Recently PC World released a list of what they consider the "The 100 best products of 2008"Now, this list is "as picked by PC World editors and readers" and it's displayed in alphabetical order.
This is the first time DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software goes outside its niche (meaning press) and goes pop. Normally you'd only find top lists about DAWs in specialized magazines and forums like SOS or Electronic Musician, Computer Music et al.
Why do I say Logic Studio has gone pop? You can see that in the list there are no competing products (which are great, too, why not!) from the likes of Digidesign Pro-Tools, Steinberg Cubase / Nuendo, MOTU Digital Performer, Ableton Live or the Windows-only Cakewalk Sonar, no, zip... nada.
...So why did only Logic Studio take the cake?
Does it mean it's the best DAW out there, period? In your face Digidesign? Eat that Yamaha-Steinberg? How do you like that Cakewalk?
Of course, a blog about Logic Studio might be expected to tell you "hell yeah baby, it's the best DAW in the world"... but wait, no, hold on muchachos....
If we take a holistic approach to it all and, above all, if we take PC World's word for it, it simply means that among the editors and readers of such magazine Logic Studio got enough votes to make it to the list and the others did not, and that's it... so hold your horses Logic bandidos, before you ride into town shooting to the air and yelling "who wants to fight my DAW hombres?"
Slowly but steady, Apple's been eating Avid / Digidesigns's lunch...
Never mind the video industry where Final Cut Studio has been creating ripples... I'm not covering that one...
Digidesign has always claimed that their boy (Pro-Tools) is the de facto industry standard for music recording and post production - and for now it is, try to find a list of studios that use anything else for Post P. and yeah, you'll find some, but not as many as the ones using Pro-Tools, there is no question that they were among the first and quickly gained a considerable market share and a bit more (market dominance I should say...) and why not? they've earned their success... for the most part... (fanboy inside joke) problem is that they've been working hard (struggling I should say!) to appeal to the average joe, the 'prosumer', over the years this is what they have done, and you can consider it a great recipe on:
HOW TO LOSE MARKET SHARE AND BRAND RECOGNITION IN THE DAW WAR.
(this can be applied to any company but I'll use the Big Boys as an example)
1. Alienate prosumers and go for your core market, i. e. the serious lot
If you are the industry's standard why would you want to market yourself to them stinky prosumers? Canon did it with their silly "Rebel" cameras and it worked, but hey, that's only in the digital imaging industry right? why earn money with them prosumers who come in big numbers and why pursue a sales volume strategy... business models cannot and should not transpose to other industries okay?
2. Market yourself as THE industry standard and sell yourself EXPENSIVE!
Once you have alienated prosumers remember: Nothing will keep that scum away more than a hefty price tag, especially if it comes in 4 digit numbers, got to love those. Don't worry because your core market are the serious recording and post-prod studios which come in all sizes huge, big, medium, small and xtra small... if the xtra small bit are perhaps a HUGE CHUNK of the market and they may have budget constrains just IGNORE THAT, keep selling yourself like diamonds baby...BLING!!
3. Realize a decade later that you are heading the wrong way
Nevermind the fact that the rise of the home studio began way more than a decade ago, and you were not there. Nevermind that prosumers in all this time have made big hits with their silly gear and software in their silly bedrooms.
It's never too late to realize that for every post production studio maybe there are hundreds of thousands of aspiring musicians buying tons of junk harware-software, not your top-of-the-line engineering jewels.
4. Be cool again, buy a prosumey catering company
Hey M-Audio is cool with kids and they have tons of affordable toys the prosumeys could dig, and you could be insta-cool with them, now you can arrive to their parties and say "hey dudes remember meeee?" but don't wait for them to come instantly high-fiving you, the DJing bunch will be too busy playing with Ableton Live, and the producer buch will be too busy with the other chicks in the party. Sure, they will still buy your toys and you'll be in business but don't expect them to come rushing to your new strategy.5. Don't be afraid to confuse/insult potential costumers and treat them like babies
Why offer them the whole enchilada? that's for big boys only! offer them a crippled baby version of your product they can't do much with, after all, why would prosumeys want more than 32 tracks in their songs? If they want more they WILL pay for more. You want bigger plugin$ guy$? you know what you need to do...Don't forget to add a terrific 'as if created by committee' confusing line of products to the mix (just like Micro$$oft with Window$ Vi$ta) and don't forget to make the jump to the "pro" level as cumber$ome and hard a$ po$$ible and for that....
6. Let another company take the bold step and sell a complete professional package that used to cost about 7,000 dollars (with the fancy instruments and plugins) for just 500.
After all, people using your new affordable packages will come to you (and to you only) when they need something bigger, don't worry about those silly easy upgrade lock-in strategies that companies like Apple have with their Garage Band-Logic Express-Logic Studio line up.
After doing all this don't be surprised if there's more brand awareness in the street for Logic Studio than for any other competing product.
Am I right or wrong anyone? comment!
