BOYCOTT AVID!

[pizzafilms]

This article made me sick...

 

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/08/at-sibelius-software-the-last-staff-turn-out-the-lights.html

[Joe Muscara]

Been there, done that.

[Geoff Grace]

I'm not without sympathy for the Sibelius employees or users, and I can understand why the author of the article is trying to fire people up to restore jobs and software development to their former states. But it's possible to go overboard even in support of a good cause. In this case, I don't think the following characterization of Avid is fair:

 

The golfing buddies on the Avid board have shown themselves time and again to be devoid of vision or proper understanding of the music industry. Their Wall St modus operandi is to buy viable companies, sack the staff, close down the offices and then simply let them trade on reputation with zero overheads until the products die off. Avid are literally making a killing at our expense.

If this were truly Avid's modus operandi, Pro Tools would be a distant memory, former Wizoo developers would never have created Advanced Instruments Research Group virtual instruments for Digidesign, and M-Audio employees would have been sacked years ago.

 

I'm not saying Avid is doing the right thing here, but Norman Lebrecht's villainization of the company is overblown to say the least. From my vantage point, Avid appears to be trying to stay afloat in a sea of red ink.

 

Maybe they made poor choices that got them there; maybe they're the victims of bad luck; maybe both. I don't know. But as a longtime Pro Tools user, I hope Avid finds its way back to the black.

 

And simply as a human being, I hope that Sibelius employees will be able to return to work ASAP.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Sven Golly]

This article made me sick... because I believe everything I read on the Internet without bothering to fact-check, because I love posting IN ALL CAPS

 

Fixed.

[pizzafilms]

This article made me sick... because I believe everything I read on the Internet without bothering to fact-check, because I love posting IN ALL CAPS

 

Uh, no. Actually, it's based on dealing with Avid for years, the cold conglomerate that they've become, and track their record.

 

And, so sorry if the caps in the subject offended.

[Sven Golly]

This article made me sick... because I believe everything I read on the Internet without bothering to fact-check, because I love posting IN ALL CAPS

 

Uh, no. Actually, it's based on dealing with Avid for years, the cold conglomerate that they've become, and track their record.

 

And, so sorry if the caps in the subject offended.

 

Yeah, it was the all caps that I took issue with.

 

 

[J. Dan]

I like how people demonize companies for laying off a few employees, when the alternative might mean going out of business resulting in hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of people losing their jobs. The goal of any business is to make a profit while providing a product or service. There's nothing evil about that.

 

I can completely understand why they'd want to move development to CA where they can share resources and more effectively manage the team. I guarantee some will be offered positions if they relocate, and there will probably be more people added to the team in CA, meaning more jobs in the US. Everybody complains about jobs being shipped overseas. Here's a rare example of jobs coming the other way. So you can boycott and support keeping jobs overseas, or rethink your plan and maybe support a US company creating US jobs. (for you guys across the pond...you may want to boycott).

 

I have a first-hand experience with a similar situation. The company I work for (an evil scumbag corporation that's traded on Wall Street...and puts food on my table, and offers me a chance at a decent retirement through profit-sharing) bought a UK-based company a few years back. It was a niche product that filled out our pallette and allowed us to better serve our customer base by having more tools in our belt to solve applications. Initially they kept everything as it was. The UK company's lead times were already about double that of our other products. Expected ship dates would come and go and customers would inquire as to the status. Send a request to the UK, they're in bed because of the time difference. Next day you get a response. If you have followup questions, rinse and repeat. A week goes by and you finally tell the customer that it's going to be another 4 weeks. 4 weeks come and go and it's the same thing all over.

 

So the solution? Move production and support to the US and Mexican factories. Key folks from the UK came along. Now everything's under the same system, engineering has been integrated...subsequent electronics designs are more consitent across the entire product line, and the product survived (instead of the sales for refusing to sell it because their customers were pissed off at them).

 

Any time one company buys another, there's going to be redundancy. You don't need duplicate sets of HR, seperate engineering teams, etc. That's the way business works. It's not greedy to make the best use of your resources, it's smart business, and it results in better products and service for the consumer.

[Steve LeBlanc]

<<

 

and probably Avid too

 

 

heh, whatever,