Just guessing but I believe SCS has been a plus for Sony's consumer electronics, cameras and videocams because they need low end software products as well as the EX1s. If Apple was 85% of PC market, SCS would be folded into Broadcast for the BR products and "other" things and Sony would be happy with this market arrangement.

8000 or 16000, both numbers are floating around. Sony's first official news released stated 8000. Then a rumor surface that it was going to be 16000. ;-) Sony's began reducing staff thru sales of manufacturing units first, then thru more partnerships in joint development and manufacturing,...... now some these partnerships are being changed or phase-out based on performance and market value. When Sony stop making TV tubes, that cost a few jobs, but warehousing demands and contracts keep some of these employees around longer than planned.

Both numbers are correct.

It plans to lay off 8,000 employees, or 4% of Sony's global workforce of 186,000, and it won't renew the contracts of a further 8,000 seasonal and temporary workers.

My guess is that there's not much profit incentive in a $500 software package with a relatively small potential market. Remember, a million dollars to Sony is chump change! There are a lot of <$200 editing programs that are getting better all the time (Magix, for instance). Vegas is in a very similar situation to Ulead's MediaStudioPro which they pulled the plug on in favor of the low budget VideoStudio. Sony would have to move Vegas into the $1500+ range to get excited about income potential, but they can't do that without somewhat matching what the Adobe Suite offers, a big investment in a bad economy.

"There are a lot of <$200 editing programs that are getting better all the time (Magix, for instance). Vegas is in a very similar situation to Ulead's MediaStudioPro which they pulled the plug on in favor of the low budget VideoStudio."

I don't believe that for one single second.

Point blank, Vegas usage is most definitely up. You go to any one of these universal sites that house a number of different nle forums.... like dvinfo.net and you'll find that Vegas is at the top of the list for hits and posts. At HV20.com most of the talk is either PP or Vegas

You don't have to spend $500 if you don't wish either. Go to B&H Photo and you can pick up Vegas Pro (less DVDa) for $129... and it's good for the full upgrade for next version. We've picked up editors from the now discontinued Ulead MSP, and we have also picked up editors from Avid Liquid (which is now discontinued). Not withstanding... there's always some thread on the Pinnacle studio forum about an angry user that's going to switch over to vegas.

They're making money on Vegas. How much I have no idea but they are. They also need something to support their new avchd tapless cam division. So the bottom line is that I would be VERY surprised to see these layoffs cut too deeply into the Vegas structure.

I hope it won't be an issue for our favorite software. I just got cinescore too and love it. Times they are a changing as they say and even if one division makes money doesn't neccessarily mean it's safe.

This whole economic down turn...which happend way to fast in my opinion...something doesn't smell right. Anyway, back to topic, I'm crossing fingers that Madison isn't affected.

And myself and a number of other former Newtek SpeedEDIT users have come over to Vegas Pro 8 in the last year as well. I see more people coming to Vegas in the future.

This whole economic down turn...which happend way to fast in my opinion...something doesn't smell right.

That was no conspiracy. One leading person said after 9/11, "We must go shopping, or the terrorists will win." So loyal citizens cleaned out their savings accounts, used up their credit cards, got revolving credit lines through second and third mortgages, used up even the increased equity in their homes, and were persuaded that they needed a big mansion that they could now afford thanks to new no-doc "negative amortization" mortgages with payments optional for an initial warm-up period.

Then predictably, one day consumers reached a point where they had no savings left, no revolving credit left, and no home equity left. So they stopped buying, and the whole house of cards fell down.

At the same time, the government had followed the same path, increasing the national debt to more than 10 trillion dollars, owed primarily to China, Japan, and the UK.

After World War II, the U.S. was the largest creditor to the UK. This position gave the U.S. an immense influence on everything of substance going on there.

We are now in a position to find out what our creditors China, Japan, and the UK want us to do, in a perfectly similar situation.

Who won? "I'll leave that as an exercise for you to do on your own," as one of my professors used to say ad nauseam.

