Like many of you, I’ve been losing sleep this last week trying to figure out what’s going to happen to my business after the debacle of the Final Cut Pro X launch.
I read in a blog last night that Steve Jobs has gotten involved in this mess and that “really great things will be happening really soon.”
So my first question is: “Why does Steve Jobs need to get directly involved in what is essentially a straight-forward upgrade to one of their well-established products?”
And this led me to a bigger thought: “Who’s Accountable?”
As I woke up this morning, I had a day-dream of Phil Schiller, VP of Worldwide Marketing, appearing on my podcast, the Digital Production Buzz, to answer questions from listeners.
(In reality, this will never happen. Apple stopped giving on-the-record interviews, with the exception of Mr. Jobs, many years ago.)
So, imagining that Mr. Schiller were on the program, here are the questions I would ask:
1. What was the benefit to Apple of immediately canceling Final Cut Studio (3) with the release of a brand-new and untested product; when there was no technical reason (according to Apple) to do so?
2. Why did Apple feel it was necessary to alienate one of their most passionate fan bases with this release; were professional users that expendable?
3. What responsibility does Apple have when canceling a product to companies that built businesses around those products in terms of notification and support?
4. Conversely, what does Apple require of its vendors, when a supplier to Apple decides to modify a manufacturing method?
5. What is the benefit to Apple for assuming a strict rule of silence whenever something goes wrong? (A short period for research is understandable, but not when it stretches for weeks. The number one rule of PR is communication – but, apparently, not for Apple.)
6. Conversely, what would Apple’s reaction be if one of its vendors, say FoxConn, refused to talk to Apple when something went wrong, such as an explosion?
7. Why is Apple unwilling to provide a general roadmap to those products it considers “professional”?
8. Conversely, what would Apple’s reaction be if Intel refused to tell it about new chips it was developing?
9. Trust is a very tricky thing. It takes time to create and can be destroyed in an instant. Does Apple perceive the extent to which it has breached this trust and what will Apple do to recover from it?
Not one of these questions deals with the features of a product. They deal with the moral character of a company.
As consumers, we are held accountable through license agreements, laws, and regulation.
But who holds corporations accountable?
The sad part is that no one holds corporations accountable. We will never learn these answers. And the damage that’s been done will be irreparable.
Larry
66 Responses to Who's Accountable?
Newer Comments →-
David Kuhnen says:
July 8, 2011 at 12:27 pm
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Lou Borella says:
July 8, 2011 at 12:51 pm
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Larry says:
July 8, 2011 at 1:07 pm
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Jason Rayment says:
July 8, 2011 at 1:15 pm
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Jeff says:
July 8, 2011 at 1:41 pm
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Larry says:
July 8, 2011 at 1:47 pm
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russtafa says:
July 8, 2011 at 2:09 pm
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Don B says:
July 8, 2011 at 2:26 pm
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Don B says:
July 8, 2011 at 2:35 pm
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Floris says:
July 8, 2011 at 2:49 pm
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Larry says:
July 8, 2011 at 3:09 pm
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David Kuhnen says:
July 8, 2011 at 2:58 pm
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David Lazaro says:
July 8, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Newer Comments →Larry,
RE: “what’s going to happen to my business…”
Can you tell me when your first Premiere Pro tutorials will be available?
I’m not joking, the first should be dealing with transitioning archives from FCP to PP, followed by dealing with the information lost between the two systems (i.e. clip transitions and filters). I could go on and on with additional topics.
Larry
A few months back when you were signing all the NDAs and you were getting first-hand access to FCPx did you feel that the negative backlash would be the initial reaction? Did you ever say to yourself during the early access “this is not going to go over well with the pro community” or “what is Apple thinking”?
I know you once stated that “it was not ready for professional use” which you quickly backtracked on, “I believed it then, I don’t believe it now.”
Which is it? Or more specifically, which WAS it?
Were you holding out hope that people would continue to trust Apple’s direction because their track record has always been so good or did you realize that this drastic shift would cause the outrage that has ensued?
I know a lot of people had reservations after the demo that was shown at the Supermeet. After the initial wow factor wore off the questions that remained gave editors a lot to worry about. Since you had a better understanding of the answers to those questions because of your access I’m wondering if you saw this coming.
Lou …
Yes, I saw it coming. Yes, I mentioned it many times. Obviously, Apple felt differently.
Larry
Well I’m sure it did not come as a surprise as we all too well know by now, Apple thinks differently… As for the letter great spoof! Larry love watching your videos you’re a great teacher and entertainer moreover a positive force of reason and common sense in the world of corporate giants with ear mufflers on.
The scales are tipping…
Larry– which blog said that Steve Jobs is now personally involved?
It was on the IMUG list/serv
Larry
David,
Go over and look..
http://www.vimeo.com/25506555
Walter has started to take this matter in hand and is doing a fine job.
