DiscreetFX Platform Shift

[fishy_fiz]

Does that tell you about the type of people that are abandoning Windows in favour of a Mac?
It only proves to me that Windows Vista and 7 are lousy or at least not what a lot consumers wanted after XP.
It also could suggest that the previous $3000 to $4000 price tag of Macs was offputting.
Now if only we can attract more commercial software to Linux.

Actually, to me it suggests that 1, there's a heck of a lot more competition in the Windows world, 2, there's a lot more piracy in the Windows world, and 3, there's a lot more free options in the Windows world. It in no way, shape, or form reflects the quality of Windows. While there's no denying that Apple has improved its market share, the ratio is still 15:1 (if being generous to Apple). A quick look at any of the graphics centric magazines for sale show how prominant Windows is in this field, as does 90%+ of the uni's that teach these things.

[nicholas]

DiscreetFX's primary focus for quite a while has been developing visual effects products for video editing solutions on Windows. We would sometimes also make these effects available at a later date for Mac OS X. Potential Mac customers would call us concerned because certain products would ship much later for Mac OS X if ever. As 2010 winds down and ends we have noticed a softening in our Windows effects business. We did some research and found that while companies that sell integrated hardware/software solutions on Windows are doing fine software only vendors have noticed a great slow down.

 
 

Our research results have come back and this downward spiral will only continue and accelerate in the future. Microsoft continues to bleed many key executives at an alarming pace. What do they know that we don't? Since we wish to grow and expand DiscreetFX we plan to avoid this destitution and software sales decay. For some time we have already run the business side of DFX on Mac OS X and this has worked out well. Starting today we will change the focus of our software effects development from Windows to Mac OS X. Now the OS X versions of our software will come out first and later the Windows versions will ship if ever depending on the product. The first product this will affect is MusicFX.

 
 

DiscreetFX's Amiga business and Amiga.org will remain unchanged since this has always been the fun side of the business. This decision should strengthen DiscreetFX and help it grow. We are only reporting it here for transparency reasons and for full disclosure to our customers since some of them are members of this site. Of course old products are still fully supported.

 
 

If you have questions don't hesitate to ask. Our first mission is to help our great customer base. Exciting times are ahead like the Mac App Store. A lot of our regular customers have changed platforms from Windows to Mac and we will now join them. Expect to see other software developers follow suit. We are usually slightly ahead of the curb. If you remember we were one of the first to embrace selling software on Flash drives in 2006 and we completely moved to selling all our FX software on Flash drives in 2008. Apple just started selling Mac OS X and iLife 11 on Flash drives last week with the new MacBook Air.

 

Best regards

 

DiscreetFX Team

Why not write your apps using Qt4 enabling you to simultaneously release your products for all major (and some not so major) platforms?

[nicholas]

Why not port to AROSx86 and sell "closed" hardware and software solutions then?
This way you control the quality of the hardware such as RAID(s) and video cards ensuring that your product performs expectedly well on the hardware.

Excellent idea, but surely an OS with better stability would be better for such devices? Haiku/Linux/BSD etc....

[Khephren]

@amigadave
Well, basicly I got the wrong idea on what was the concept you were wishing to elaborate on your previous post.

I see we agree on many things. And yes, you are right in that nearly an 80 percent of the money (and even more sometimes) Amiga users spend, is aimed at hardware. But then it is a chicken-egg situation: very little good Amiga software is available to buy -> few users buy that stuff, and they dont spend that much because there is not that much worth of it.

It's a good point. I used my A500 for games, my A1200 for games/apps, my A4000T mainly for apps. I probably won't invest hundreds in new art apps like I once did, because my classics are just to slow. I would buy new games and utilities though, or applications at a lower price.
I guess i'm now a dabbler software wise. Though you are right, I probably would buy more hardware.

[jj]

Was just wondering how one stays ahead of the "Curb" ?

[bloodline]

Was just wondering how one stays ahead of the "Curb" ?

Drink less

[Karlos]

@Transition

Good luck!

[Nlandas]

As 2010 winds down and ends we have noticed a softening in our Windows effects business. We did some research and found that while companies that sell integrated hardware/software solutions on Windows are doing fine software only vendors have noticed a great slow down.

 
 

Our research results have come back and this downward spiral will only continue and accelerate in the future.
..............................................................................................
Starting today we will change the focus of our software effects development from Windows to Mac OS X. Now the OS X versions of our software will come out first and later the Windows versions will ship if ever depending on the product. The first product this will affect is MusicFX.

 

Best regards

 

DiscreetFX Team

    Fair enough, you've certainly supported the Amiga platform far and beyond. You have to follow the money but my only caution would be to not get into a position where you can't easily transition back. I suspect you are seeing a wave that Apple typically rides once in a while of popularity. Since it's users are more dedicated to making purchases regardless of other economic forces.

In other words, when the economy comes back, I bet you'll find so do you Windows sales.

-Nyle

[jsixis]

Good Luck, doesn't take a brain scientist to see why your developing for Windows's millions of users vs Amigas thousands of users.

1% of a million is way better then 10% of a thousand

[amigadave]

Good Luck, doesn't take a brain scientist to see why your developing for Windows's millions of users vs Amigas thousands of users.

1% of a million is way better then 10% of a thousand

I wish we still had thousands who were actually actively using their Amigas, Classic, Next Gen, or Emulation.  I haven't seen any evidence that we have over 1,999 users left who still use their Amiga computers as anything more than a nostalgic hobby, or an interesting diversion from their mainstream computer experiences (which are almost always required for work, or because they can't do everything they need, or want to do on a computer from their Amiga, or Amiga-Like computers), which they turn on more than once a week, or once a month.