Isn't it supremely irritating when you spend as much money as all other countries together on tanks, airplanes, and other battlefield hardware, and then our enemies won't come to our battlefield but attack us in a different way that we were totally unprepared for?

This is so unfair. We should bring this up in the U.N., to demand that our enemies attack us conventionally!

As serious as that is, there is a similarity between this and Sony Vegas going up against the other NLEs. Sony chose to market Vegas like a traditional product, saying only it's "like.no.other" so people ought to come swarming for that reason.

Vegas could do far better if they focused on showing HOW it is different. To give potential users a CLEAR picture of what it would look like for THEM if they used Vegas instead of PP, FCP.

It seems to me that a lot of people switch NLEs for various reasons, and Sony could make more people switch to Vegas.

"That was no conspiracy. One leading person said after 9/11, "We must go shopping, or the terrorists will win."

Huh??

This whole thing has little to do with 9/11 or what people said afterwards. Granted Americans have been living beyond their means, but this mess was almost entirely generated by Wall Street and the greed within.

For a number of years now US banks have been selling mortgages at "too good to be true" prices to people that spent MANY years dreaming about a home. Well... it turned out that those prices in fact WERE too good to be true and when the rates went up the owners couldn't pay.

Meanwhile all those loans were quietly being broken up into smaller loans, combined with others and sold to banks around the world. This mess is so complicated that nobody really know for sure who actually owns the vast majority of these foreclosed homes.

Now you have all these banks NOT collecting their money and sitting with homes they can't sell.... they start going under..... and banks around the world...including mine in Canada have been affected by this.

Ya Blink, I am a switcher from Avid Liquid to Vegas and have never looked back. I found vegas more intuitive and I can produce projects a whole lot faster. I just wish that Sony would wake up and see the great posibilities that Vegas has.

Spruce up the interface and bring it into the 21st century even though i dont find anything wrong with the way it looks and feels. As a matter of fact i like the simpler interface. but it does make it look aged and not as "cool" as say PPro or FCS but when you use it you find that it is fast. Maybe the "cool" factor would bring more people over the the " Right Side" :-)
PaulB

There is no question that the lack of bank regulation made the disaster worse, and the Fed chairman said with great regret, "I really thought that self-interest would be a powerful enough motivator for people to avoid destroying their businesses."

The problem with that statement is that the mortgage sellers had no interest whatsoever in whether their customers could pay or not, because they sold the mortgages often within 24 hours, so the defaults were simply not their problem. Some very simple regulation could have stopped this entirely, leaving those guys to still be making money and consumers still living in their homes.

The best advertising that Sony that Sony can do is having Vegas users demonstrate its power. No conventional print advertising is going to work. I can talk Vegas up all I want, but it isn't until an editor sits down next to me and watches me zip around in it does the light finally go on. I've converted quite a few people over to Vegas in just this way. Vegas isn't for everybody, but for those people that don't need to interface with other post houses, Vegas is a very compelling choice.

Personally, I like the look and feel of Vegas, its simple look says "surgical precision" to me.

"Ya Blink, I am a switcher from Avid Liquid to Vegas and have never looked back. I found vegas more intuitive and I can produce projects a whole lot faster."

Well, I TRIED to tell the die-hard liquid crew over there to spend a month giving Vegas a serious effort, but alas....

Vegas is like no other and it's a bit of a challenge getting into it, but once things start falling into place... well... you know the story. Liquid is (or I should say was) a good program, but after I learned the Vegas ropes I actually for the heck of it tried to fire up Liquid again. It was like banging my head against the wall..... at least twice as many mouse clicks for even the simple things.

The interface.... I have NO objections to cooling things up a notch or 2!

