Reply To: NOT A DEAL: Spitfire Has Been Acquired by Splice

[peter]

On Lionel said

Wow, business must be good for Splice with all that subscription moola pouring in each month.

Here’s hoping that this acquisition is a good thing for customers.

Although I have a lot going on with my business this week, I’m going to write a blog post on what’s going on in the industry. I see a ton of misinformation being posted on various forums and social media by people who don’t understand industry measures, trends, strategy — from hobbyists to small developers who project their own struggles / failings onto the industry. The industry is doing very well, it’s experiencing healthy growth, and acquisitions like this are a reflection of that.

I think our group will find of interest (marketing/branding/business strategy is actually my day job). But in a nutshell, growth and technological change are fueling acquisitions, and I’m sure that there are more to come. Numerous small sample developers running their businesses out of their homes are making half a million USD to millions. It’s reported that  Splice paid  $50 million US to acquire Spitfire. It made its co-founders a very nice profit and inspired many other developers to get in the game. I’m quite certain that the growth of the industry, combined with the technological advancements, will lead to many new and exciting changes for producers. I also believe that the price drops we’ve been seeing from plugin and sample developers will continue, and I’ll just be candid, that I’ve been advising sample and plugin developers to lower their prices before all of their competitors beat them to it, to grab as big of a marketshare as possible. My expectations are that, before the year is over, we’re going to see more a sample libraries and plugins come down in price.

The resistance to the price drops in the industry — largely led by VI Control’s owner, Mike Greene, with some help from his friend Andrew Aversa (Impact Soundworks) that’s included making some very hostile attacks on their competitors and using contractors to attack their competitors electronically (without disclosing their relationship with the competitor developers) is proving to be what I believed all along, fighting competitive forces in vain and incredibly anti-conumer manipulation (not to mention terrible ethics).  Mike and I have had conversations about this. He saw 8Dio and Cinesamples as leading “the race to the bottom” as he put it in numerous F-drop tirades against these competitors — and several other competitors — on his forum. Competitive forces and disruption happen in industries over time, and those who can’t adapt become extinct.

Cinesamples and 8Dio led the way, and received a great deal of attempts to sabotage their reputations for it. Inside the industry, it was well known. There are some highly unethical, dirty players in this business. Both the small players and the big players in the industry are well aware of these dynamics. I realize most hobbyists don’t care. But for those who do, that’s the lowdown on the change that’s happening right now. And yes, it’s a turbulent time in the industry, but there’s never been a better time for us folks like us who use these products and services and the trend towards lower pricing has only begun — it’s been spreading all year long.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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