XARA-GOES-CLOUD-AND-SECURES-GLOBAL-DISTRIBUTION-OF-ITS-DESKTOP-PRODUCTS-WITH-PARTNER

[Egg Bramhill]

Well Barbara I'm totally underwhelmed at the latest TG announcement thread re XARA-GOES-CLOUD-AND-SECURES-GLOBAL-DISTRIBUTION-OF-ITS-DESKTOP-PRODUCTS-WITH-PARTNER

What a load of techno speak / spin that says nothing. Would you like to explain in simple layman's language what the hell this article is talking about?

THREAD

[gwpriester]

I'm not Barbara but here is my take.

Magix will take over marketing development and support for the Xara graphics products.

Xara will continue to develop and expand the capabilities of the On-line product.

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this. It will depend on how Magix handles the Xara product line.

[Egg Bramhill]

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this.

Nor do I Gary, it's all as clear as mud. Is Magix now becoming the sole distributor of previous Xara software? Is Xara abandoning it's desktop software to Magix? Is Xara, having released their desktop software distribution to Magix, going all out for a cloud version of Xara On-line?

Fart and give us a clue please

[behzad]

I am going to open up my tool box and add a few other tools to it in the event that xara no longer is the xara that I once knew. Serif is a good one now for graphics and wordpress I already know, so possibly divi or beaverbuilder would be fine working with wordpress. I can always design with xara and have someone convert the graphics to wordpress. So the possibilities are endless. Do not worry, expand your horizon passed that of xara or magix.

[mwenz]

Well, the writing was on the wall.

What I would like to know is who is going to be doing the coding for XDP? Not very explicit on that point...nor any other points for that matter.

[Egg Bramhill]

Exactly Mike.

[Fred C]

.

[browj2]

Whew, finally!

For those who have Magix products other than the Xara line, having accounts in more than one place has been confusing. For most of my Magix products, like Music Maker and Video Pro X and Movie Edit Pro, etc., my account was under Magix.com. For Xara products, it was under Xara.com. Now, everything (almost) shows up under one place, ok, both places for now. I looked at my account under Xara.com and I see my purchased products for both the Magix products and the Xara products. I look at my account under Magix.com and I get the same list. So, my understanding is that everything is now in one place. Great! Almost. There are other Magix products that I have, Samplitude versions, that show up only in my Magix-audio.com account for Pro-Audio Service Centre. So, for Samplitude, I have to go there; for everything else, I have to go to Magix.com, but at least I no longer also have think about which account my Xara purchases are located. Hopefully, Magix will also move Samplitude and Sequoia to Magix-com so that everything is in one place. To illustrate more confusion, Magix has offered Samplitude bundled with other Magix products. The other Magix products got registered in the Magix.com account, but Samplitude in the Pro-Audio account. Users would look for Samplitude in their Magix.com account and not find it, and vice versa.

So, that is all this is really about as far as I can tell. Purchased products all show up under one Magix account.

As far as marketing, Magix has been marketing and selling Xara products on Magix.com for years. There is much more traffic on Magix.com than on Xara.com. Users of Movie Edit Pro and Video Pro X will find it useful to purchase Xara P&GD or DPX as it works closely with the video editors. So there is a whole market there for Xara and much more exposure than just on the Xara.com site. This makes sense to me.

There is another product line, the ex-Sony Creative Software, particularly Vegas, that Magix purchased last year. Although marketed on the Magix.com site, there is Vegascreativesoftware.com and I believe that Vegas gets registered to a separate database, just like Xara products were, but as I don't have any, I'm not sure. If so, then other Magix products bundled with Vegas would be registered to Magix.com, etc., thus more confusion.

Lastly, for Ernie, who, for some reason does not like Magix, I find Magix very good. Their products are good and support is reasonable. Looking elsewhere, like Corel, their support is for one month. Magix gives you 12 months. Big difference there. Also, I believe that someone mentioned that Magix products are not for professionals (but Xara is). Not true. Video Pro X, Samplitude and Sequoia are used by professionals, with the latter two top of the line. Even Movie Edit Pro Plus/Premium is used by professionals. And now with Vegas in the line-up, even more professionals use Magix products.

My experience with Magix over the last few years has been very good. They are proactive and trying to lead, which is not always easy. So far, I have seen no interference with Xara from Magix. My only beef was that there was a problem for a couple of versions of Xara of using it with the video editors. The animation part did not work. I complained. They got it working finally. There were some bugs (in Xara). I complained. The bugs were fixed. I'm happy. As Xara works with the video editors, as does 3DMaker, I can see no reason for Magix to want anything other than to be able to promote Xara as an excellent, must-have tool.

On the Magix forum, the Magix person assigned to the forum posted a message soliciting a wish-list for Video Pro X in a couple of languages. Great initiative from Magix! Here, we have Dear Xara, and we know that Xara monitors it and other posts.

That's my 2 cents.