Xara acquired by MAGIX

[MEB]

And here is the link to the news posted at Magix AG:
http://site.magix.net/eng/investor-r...ecialist-xara/

[stratocast]

I think I'll have to take some time to let this sink in.

[jedfrechette]

From the linked press release:

Jürgen Jaron, CEO of MAGIX AG: "With Xara we are expanding our customer base in the UK and US. At the same time, we are adding strength to our photo segment with powerful photo and graphics solutions."

I'm trying really hard not to have flashbacks to the acquisition of Canvas by ACD.

Oh well, I guess only time will tell. Best of luck to all those involved.

[BONES]

I'm trying really hard not to have flashbacks to the acquisition of Canvas by ACD.

Is that what happenned? I thought they had just folded or something.

Anyway, from the Magix press release it sounds like a very positive step for all of us. Xara will remain a separate division which indicates that they have little or no intention of interfering with the important stuff. This should be seen as great news by we customers, I think.
The company I work for was acquired by Autodesk [the world's 4th or 5th largest software company] 8 or 9 years ago and it has mostly been very good for our product development as it has allowed us to take more risks and spend more time brining new products to market than a small company can afford. On a personal level, it was much better when I worked for Discreet than it is working for Autodesk but fundamentally it has been a big win for our customers.

One thing though, I'm impressed with the figures they quoted for Xara. I always worry that companies of this size will simply fold so it was good to see that Xara is in fact a fairly solid business. Congratulations Charles and co.

[timo.heil]

Talking about the audio products from MAGIX: their Samplitude (www.samplitude.com) and Sequoia are among the best audio apps one can buy. The audio engine has a very high reputation in the industry. Many audio engineers e.g. prefer it over Protools and espcially Sequoia is used in the broadcasting area and for Classic Music Recordings, due to its supreme sound quality and processing/editing features.

Some of you may know the Vienna Symphonic Library (http://vsl.co.at), which was edited with Samplitude e.g.

So, the consumer oriented "MAGIX Music Maker" is actually a stripped down version of Samplitude. One can say that Music Maker's audio engine is better than the one in Protools ;-)

[jedfrechette]

Charles' comments about only 2 versions of Xtreme don't bode well for the open source version. Nonetheless, it would be nice to get a straight answer about its future after the deafening silence of the last couple of months.

I'm trying really hard not to have flashbacks to the acquisition of Canvas by ACD.

Is that what happenned? I thought they had just folded or something.

One version of the sad story goes: Deneba got bought out by ACD who more or less looted the Canvas codebase to improve their lowend products. A couple of minor updates were released as new verisons but as time went by less and less attention, and almost no promotion, was given to Canvas. The most recent version was released in 2005 and there have been essentially no updates or bug fixes since. Just before Christmass you could buy a copy of Canvas or 200 shares of ACD stock for $100. Even as abandonware I think Canvas was the better deal.