Xara acquired by MAGIX

**Tallis** · 31 January 2007, 12:22 PM

I never liked Magix software, it was always bloated with consumer-junk and nonintuative, honestly. But... now I like Magix software...

The money I understand, and the R&D drain. Now that will be different, we hope. My main concern is as long as Charles stays, I'm happy. Anybody this involved and attached...? indispensible.

I hate to be a broken record, but I've had too many software products with (excuse the caps) A DEAF EAR to the customers. And you tell them, "hey, youre losing market share because you just keep plugging away in a tower, and the customers are saying this is !@#$, and still you send a "dear sir/madam" letter, and say that you dont respond to forums, you dont respond to newgroups, you have a suggestion email that you never act upon... And still, nothing is done.

How ( I hope I can say this as an American

) bloddy refreshing it is to have a leader at the helm. A leader who can lead, then follow ( ideas, imput, market trends etc, and customer sentiment ). And then lead again.

So from a Yank, God save the Queen, the good Xara empire, and Charles. In that order. But all VERY close...

**Bob Hahn** · 31 January 2007, 01:07 PM

Sounds good to me. My first introduction to Xara was, CorelXARA and I bought that in a retail store. That's how I found it. If it wasn't in the store, maybe I would never of found it. I would of probably learned another program and just stuck with it.

So to have Xara in retail stores and competive pricing to go along with it too, it could only help Xara's exposure and user base. If Xara had a weakness, that would be it.

**Charles Moir** · 31 January 2007, 02:05 PM

Roland the next upgrade will be towards lower end - which you should expect anyway because we've not updated Xtreme recently, so that's the next one in line to get an update. The enhancements we're making are of a general usability nature. The plan is there will be a point upgrade to Pro at the same time so both versions will get the same improvements.

We said at the launch of Pro that both versions would go forward, Xtreme at the lower price point and Xtreme Pro at the higher - and that's still our plan. And given that Pro is just going out the door right now, as I speak (write) in fact, you shouldn't expect any major update to that version in the short term.

Going forward we hope that the expanded development resources will accelerate both versions. But remember it's not quick to recruit and train people into Xara Xtreme development.

**samrc** · 31 January 2007, 02:13 PM

I am excited by the thought of better distribution and more R&D to expand.
Glad to hear the current company will remain in place. Hope they do not try to merge operations in Germany stranding your employees.

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).

Xara Xtreme and Xara Xtreme Pro are a JOY to work with being faster and cleaner. Simply addictive. Never felt that from Adobe's products. Hope this move does not take that away in the long run.

**wall** · 31 January 2007, 02:46 PM

Magix doesn't have the best image, to be honest. Even though their top-of-the-line audio editors are indeed among the best, their money-makers definitely are the those cheapish lowerend stuff.

Having said that, it's obvious that a company that can sell cheap consumer packages like hotcakes must have done something brilliantly right.

**salaam** · 31 January 2007, 03:49 PM

Congratulations Charles, Kate and team, I'm sure that this will benefit the masses greatly.
I also hope the MenuMaker and Xara 3D will recieve more attention. They are both long overdue in regards to development.

Anas

**The Alien** · 31 January 2007, 04:40 PM

Congrats Charles and the rest of the Xara team!

It's hard to compete with large companies when your company is small. So it's a (strategically) good choice to seek an alliance with the big companies, even though it means the product loses its "Britishness" as it was so well put by others (even I was proud of that and I'm not even British).

I hope it works out alright and wish you good luck.

And as Bill Taylor and jclements said, I too am wondering if/how this affects the Open source project.

**gwpriester** · 31 January 2007, 04:46 PM

Sorry to be so late with my congratulations. I was trying to take the day off and just checked in!

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?

Gary

**rpc9943** · 31 January 2007, 05:07 PM

"general usability improvements" oooh yes for a xara xtreme owner that sounds VERY good to me!!!

i knew something fishy was happening when i got that great magix video editor deal- a great prog too!!

RonC

**Odat** · 31 January 2007, 05:17 PM

I for one welcome our new MAGIX Overlords...

Seriously though, this sounds like good news all around, even if the only thing that changes is that Xara will be in more retail distribution channels. I don't know if that will happen outside of Europe or what, but even if it doesn't, that's still tons more exposure to great software by the general public.

I also imagine that the new exposure and the backing of a larger company will indeed allow for more innovations in the already awesome Xara software packages.

Congrats to the Xara team!