I don’t have any news to report about this situation except that the online podcast site http://www.marchingroundtable.com recently did a piece on the Sibelius situation. Jim Casella and Murray Gusseck do a very fine job of laying out the situation with AVID and Sibelius and they discuss what we can do about it. I urge you to go listen – it’s just about a half-hour long and they know what they are talking about. They didn’t mention the possible takeover of MakeMusic (the parent company of Finale), so I posted the following in their comments section:
I’m very concerned about the Sibelius situation as well. Jim and Murray do an excellent job of summing up what has gone on with AVID and how to express our concerns. One other thing, however – on July 16, 2012 MakeMusic, Inc., the parent company of Finale, announced that it has received a proposal from LaunchEquity Partners, LLC, “to acquire the operating assets of MakeMusic, excluding cash, and assume the related liabilities of MakeMusic, free and clear of all liens and encumbrances, for $13.5 million.” It could be that twelve months from now both of the major notation programs will be gone. I wish Apple would purchase Sibelius – they bought eMagic to get the Logic sequencer, and leveraged it into GarageBand. If there is a company that might be successful in keeping Sibelius going, I think it might be Apple. If AVID is in such poor financial straits as it seems, though, that’s very unlikely…unless Apple was willing to pay so much that it would be an offer AVID could not refuse.
Dark days, my friends. I wish Apple would save Sibelius but I think that possibility is very remote. If AVID wouldn’t sell it to the Finn brothers I don’t see them letting it go unless (a) they are going under without a an immediate influx of a lot of cash, and (b) Apple was willing to pay an obscene amount of money for it. Not that Apple hasn’t done so in the past, if they wanted something bad enough. But why would they want Sibelius that bad? I’m afraid I’m dreaming about that scenario.
For those of you who have not gotten yourselves up to speed on this, go to www.savesibelius.com.
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