I hope, or wish someone can/could prove me wrong and show me that we still have 2,000+, or several thousand Amiga users (all varieties) who still use their Amiga computers for more than the occasional game once or twice a week, or month.  I wish someone could prove to me that we still have over 100 to 200 developers, writing code for the Amiga (all varieties), because we desperately need many new and/or updated applications and it would be nice to get some new games too.

@DiscreetFX, sorry for the off topic rant and good luck switching your focus from Windows to MacOSX as your primary target for new applications.

[Franko]

I wish we still had thousands who were actually actively using their Amigas, Classic, Next Gen, or Emulation.  I haven't seen any evidence that we have over 1,999 users left who still use their Amiga computers as anything more than a nostalgic hobby, or an interesting diversion from their mainstream computer experiences (which are almost always required for work, or because they can't do everything they need, or want to do on a computer from their Amiga, or Amiga-Like computers), which they turn on more than once a week, or once a month.

While I agree with your sentiments, I have to disagree on the Amiga being nothing more than a hobby or diversion.

I use my Amigas for all my computing need's, Audio, Gfx, DTP etc.. on a daily basis, the only thing I use my iMac for is the net...

[nicholas]

the only thing I use my iMac for is the net...

Heretic!

[fishy_fiz]

I wish we still had thousands who were actually actively using their Amigas, Classic, Next Gen, or Emulation.  I haven't seen any evidence that we have over 1,999 users left who still use their Amiga computers as anything more than a nostalgic hobby, or an interesting diversion from their mainstream computer experiences (which are almost always required for work, or because they can't do everything they need, or want to do on a computer from their Amiga, or Amiga-Like computers), which they turn on more than once a week, or once a month.

I hope, or wish someone can/could prove me wrong and show me that we still have 2,000+, or several thousand Amiga users (all varieties) who still use their Amiga computers for more than the occasional game once or twice a week, or month.  I wish someone could prove to me that we still have over 100 to 200 developers, writing code for the Amiga (all varieties), because we desperately need many new and/or updated applications and it would be nice to get some new games too.

I have 3 desks against my bedroom wall. One Windows machine, one AROS machine and one Amithlon/OS3.9 machine and they all get used roughly equally. Little bit backwards compared to most, but I do most of my coding on AROS or os3.9 (yes, it is probably silly being that they have much weaker tools, but I dont do nearly as much Windows development and I like to develop on the machine Im developing for), most of my graphics on Windows (Amiga has some adequate software for this, but for my tastes nothing to compare to 3DS Max or more recent versions of PSP (sure Photoshop is considered industry standard, but I hate it)). I browse on AROS and Windows equally depending on which machine Im in front of at the time (rarely os3.9 though, 'cos,...err,.. not sure this needs explaining to anyone who's tried browsing on an amiga). Video gets played equally as much on AROS and Windows as well, depending on which machine Im not in front of at the time. As for games, they get played on Amithlon/OS3.9 more than any of the others while Im in my bedroom due to some of the later amiga games being made usually being more interesting to me (unless Im in the mood for a modern game, which happens occasionally, in which case I'll get up off my butt and move to the lounge for some xb360 or pc gaming (have my pc gaming rig in a multimedia case and connected to my main t.v.)..... I could go on and on, but the overall point I guess is that my "amiga" hobby is a lot more than occasionally firing up Lotus Espirit or Supercars, etc.  :-)

[amigadave]

While I agree with your sentiments, I have to disagree on the Amiga being nothing more than a hobby or diversion.

I use my Amigas for all my computing need's, Audio, Gfx, DTP etc.. on a daily basis, the only thing I use my iMac for is the net...

I did not say that the Amiga is nothing more than a hobby or diversion!  Read my post again, slowly this time, and you will see that I wrote that I don't believe that there are "thousands" of Amiga users in the World that use their Amiga's as more than a hobby, or occasional diversion.  Big difference!

My point is that the Amiga (in any form) is NOT just a hobby or occasional diversion to only a few hundred users Worldwide.  To the rest of the people that even know or remember what the name Amiga means, the Amiga "IS" nothing more than a hobby, or an occasional entertaining diversion.

Is that more clear?

If anyone can prove me wrong, I would be happy to see the proof.  I am one of the users that like to think of the Amiga (and all of it's derivatives) as something more than a hobby, diversion, or toy, but it is a choice that takes additional effort to realize, where using a Windows, Mac, or even a Linux computer these days is easier and comes with more software & hardware choices.  

I am happy to make that choice and call myself an Amiga user and supporter, but I would like to be an even better user and supporter by using my Amiga (and MorphOS) computers more and MacOSX and Windows less.  Having more AmigaOS & MorphOS software would help, but I must admit, laziness is a key factor which keeps me from using my AmigaOS & MorphOS computers more, as after using only an Amiga at home for many years and then getting caught up with using Windows at work and finally buying a Windows laptop as my first PC, I gradually moved away from using my Amiga and became a collector, more than a user.  

I have gotten back to using my Amigas and also started using MorphOS, but still have not gotten back to the level of Amiga/MorphOS use to equal my previous familiarity with the Amiga I had in the past, but I am working on it.  I would guess that the same pattern of Amiga use is shared by many Amiga users.  Probably more in the USA than in other parts of the World.  Specially in the UK, EU and Australia, where the Amiga had a larger percentage of the total computer user base over a longer period of time, with some users staying active continuously, without any break in use, like my switch to a Windows laptop at home.

[persia]

According to Steve Jobs, the Mac now makes up 20% of total computer sales.  I personally know of about a dozen people that have switched from PC to Mac,but none that have gone the other way....

[Franko]

Heretic!

Believe me I'd love to get this old iMac doing something useful, but you'd need to use a calendar to time the bootup sequence and you could take the dog for along walk waiting for iTunes to start...