Avid names new CEO
Gary Greenfield’s the new boss. The whole announcement’s here.
There’s been the requisite gnashing of teeth on some of the mailing lists, mostly because Greenfield lacks video industry experience. I’m not convinced that’s reason enough to dismiss the hire. Avid needs a leader experienced in changing a technology organization as its product faces commoditization.
Greenfield has been CEO of GXS since 2003, a leading worldwide provider of business-to-business integration, synchronization and collaboration solutions. Since December 2003, he has also been an operating partner with Francisco Partners, a leading technology-focused private equity firm.
Previously, he served as CEO of Peregrine Systems where he managed the restructuring of their business; president and CEO of MERANT; and while CEO of INTERSOLV, they merged with Micro Focus to form MERANT. He has experience growing businesses both organically and through acquisition, managing development, marketing and operations, and serving diverse customers from small businesses to the Fortune 500.
The question is what will Greenfield do with Avid. MERANT was sold to Serena in 2004 after Greenfield left the helm. But rumors of an acquisition had been in and out of circulation for a couple of years. GXS is privately owned by Francisco Partners and Norwest Ventures.
Might Avid be sold? Might it go private? Interesting enough questions for investors, what about editors and facility owners? Greenfield’s background is in managing B2B companies. Good. The fixation the previous team, spurred on by analysts, had with Avid getting into the consumer space led to the disastrous Pinnacle acquisition. Greenfield is comfortable in narrow verticals. Better.
In the past Avid’s been terrible at the relationship thing. Maybe now Avid can get serious with companies like Adobe and find ways to partner to fill the ever-expanding gaps in the Avid post-production workflow (especially on the Mac). An overture to Red might work well for both companies as P, though it probably will have little effect on either companies’ top line.
If I was a betting man… I’d bet Avid will end up going private, and the NLE market will continue evolving as it has.
Interesting list fodder, but little near term effect for editors. Normally I’d say wait until NAB, but…
Why Final Cut Express matters
Often it’s hard to get fired up about the younger sibling versions professional content creation tools. I’ve been on a multi-year tear ripping Avid’s Xpress Pro for being a needlessly and excessively hobbled version of Media Composer. So when Apple announced Final Cut Express 4, I yawned. Having been on Final Cut Studio 2 for some time, there wasn’t much to be learned running Final Cut Express through the paces.
Apple sent a review copy, so what the heck? Let’s see what FCE can do. The short answer is it doesn’t do much more or less than expected. It’s a nearly fully featured, Firewire-only version of Final Cut Pro. It lacks batch capture and logging, some compositing and keyframing features, and time code display for sources in the browser.
Limitations noted, Final Cut Express is an impressive piece of software for $199. For the pro, already using Final Cut Studio, FCE is a great satellite station since all the above-noted features reappear once an Express project is opened in Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Express captures time code info and includes it in the QuickTime metadata, so FCP reads it, and accesses it.
For so many video projects, Final Cut Express is a fine solution — Firewire in/Firewire out, or Firewire in/QuickTime out. Just enough power, and none of the bloat. Installing FCE on an older PowerBook took only a few minutes. The package contains FCE and good, old Live Type — not a bad throw-in for a $199 package.
The beauty of Final Cut Express is not the application itself, but where it fits into Apple’s video ecosystem. FCE 4 — why not just call it 6, so the Express numbers match the Pro? — can import iMovie ‘08 projects. Apple has created a seamless path from pulling the Mac out of the box all the way up to Final Cut Studio 2. This is something Avid and Adobe can’t do. Pros can scoff, but Apple’s virtually guaranteed every student, every mid-career creative professional looking to get into video, and every corporate user who has outgrown iMovie is likely to migrate to Final Cut Express before trying something else.
Academic discounts and “lite” packages such as Premiere Elements and Xpress DV Free don’t have that hook into the crowd that learned iMovie first. Apple’s strategy with Final Cut Express is longterm. It often takes several years to get from iMovie to Final Cut Pro, but for those just beginning to explore video editing, the path is clear.
Adobe has a clear path as well, all those Dreamweaver, Flash, and Photoshop pros will surely consider Premiere Pro first. And Adobe’s products work on the other 95% of all desktop computers. That’s not a bad starting point.
Where does this leave Avid? Can Avid appeal to the next-generation of editors? I can’t help but notice that the apparent median age of members of the various Avid communities I participate in and visit is roughly 10 to 12 years older than the FCP communities. Pinnacle was going to be that bridge to the consumer/prosumer. What happened?
The Wall Street Journal on editing
With the credit markets in a tailspin and the southern half of the US in flames and out of water, you would think the Wall Street Journal would have a busy enough news day. Apparently not. It was time for the WSJ to dust off the editing-is-just-so-dang-easy piece.
Lee Gomes is apparently no David Pogue. At least when Pogue oversimplifies my job in print, it’s fun to read and accurate enough for the masses. Gomes’ piece has no information of any interest to any editor, producer, or post production supervisor. Well, may the post supervisors will get a kick out of it.
