March 28, 2024

Protoolerblog posted this yesterday:

“If you’re a Avid stockholder you might just freak out a bit right now: the company has postponed earnings from last quarter of 2012 and is now under investigation by at least two law firms.”

Avid makes ProTools….and they used to own M-Audio until they sold it this past summer. They also own Sibelius….after they fired the core developer group. Sorta a BIG deal when this company has two big industry leading (ProTools) or at least industry tying (Sibelius) pieces of software.
The Boston Herald has more:

“The digital audio and video technology maker said the company needs additional time “to evaluate its current and historical accounting treatment related to bug fixes, upgrades and enhancements to certain products which the company has provided to certain customers.”

Now, is this bad news? Probably……www.investopedia.com answer on why companies delay earnings doesn’t sound good:

“However, most often, the delay will be a result of the company not completing the report on time due to audits taking longer than expected, inexperienced officers completing their first report and the firm losing some or all of its financial data due to a technical error, fire or theft.”

Ok, no fire, or theft. Inexperienced Officers? Perhaps. Losing it’s financial data? Probably not. So…..it is probably them trying to polish a turd. Meaning Avid’s sales sucked last year, that users are still baulking at the price of ProTools 10 and it’s upgrade price from previous versions. That selling M-Audio didn’t do much for the company, and in fact might have hurt them more.

I guess we will know in 45 days or so the exact financials, but I don’t expect it to be good at all. May I suggest all you who use ProTools consider learning other programs just in case (like Logic!)

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