Xara acquired by MAGIX

[parahandy]

I hope this will not slow up the distribution of the CD. I too feel like I have lost an old friend, proud of the fact the company was British . Time will tell how good the change will be.

[jclements]

A big sighhhhh.

My two favorite pieces of software Xara and SketchUp have passed ownership within the last year or so. I respect Charles' judgement/business sense so I leave it to him and pray (a term I don't often use) that Xara software will be better off a year from now than what it is today.

That said, Charles I hope this will eventually mean a new bitmap editing program that is Xara-like in easy-of-use, code-effeciently, speed, unique approach, and implimentation.

>> And same question as Bill Taylor, "Will this affect the Open Source Project?"

>> Fur unser Deutsches freunden, kennen sie Magix? Can you tell us of your experiences with their software?

[remi]

>> Fur unser Deutsches freunden, kennen sie Magix? Can you tell us of your experiences with their software?

I own two products from Magix: "Video deluxe plus" and "Webradio deluxe". The software is good, has a lot of features and a nice look and feel. There are also other video editing packages available here in Germany, but I prefer the products from Magix.

The products from Magix are very well known here and that's the great point with this deal: You'll find their products in large retail stores like MediaMarkt/Saturn, there are a lot of computer magazines with large advertisings from Magix and a lot of tests of their software products.

I would say, their public image is positive and they know how to do marketing. In my eyes it's a great decision from Charles to go with Magix.

Remi

[ankhor]

I would say, their public image is positive and they know how to do marketing. In my eyes it's a great decision from Charles to go with Magix.

Remi

Yep, totally agree, good software for a reasonable price.
Just like Xara products are. I have been using Magix Music Cleaning
Lab for many years now, to clean up my vinyl records before
burning them to CD. And my cassette tapes. And music studio,
but an older version it was still so good. I didn`t feel like needing a new one.

So I have confidence in Magix.

And congratulations with the new move.

And I know that my new magix logo`s were good, but that they were going
to buy the whole company just for that, who would have known <lol>

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...t=24011&page=3

[masque]

I too feel like I have lost an old friend, proud of the fact the company was British . Time will tell how good the change will be.

To me the Britishness of the product was a big point as well. The fact that it worked better than any other for what I require was the main point of course and I hope that will carry on being the case.
An Indian company has just bought British Steel, the Chinese are building cars in Birmingham and the Goverment seems to have been bought by President Shrub. The corner shop and Xara were all I had left to hold on too, I really hope its successful.
Derek

[minimiro]

This is the globalisation Masque..

[ankhor]

To me the Britishness of the product was a big point as well. The fact that it worked better than any other for what I require was the main point of course and I hope that will carry on being the case.

Britishness? Okay this company was still british.
But since most companies nowadays work with shares
you actually never know who really owns them.

An Indian company has just bought British Steel,

Corus, which wasn`t even totally British anymore since
they merged with the Dutch Hoogovens, and now it is
in other hands, and who knows in what time they are in other
hands again.

the Chinese are building cars in Birmingham and the Goverment seems to have been bought by President Shrub. The corner shop and Xara were all I had left to hold on too, I really hope its successful.
Derek

Welcome to the corperate world.

[Roland Aalto]

Well my concern is that I realy want Xara to stay focused being a tool for the professional users, competing mainly as an alternative to all the domintating Adobe stuff out there.

I always try to use Xara extreme Pro over Illustrator CS2, it's faster and easier, and after the great Pro upgrade the PDF even works nicely with most of my printhouses. What if the next upgrade is going toward lowend improvements??? elp!

Perhaps a (god forbid) Adobe takeover would have been a better solution...making Xara something of a advanced mix between Photoshop and Illustrator!

Anyhoo - done deal, let's hope something god comes out of this!

/ Roland

[BONES]

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.

Well, I'm a semi-professional music producer [we have released two albums this century using only software] and I work in the broadcast industry but until I read this I had never so much as heard of Sequoia. I spend too much time at places like KVRaudio and I don't recall anyone ever mentioning it. It just looks like an uglier version of Cool Edit Pro [Adobe Audition these days] with an enormous asking price. It may be popular in Germany but I don't even know if they try to sell it anywhere else. I've certainly never seen it in a music shop here in Australia, where you see Samplitude and Magix Music Maker everywhere.

The corner shop and Xara were all I had left to hold on too, I really hope its successful.
Derek

You're lucky Derek, we lost the corner shop to petrol stations, and later convenience stores, 25 years ago. I often wonder why convenience stores aren't.

Several times now I have gotten attached to software that is bought out by or merges with other companies. After the merger the products become watered down or change so much in flavor that they no longer have the thing that made them special. (Jasc's PSP to Corel DRASTICALLY changed that product)..

It's hard to know where these things originate. For all we know JASC may have sought the buy-out so they could afford to do what has been done to PSP since?
The company I work for acquired Alias last year and they already had a three-year roadmap in place for Maya which is virtually impossible to change so the first 3 or 4 Autodesk releases will be pretty much exactly what they would have been if it was still an Alias branded product.

I know there is a lot of concern that Xara may not continue to develop. But how can such a fantastic program not continue? And how can such a fantastic program not continue to improve to the point where it will give Illustrator a real run for its money?

And if if it didn't, I wouldn't care. It already does everything I need it to perfectly. I could use it forever without anything else being added or improved.

[DocBambs]

I think this should be good news for Xara.

My company competes with Magix in the consumer world, though I work for the corporate division. In the same way, it is in an acquisition mood at the moment having purchased a couple of companies in the last few months.

I suspect that Xara will loose some admin people but gain technical resources. There might be more pressure on internationalisation of the product to sell it more widely. (Anyone for a Kangi or Chinese edition?)

I wouldn't expect the open source product to survive.

DocBambs