The Logic Off Topic list

--- In logic-ot@y..., GAmoore@a... wrote:
> > >>> Most people don't realize that the entire music industry
> > >>> is  drop in the bucket compared to the video/graphics industry.
> ....
> 
> ZEKE wrote :
> >Adobe Systems (makers of Photoshop & Dreamweaver, among other things) is a 
> publicly >traded big-cap NASDAQ stock (ADBE) that's now roughly $43/share 
> (up $1.64 today, so
> >far).  Trade volume is usually 4-5 million shares per day.  Nearly everyone 
> who owns a 
> >computer has some Adobe product on it. 
> 
> 
> How many people do you know who have a legal copy of Photoshop on their 
> computers? Surely, it must be 10 times the number of people who have a 
> sequencer of similar cost, since it Adobe products are so ubiquitous. I 
> do have Photoshop, Illustrator, and a number of individually purchased 
> fonts, but I don't think I'm the average person. In fact, I don't know 
> anyone else who has any of these things on their computer.

I think the market for these products are completly different. You can use those Adobe products, which by the way come in some kind of lite version with a machine you buy(be it PC or Mac) and some special upgrade price to attract customers, for very diverse range of purposes.
You can use it to simply edit your pictures, but also to do serious editting for magizine stuff.
So the market for these products is much greater then for a simple audio midi sequencer. Any idiot(no offence to graphics editors) can use these graphics programs without previous knowledge of graphics editting; I learnt to work in Photoshop in a couple of hours, without ever having worked in any other graphics editor before.
A audio sequencer on the other hand presumes you have some knowledge of music, or at least know which sounds can go together.
And mostly, I know musicians ;-), these people would rather spend the money on chicks and beer then on utilities to get them all the chicks and booze they want in the future.

> No the fact is, is that Photoshop and Illustrator are niche markets. 
> Adobe is now selling the equivlant of Photoshop Fun for home users who 
> can't fork over the $500 for the full version. However, in LA, the second 
> largest city in the US, and probably the top US city for the creation of 
> the arts, I don't know of a single store I can go and ask them for advice 
> about using Photoshop or filters.

LOL. This only tells you something about LA, not about the real turnover of the industry. Entertainment business is more about flashing then product. Do you know how much of the budget of a movie is spent on marketing the movie? It can be as much as the movie cost before distribution.
Photoshop is a product that got it's name because there was no other alternative at the time. It's like what Windows in 1995. No better known alternative.

 However, there are probably 50 where I 
> can go in and ask about Digital Performer or maybe Logic. 
> 
> Adobe makes its money from selling a wider range of products than Emagic 
> - although Emagic is diversifying rapidly.

This is true. That's also exactly how Adobe runs it's business. I call it cheating, but it can bring in a lot of money. A lot of the products have practically the same kind of stuff but just a little different. I if you need a couple of features that's not in any of them, you end up buying several of the products.

 
> (this discussion is OT, but a discussion about Emagic's customer support 
> is not OT, and is in fact very central to the user experience with Logic.)

To comment on the orginal point of discussion, I don't think it would cost that much extra to inform users with periodic newsletters.
It would be of great benifit to a growing company like Emagic. People tried to emphesize the fact that Emagic doesn't have much resourses, so lets concentrate on the coding of the program, on the users list.
That's not how businesses work. At least if Emagic plans to grow, they will need to invest in all the resourses they need, be it marketing and engineering. You can't always keep thinking in little terms. There comes a time you have to think big, at least if you want to become big. Otherwise you'll be just a survivor. And I don't think people want just a surviving product.
Regards,
Yoonchi.