you down. It is simply a payment plan that fits the new incremental delivery model. I should also point out I was quite a skeptic when Cakewalk said they were going to go to this delivery model. I thought it was not really sustainable more than a few months. But they are still at it in its 20th month now and the quality and quantity of updates far exceeds my expectations.
This is good.
In Finale's case, they really need to keep a version of the product (even if it's just a different box with a different SKU) that doesn't have the word 'subscription' or 'internet connection' anywhere in the product description, and continue to offer methods to register via phone. Even if the 'internet access' is optional...it can cause problems if the product description mentions it, as some officials will demand a 'price adjustment' for unused features (official 'bid'). I.E. You're not using this...we're not going to pay for it.
As far as I know, they've always been willing to help people get whatever they needed in these sorts of cases (just call or email them them and explain, or ask for a 'formal bid', etc.), and will still give you a key to register over a voice call if you can't do it 'online'. Hopefully with their strategies to 'move forward', they will continue these policies.
As arcane as it sounds....it will help quite a few people out there get POs approved much faster, and open avenues to a larger variety of budgets people can access for the product. Even for places where internet access isn't that much of an issue....it can still come in handy in terms of opening the number and types of potential budgets someone can tap to buy the product.Post Edited (Credo) : 8/29/2016 6:50:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
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