Is Edit* Dead?
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A former Discreet employee who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "The only reason they're releasing version 6.5 is that they introduced it at IBC last September, and since AutoDesk is a publicly-traded company, the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] requires a software product to be released if it's announced to the public, along with one bug fix," said the former employee. This is to avoid the "vaporware effect," where companies will announce fantastic but unrealized new software capabilities in order to pump up stock prices. "And one bug fix is all they intend to do," he continued. "That's it -- they aren't planning to develop version 7.0 of Edit," he said.
Another former staffer thinks Discreet never really stood behind Edit. "There was never a product plan for Edit, from day 1," he said. "They never marketed Edit." Adding to that is the fact that the DVision development team remained virtually intact throughout the past few years it has been owned by Discreet. "Edit is DVision. There has been only one member of the Edit team who came from the Montreal headquarters," the former staffer said. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Could Discreet be planning to completely rebuild Edit's development team in Montreal? "That would take a miracle," a source within Discreet told Digital Media Net. "Unless they wanted to pick their way through the software, they won't be able to do it easily. It wouldn't be cost-effective. I'd say that is extremely unlikely. It would be a daunting task without carrying forward the knowledge of the DVision development team."
Larry Sherwood, previously a Discreet product specialist for Edit, is well-known as one of the industry's best product demonstrators. He sensed this sort of move coming, and that's why he resigned his position with Discreet at the end of September. But he still speaks highly of the product. "Edit 6.5 is probably the strongest, most powerful and versatile release in the history of this product," Sherwood said. "It will still provide a strong NLE solution for the next 2 years for anyone who would purchase a great product in the absence of a corporate presence behind it."
The current difficulties facing Edit are particularly frustrating to Sherwood, who was always enthusiastic about Edit. "This apparent demise is certainly not due to failures or shortcomings of the application but I attribute it directly to the lack of marketing, sales, and additional developmental resources of the part of Discreet," said Sherwood. He added, "I never felt the existence of any long term plans for this product from Discreet and I hope that somehow the intellectual property and/or the development team can be salvaged by someone who has a focused interest in the success of this award-winning software."
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