Xara acquired by MAGIX

**jiva** · 02 February 2007, 10:46 AM

As a long-time dabbler with Xara software (Webster, Webstyle, 3D, Xarax, Xtreme, and now Pro) I always believed that this small UK company deserved greater recognition for its products.

I admit to a certain sadness that Xara has been bought, but hope that Magix can use their resources to better promote Xara's world-beating graphics products.

If Xara's technical brilliance rubs off on the new parent company I may have to seriously look at Magix products for audio and video!

Best wishes, Charles & Co. Good luck for the future of Xara.

**camelot217** · 02 February 2007, 12:30 PM

I've been messing around with illustrator for years. About 6 months ago I found Xara by "accident". I never opened Illustrator again.
I wonder how many like me keep living on the dark and are unaware of this fantastic software. That hopefully will change now...if more capital is directed towards promoting the best graphics software ever made!

Congrats to the owners and developers of Xara!!

Tom

**sgiff** · 02 February 2007, 02:54 PM

I'm not sure that this is a good move at all, in fact it may be very bad for the future of Xara users. The truth is that the reason Xara has not done well over the years is lack of promotion honestly. I still meet people all the time in the Graphics bus 90% of them have never even heard of XaraX even the name if you think about it doesn't translate commercially like Photoshop or After Effects which say exactly what they are. Then you add the fact that any professional design studio you want to work for is going to be afraid of touching or introducing an application from a company that is not mainstream and you have a problem. Now you have a company that makes rinky dink products for the not even pro-sumer level industry "Magix" taking over the application and who the heck in the professional world is going to take this app seriously when it has the name Magix behind it. The only saving grace may be that it will flood the market to the point that everyone's next door neighbor will have it then the big companies will have to take notice once it's mainstream but I doubt that will ever happen since it has not happened with any of Magix other products. I'm afraid this is the end for Xara or at least a downward spiral for those of us that really want it to be taken seriously as the best vector application out there. Plus you will see the application explode with bloated features and useless code and it will eventually be the memory hog that Corel, and Adobe is. Sorry to be so negative but it's really what I feel is going to happen.

s.g.

**Soquili** · 02 February 2007, 03:26 PM

I think this may be a very good development (no pun intended) for Xara Xtreme developing into a mainstream (well known, widely used) program.

Charles will remain the Managing Director. The existing development team with new members being added as funds from MAGIX are introduced. This sound like the beginning of great things to come, to the mutual benefit of Xara, MAGIX, and Xara Xtreme/Xtreme Pro users.

Xara was founded by Charles Moir who has more then 25 years of experience in IT and software development. In the UK and US, Xara has 1.2 million registered users. In the past financial year the company generated revenues of more than EUR 1.5 million through online sales, with a net profit of around EUR 100,000. The Xara employees are mainly active in programming and production and will continue to develop products. Founder Charles Moir will remain as Managing Director of Xara, alongside MAGIX CEO Jürgen Jaron.

**markJ** · 02 February 2007, 09:15 PM

This is an awesome collaboration,
This may well bring
exciting innovations inside Xara, like animation and audio timeline inside
Xara to import the magix tracks from video and audio,
and apply vector swf animations for web output, aswell as
integration between the products,
just like adobe has with adobe bridge for photoshop/illustrator/golive
but only BETTER again.

soon you`ll be able to make your own cartoons for web or dvd output !
The future is good for XaramagiX
This could be the first time we see an efficient interactive environment
for vector,bitmap,audio and video all in one as the Magix music and
movie edit pro controls are pretty intuitive also,
download the demo and have a scream.

I doubt the Magix crew are going to stuff up a great software, audio
is also very demanding and the need for efficient code to create even
consumer software like Magix music maker would be at the top of their minds,
they didnt buy Xara because they thought it was crap.

They bought it to grow their product line, and to anyone controlling a company with millions at stake, that would mean improving upon
whats there, not destroying it, the Krauts aren`t stupid.
I think they will support Charles in taking it to the next level.
They don`t have a competing company product,
they need it to work, not like Corel who had a whole bunch of drawing
and painting programs already.

I think the bigger headache is for
adobe with adobe/macromedia products like golive/dreamweaver
in dual development, which one is going to get axed? I use golive, and
it will probably be golive haha!!
and autodesk with maya/3dsmax and how their going to go
with both products over the longterm.

I`m new to this software and over half way through learning it but
I`m not going to go learn illustratorCS thinking Xara has ended,
I think its future in efficiency and tools is on the way up.

Last year I spent the whole year learning "expression" from creaturehouse.
I thought I would get that one nailed first then learn Xara, this year,
well thats what I did and then expression got decapitated by microsoft.
So I was bummed out.
I could interpret this as "de ja vu" but choose not to, I think its
a different kettle of fish here.

**sgiff** · 02 February 2007, 10:05 PM

[QUOTE=markyJ;195280]This is an awesome collaboration,
This may well bring
exciting innovations inside Xara, like animation and audio timeline inside
Xara to import the magix tracks from video and audio,
and apply vector swf animations for web output, aswell as
integration between the products,
just like adobe has with adobe bridge for photoshop/illustrator/golive
but only BETTER again.

soon you`ll be able to make your own cartoons for web or dvd output !
The future is good for XaramagiX
This could be the first time we see an efficient interactive environment
for vector,bitmap,audio and video all in one as the Magix music and
movie edit pro controls are pretty intuitive also,
download the demo and have a scream.

I doubt the Magix crew are going to stuff up a great software, audio
is also very demanding and the need for efficient code to create even
consumer software like Magix music maker would be at the top of their minds,
they didnt buy Xara because they thought it was crap. "

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>

Yeah, exactly and why not add DVD authoring as well, oh yeah, and lets turn it into a full fledged 3D program and 3D/Camera tracking as well not to mention it could really be great for spreadsheets as well.

See what I mean, already i proved my point, people who know nothing about the history of the app or why it is such a beatiful sleek tool is because it hasn't been turned it into bloatware but get ready because now it will be.

s.g.

**markJ** · 02 February 2007, 10:22 PM

HAHA =D
I really don`t believe that xara/magix would incorporate an audio or video time line
or any other import export functions between Magix products into Xara unless they
coded it in a sleek and fast working fashion. Like I said I dont think their stupid.
They`ve done very well so far. Give them some credit in common sense.
If you know history so do Xara/Magix, Charles, and I think they
will learn from it, not emulate it. Xara has been through that learning curve with Corel.

**Egg Bramhill** · 03 February 2007, 06:45 AM

Yeah, exactly and why not add DVD authoring as well, oh yeah, and lets turn it into a full fledged 3D program and 3D/Camera tracking as well not to mention it could really be great for spreadsheets as well.

S.G. You forgot the spell checker and underline options

**ankhor** · 03 February 2007, 02:13 PM

Yeah, exactly and why not add DVD authoring as well, oh yeah, and lets turn it into a full fledged 3D program and 3D/Camera tracking as well not to mention it could really be great for spreadsheets as well.

See what I mean, already i proved my point, people who know nothing about the history of the app or why it is such a beatiful sleek tool is because it hasn't been turned it into bloatware but get ready because now it will be.

s.g.

Come on, it could also just mean that they can make the
software in such a way that they can interact with eachother better.
So that it is easier to import the seperate results into the other programs.

Just like now dreamweaver works good together with webstyle.
I see nothing wrong with that? I know what you are afraid of
that they will try to cram all those things into one program.
I wouldn`t like that much either, that would become bloatware.
But if programs of their line work good together, I would really like that.