In describing the modern, streamlined approach to feature film post, Gomes writes:
Right on the set, the digitized film went into a computer; after that, just a handful of people were involved. While the skills were different, coordinating the work of these editors and others wasn’t much more different than what happens in an average office with a typical PowerPoint presentation.
Oh really? I’ve done the consulting thing, and with it the whole PowerPoint to end all PowerPoint presentations. You know what, Mr. Gomes? If it’s that easy, I suggest you ditch journalism and become a post director at one of the networks. The pay’s a lot better, and you seem to think you could handle it.
Can’t wait until Gomes writes about managing SIVs. Now that’s something apparently any kindergartener can handle.
Innovation and the NLE
Last week’s Economist included a special section on innovation. Innovation’s one of those soft concepts like creativity that everyone favors, but has trouble defining. Ask people to list some innovative companies, and a lot of lists include Apple. It’s a well-deserved reputation earned through the Mac OS, the iPod, the iTunes Store, Apple TV, and the iPhone. Talk about nonlinear editing, and perhaps Apple shouldn’t be so close to the top of the list. ScriptSync? Avid. Multicam? Avid. Dynamic Linking? Adobe.
What Apple’s done is commoditize the NLE. Color is cool, but it’s not innovative. It’s a smart purchase. This isn’t a knock on Apple. Making the NLE a commodity is no small feat. Taking a highly specialized product, broadening its appeal and lowering its price is tough stuff.
But this is about innovation. While Apple chomped at its market share, Avid did not engage in a race to the bottom. It lowered its prices somewhat, but continued to bank its future on higher margin customers. It’s the right strategy. Markets can support Chevys and BMWs. What’s odd is that its usually Apple playing the role of the Bavarian craftsmen.
So, how has Avid remained innovative? The common wisdom has it that Avid remains plugged-in to its best customers, and the outwardly visible evidence bears this out. Final Cut Pro has made the smallest of its gain in the large Hollywood studios and network facilities.
In the long run, focusing too heavily on the studios and networks could be Avid’s downfall. The Economist cites Clayton Christensen, author of the Innovator’s Dilemma, giving this warning to American companies regarding their Indian and Chinese rivals, but it rings true for Avid looking over its shoulder at Apple.
From A Dark Art No More (subscription required)
Mr Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, believes he has cracked the code [of innovation]. He says it can require unlearning some of the things that managers often accept as golden rules. The chief one is the belief in listening and responding to the needs of your best customers.
This seemingly sensible strategy can be a dangerous siren song, Mr Christensen argues. His influential book shows how even successful firms can get into trouble by trying to please their best customers. Because there may be only a handful of highly profitable, high-end buyers who want and can afford more features and better performance, firms can invest heavily in trying to deliver what this elite group wants even though the resulting products may end up beyond the reach of the majority of their customers.
That, argues Mr Christensen, allows upstarts to enter the market and offer inferior (although perfectly adequate) technologies and products at much cheaper prices and push incumbents into ever smaller niches—and ultimately out of business altogether. He cautions this “disruptive” innovation is not the same thing as “radical” or “breakthrough” innovation, although the notions are often conflated. In his view, personal computers disrupted IBM’s mainframe computers and Digital Equipment’s mini-computers, as did Nucor’s highly efficient mini-mills to US Steel’s blast furnaces.
From The Love-in (subscription required)
Mr Von Hippel thinks that firms that are close to their lead users can come up with much better designs for new products and get them to market faster. This advice appears to contradict what Harvard’s Mr Christensen says, but in fact the two theses are compatible. Mr Christensen’s point is that firms should not uncritically cater to the demands of their most profitable current customers. They must question those demands or they could end up doing little more than gold-plating their current offerings; like Mr Von Hippel, he thinks firms should keep a closer watch on new and dissatisfied users, who are much more likely to be the source of disruptive ideas.
The challenge for Avid, in other words, is to get close to your newest and most dissatisfied customers. In other words, Avid needs to establish a relationship young indies and pay a little less heed to gray beards. The advice of Steve Cohen, Steve Audette, and Frank Capria has taken the company as far as it will go.
Totally cool browser-based NLE
I haven’t gotten around to cutting my trailer on JumpCut.com. I’ve spent a couple of minutes here and there on the site, but I haven’t been totally thrilled with the performance of the video playback. It reminds me of Google Video’s performance when it launched. Nor have I been able to master the JumpCut interface. Grabbing, sets, etc. don’t quite work for someone used to working with projects, sequences, and bins. I guess I’m just not Web 2.0 enough. Call me a Web 1.5 guy.
Click image for larger view.
But this interface totally rocks. I registered, logged in, and was cutting in seconds. It’s a great editing interface. Clean, simple, and responsive. Of course the SFiFF (everything needs a lowercase i somewhere in its name) Remixer has limited the available pool of media, so searching and organizing are vastly simpler tasks. Still, it’s a hell of an interface.
Thanks to Bradley Horowitz for responding to an earlier entry. I discovered the Remixer project through his blog, and appreciate the value left in his wake.
