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Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE ) announced Thursday that demand for its video editing software "has exploded ... with 45 percent growth on the Mac." That, Adobe says, was caused by the "large number of Apple Final Cut Pro customers switching to Adobe Premiere Pro."
Perhaps this wouldn't be such news but for Adobe's good fortune being caused by Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL ) totally botching the rollout of its much anticipated upgrade to Final Cut Pro, that being – ta-da -- Final Cut Pro X.
To say that FCPX was met with jaw-dropping derision from many professional video editors would be understating it. A couple of the reactions:
- "Apple did not just blow this launch, they went out of their way to alienate their key customer base." -- Larry Jordan, Final Cut Pro trainer
- "Apocalyptically bad ... maliciously designed." -- Jeffrey Harrell, video editor
Even David Pogue of The New York Times wrote, "In 10 years of writing Times columns, I've never encountered anything quite like this."
Opportunity knocked
Adobe hoped its Premiere Pro software, never in the forefront of mainstream professional video editing programs, would get a boost from the negative reaction to FCPX. So the company helped that along by offering huge discounts to Final Cut Pro users who switch to Premiere Pro.
Avid Technology (Nasdaq: AVID ) , once the main player in professional video editing, also saw Apple's misstep as a way of getting back some of the market share that it lost to Final Cut Pro over the last 10 years. It also started offering discounts to those FCP editors switching to its Media Composer editing software.
Upshot of all this
A feature-film editor said that if Apple doesn't bring FCPX up to professional standards, then "I imagine all of us will end up aborting and finding a new platform to work on."
If that does turn out to be the case, we may see either Adobe Premiere's sales really shooting up or Avid regaining its throne. Apple's loss then would be one of those companies' gain. That said, though, Apple's loss would be much less than either of their gains.
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Report this Comment On September 09, 2011, at 3:39 PM, skippywonder wrote:
I am not in the business, but I know lots of folks who are -- just happened to hang with the mass communications crowd in college and ended up knowing a lot of studio editors, owners, television folks and free lance production people. All of them are puzzled by this move and all unanmously hate this new release.
Apple had to know what they were doing. It may be true they were dumping the $1B in annual "pro" revenue for the $10B in annual consumer revenue with a kind of "i-Movie Pro" product. Or the other rumor I have heard is that Apple will be buying Adobe and will then own Premier alongside of Final Cut X.
Hard to know. But I heard last night that Apple has resumed selling Final Cut Pro (the old version) so maybe they are rethinking their strategy.
I think time will tell where they are going with this.
Report this Comment On September 09, 2011, at 5:01 PM, jafutral wrote:
I guess it is worth watching Adobe, but I wouldn't expect anything long term. How many users did Adobe have to begin with? So they had 100 users before and now they have 145?
Ad how many of those are actually switching vs trying out? And how long before many of them remember why they may have dumped Premier to begin with.
I expect most of this surge to be mostly short term stop gap measures with probably a few residual long term players. Adobe showed long ago how little they value Mac users. I wouldn't expect that to change considering how small a part Premier is to Adobe's bottom line, even more so, Mac users.
I would be more interested in a new platform entirely from a innovative, entrepreneurial start-up, rather than Adobe or even Avid.
Joe
Report this Comment On September 09, 2011, at 7:37 PM, melegross wrote:
Adobe's product doesnr compete with that of apple. Other than those doing wedding video, Adobe's product isn't popular.
But offering Premeir Pro for hapf price if you have FCS is a reason for some people to try the product. It doesn't meant that they will be moving over to it.
And a lot of thongs about FCP X are misunderstood. Next year at this time things will be different.
Report this Comment On September 09, 2011, at 7:37 PM, melegross wrote:
Sorry for the typo's.
Report this Comment On September 10, 2011, at 10:47 PM, rodnog wrote:
I'm watching AVID closely atm. My video editor friends see Avid as a more stable and professional editing platform, and quite a few are excited by Avid's discount for FCP owners.
Also, Pro Tools 10 has quite a few sound editors excited.
Report this Comment On September 11, 2011, at 3:58 AM, Sleepygeek wrote:
Contrary to the headline, 45% increase says FCP is not in the least threatened by Adobe. 1000% is more like a figure that would have Apple worried.
FCP is getting a new architecture. Some of the old ways must go, even though they may still be in some pro workflows today. And many of the gaps will get filled in.
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