>>"That was no conspiracy. One leading person said after 9/11, "We must go shopping, or the terrorists will win." <<

Say what? The roots of the collapse go much further back. The real-dollar buying power of the middle class has been steadily eroding since the 60s or 70s. To keep even with their parents' standard of living, the middle class first had to send the wives off to work. Over time, they were still falling behind, so they tapped into their home equity. Over time, they were still falling behind, so they maxed out on unsecured debt (credit cards to you and me). Now they're still falling behind, but there's no where else to get more money from. They're basically screwed. And while all this has been going on the disparity between cubical dweller pay and CEO pay has gone from a factor of around 10 to nearer 100. Anyone see anything wrong with this picture? And if you disagree with this analysis, ask anyone in their 50s who grew up in a middle class family to compare their parents' (i.e., their father's) earning power with someone in a similar position today.

Although I don't have time right now to go digging around for links to corroborate this, I believe the 8000 employees Sony plans to fire are in the electronics part of the business. Right now, I don't believe they are saying.

Moreover, AFAIK only around 20% of Sony's business worldwide is in the United States.

John

Many believe it was the Jimmy Carter administration with home owning as the American Dream that began the process of giving subprime mortgages to get everyone in a home of their own. . . which quickly attracted those under-handed scoundrels out to make a buck for themselves as their version of the American Dream at the expense of putting people in homes they would never own (they would never be able to make all the payments) . . . instead, issue a mortgage and sell it before it comes due - much like a pyramid scheme ... the last guy holding the note sustains the final, cumulative loss for each previous sale and profiteering.
Until finally, in the government's infinite wisdom, instead of locating the profiteers and getting the money back or letting those last financial scoundrels holding the bad debt pay the final bill or go broke trying, they simply passed the cost on to the taxpayers. Isn't this a great country? Who said crime doesn't pay? "Petty crime" doesn't pay - "CEO crime" pays very well, thankyouverymuch...

Until that time. . . Earl J.

Understanding just what happened.
Forest Gump Explains the Mortgage Mess.

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: 'Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest'.

leslie

"I actually for the heck of it tried to fire up Liquid again. It was like banging my head against the wall..... at least twice as many mouse clicks for even the simple things."

I also tried to use Liquid again about a month ago, I think my blood pressure went up, just trying to make some cross fades and some simple trimming. It just felt so slow like they were trying to make it slow. With my shuttle Pro and Vegas my edit times has been cut in half.

When a large corporation decides to cut jobs and things, they procede like a bulldozer going through a forest until the jobs are done.
JJK

Vegas is a great editor but they really need to fix their lame third party plugin support. This has been a long standing issue and would go a long way in keeping Vegas alive.

Marc

The best advertising that Sony that Sony can do is having Vegas users demonstrate its power. No conventional print advertising is going to work. I can talk Vegas up all I want, but it isn't until an editor sits down next to me and watches me zip around in it does the light finally go on. I've converted quite a few people over to Vegas in just this way.

I've gotten a few people sold on Vegas too that way. A simple sit down & just run through something I'm doing. Then tell them the price & the jaws drop. It's like getting a dump truck for the price of a pickup truck. :D

It wasn't the CRA. Pure greed and theft.

In the 90's, Companies sold mortgages to a new group of people who couldn't afford a house until interest rates came down a lot. Fair enough. Some of these mortgages had low teaser rates which raised payments after a few years.

The thing that tipped us over the edge:
In 2001, the US deregulated the banks and finance industries, PLUS allowed them to increase their leverage from 17-1 to 35-1. This meant that my $300,000 house mortgage was repackaged and sold to numerous other groups of people for higher amounts.

Instead of finance institutions selling my mortgage to people for a total of $5.1 million, they repackaged my house and sold it to people all over the world for a total of $10.5 million.

Sorry, but I still only owe $300,000 on a house that is now worth $200,000. A bunch of bozos were lied to, spent $10.5 million, and hoped that I would continue to be able to pay my house payment.

Now the banks are having to back out their leverage back to 17-1 and deal with a $100,000 drop in my house worth.

17 x 200,000 = $3.4 million.

$10.5 mil - 3.4 mil = $7.1 million of people's investments worldwide has just vanished.

On just my house mortgage. That I am still paying.

Biggest robbery in history. Now to figure out where the real money went?