My daughter who is at University in London got an email from her lecturer and apparently they are “moving on” over to Premiere next term. At the same time I will encourage her to try out, and learn Final Cut 10…Well I will try!!!
I am shocked by how Apple have so badly screwed up this whole process.
It would have been so nice for a lot of people to have been delivered a 64bit (modified) Final Cut Pro 7+ (10) on steroids. I just wish Randy Ubilos had studied the “wish list” first, then looked at all the other good stuff around eg. Protools as an example for the audio side. Had a pre-design meeting with around 50 of the top people in the business, incorporated their ideas/thoughts in the development cycle, and really enhance workflows and collaborative working processes.
If that had happened you would now have many many thousands of very angry people (ex-Apple fan club) sighing “Awesome” in perfect harmony with all the Tibetan bells hanging around Cupertino Central
From Creative Cow. Definitely check it out:
A Final Cutter Tries Out Premiere Pro
“I’ve been a Final Cut user since 2000 … But since 2010, I’ve been contemplating my escape from Planet Final Cut … My next step was to actually try Premiere out on a real-world project I had coming up … I installed a beta copy of Premiere Pro CS 5.5 on my 2009 Mac Pro (replaced with a final version mid-project), and got to work, making notes of any problems I ran into, along with similarities/differences with Final Cut … The sections that follow below contain all those impressions, but for those in a hurry, I can sum up my overall experience right now: it was remarkably easy … ”
http://library.creativecow.net/kobler_helmut/FCP-vs-Premiere-Pro/1
Larry, no need to worry about your business. iMovie Pro (aka FCP-ex) will provide you with a MUCH larger market of eager, new video editors. You’re a terrific teacher and they’re going to love you. And once it works on the iPad (which is what this new program is REALLY about) — watch out. You’ll be hard pressed to handle the business 🙂
Disclaimer:
I totally agree with every point Larry makes above.
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The more I work with it, the more I like Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X. Apple tore the house down and build it up from scratch. If you are afraid to do that, you end up with a house full of legacy features and your applications becomes bloated. Many applications suffers from this. They were very clear that they started from scratch with Final Cut Pro X. I realize many ‘standard’ NLE features are missing and without XML support, you really can’t use Final Cut Pro X in a production environment if you roundtrip between applications (color correction, compositing, Apple’s own Motion) or collaborate with others on a project. If you run a business and depend on Final Cut for your livelihood, this is painful.
I do believe however, that over time Apple will re-introduce the most requested features and will leave out everything that people aren’t complaining about. How many features are you using in Microsoft Word or Excel? I think 99% of people can get high quality work done with only 10% of the elemental features of these products. I happen to manage just fine with Google Docs most of the time. By starting from scratch, Apple can shift paradigms and revolutionize the way people interact with computers. They’ve done it with OS X, floppy drives and (soon) DVD drives. They also hit three homeruns with the iPod (and iTunes), iPhone and iPad. Incredible products that were misunderstood first but each shifted paradigms.
Most companies are afraid to upset their customer base and lose eventually. Good examples of this are MySpace, Nokia, Research In Motion and to a large extent Microsoft (in the mobile domain). What is Microsoft doing with mobile right now? They started from scratch with Windows Phone. The progress they are making there flows back to the Windows tree (the Metro UI, they still seem to be too afraid to drop legacy support judging from the demo with Office in the WIndows 7 UI). Another great example is Kinect. It does have a big impact (maybe not so much on gaming yet) and Microsoft dared to dwindle from the safe path.
What I really admire is Apple’s relentless pursuit of a vision. They really don’t care about what you think; hence their absence on Twitter, communities, trade events and every other platform were you interact with your customer base.
So yes they screwed up, no I don’t think FCP X is a bad product. They just should have launched it as a new product and keep FCP alive until the moment the new product is developed enough for production (and no, that does not mean it should do the same as FCP only in Cocoa).
You may have heard the Henry Ford quote:
If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said “a faster horse”.
The bottom-line: if you play safe you eventually lose.
Excellent comments – thanks.
Larry
russtafa,
Thanks much, I have been closely monitoring Walter’s blog with new developments.
http://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/
Also interesting, the description you gave for what Apple should have done is similar to what people (including Walter) are saying is what Adobe does right.
I think that the Pro division of Apple should go separate from the mainstream products. Take Sony as an example: you won’t find their broadcast monitoring displays intermixed with their Bravia TV sets in _any_ of their catalogs or websites.
Pro products should include everything with the Pro moniker sold by Apple, including hardware like the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro. We need to be able to make the same decisions, with the same clarity as when buying server and workstations from HP, for example.
The situation with the professional market and Apple is very muddy right now. I’m not making any decision until some months have passed. I’ll give them till Q4. I’ve been eyeing HP’s Z600 and Z800 and some mobile workstation solutions from HP and Dell as possible substitutes for Macs in the event that future Pro apps and hardware keep going in that murky middle line between prosumer and truly professional and without clear roadmaps. Right now there’s too much uncertainty with Apple’s professional product lines.