Hi Dan,
There are probably dozens of ways to do an online petition; one way would be to start a new Yahoo Group specifically to collect petitioners (members). However, I'm afraid that I side with Peter on this one: Starting a petition is probably futile.
First off, the musical economy is down, and the VA market is pretty well saturated at this point. While Yamaha has made fine VA synths, there's nothing incredibly unique about their VA offerings compared to the competition. I'm not saying that the AN1x, AN200, etc. are bad products -- I am very fond of my AN1x, and would probably try to replace it with another one if it was stolen -- but for the most part, people either like the Yamaha sound, or they like someone else's sound better (Waldorf, NI, Nord, etc,). There are players who own several VAs including a Yamaha, but that's probably the exception, not the norm, if we look at all keyboard players, collectively.
OTOH, the Motif is garnering a lot of positive press for Yamaha; probably more than anything they've produced since the DX-7 days. It really doesn't do anything unique -- it competes with a horde of ROMplers to provide pianos, strings, brass, etc -- but it does it better than most of the competition. To convince Yamaha to take resources away from this area, you'd need more than a few hundred signatures on a petition. You'd either need tens (hundreds?) of thousands of signatures, or you'd need proof that every single one a couple of thousand signatures was actually planning to buy an SW product, but "bad ole" Yamaha took away their opportunity.
Consider your entire collection of friends and associates: How many of them even know what the sw1000xg is? Of those, how many of them would say, "Yeah, that's a nice product, but my {insert brand here} is better," or something? How many of them like the sound, but feel they have enough VA synths/modules/programs already and aren't in the market for an sw2000xg? How many already own the sw1000xg, and have no plans to upgrade? Take away those people, and what you have left is what Yamaha REALLY cares about -- the potential customers they are casting aside. It's probably not as big a group as you wish.
For all kinds of reasons, keyboards have followed the computer and video game model: lots of short-lived products, each with features that leapfrog the last generation. By comparison your guitar, bass, drum, sax, etc. playing friends all buy in mature marketplaces where the products evolve slowly over a period of years. No one is clamoring for a BETTER Stratocaster; they just want ANOTHER Stratocaster. Why did our market change? Lots of reasons, but part of it was the players' constant search for something new and better, which is still pretty much alive. Unless that situation changes, keyboard products are destined to have short lives.
Regards,
-BW
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Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions\ufffd http://music.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
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