Is Cakewalk going out of business?

[emcee]

I am a Sonar user, and in reading the Cakewalk forum, it seems that Cakewalk is not answering support AND sales calls. I hope that this not true. In my experiences, there is only one basic reason why a company ceases to be reachable by phone.

Definitely a case of Deja-muse here...

[Grumbleweed]

When thinking of your retort just look at the evidence: near 100% anti Sonar/Cakewalk software/forum posts in this forum and yet quietly upgrading in the background.
A hypocrite.

Grum.

i think you're wrong there mate. people who abandon cakewalk, have no reason to click this link, unless they are like me, and just enjoy seeing this diabolical company getting bashed.
i stopped upgrading at 8.5, and have never even been close to wanting to upgrade again.

admittedly, i did make the mistake of upgrading zeta 1 to zeta 2, and was left with an unusable synth, because of a buggy waveshaper.
and if that wasnt insulting enough, when they finally fix the bug, they only give it to people who will accept online activation!

edit: actually, i see you were just talking about his posts, sorry.

I'm not a tyrant! I was just picking on one person - I'm not that stupid to pick on a whole forum

Grum.

Ah, just trolling one person then? Nice.

Post deleted - not worth biting.

[JoseC.]

I am a Sonar user, and in reading the Cakewalk forum, it seems that Cakewalk is not answering support AND sales calls. I hope that this not true. In my experiences, there is only one basic reason why a company ceases to be reachable by phone.

Well, if you are a Sonar user and visit their forum you already have plenty of info on the support issue.

Anyway, the company is releasing monthly updates like clockwork , developers interact constantly with users in the forum and the users satisfaction level with the product seems to be at it highest in years. I don't think there is more about the current support overload than already explained, but we shall see.

IMO it was Roland that almost killed Cakewalk. Gibson is doing very well in spite of all the haters gloomy predictions. If development suddenly stopped, that would be something, but that is not the case.

[kmmcdonald]

In any case, I signed up and paid for the lifetime updates for Sonar Platinum, so deep down, I'm rooting for them.

Keith

[Akanishta]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

[aMUSEd]

Oh that's good, perhaps they did listen to us Mac users who wanted a chance to try it out on Mac before committing.

[declan32001]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

[Akanishta]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

They did extend lifetime updates. Here's the email I got:

"On June 1st, we announced a limited time, Lifetime Updates offer for SONAR Platinum. Although there was an overwhelmingly favorable response, many customers were disappointed because circumstances prevented them from updating during the offer period, or they wanted to wait until the holiday season before updating.
Although that particular offer is over, we do have good news...
We’re making Lifetime Updates available until December 31st!"

The price went up, but the lifetime updates is still available.

[fmr]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

I bought the lifetime extension during August and I paid the equivalent of $199,00 in spite of being already a Platinum user, so this is, in fact, an extension, since I would have to pay the same if I purchase that now.

[dzilizzi]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

I have been a Platinum User since it first came out as well. The discount prices were only for those who had a current subscription. Mine ran out in April and I hadn't got around to updating it before this came out. So I didn't get the discount and had to pay $199. I wish I had know they were going to extend it though. I hit a lot of sales in August and would have preferred to wait another month or two.

Darn that Plugin Boutique and their deals.....

[fmr]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

I have been a Platinum User since it first came out as well. The discount prices were only for those who had a current subscription. Mine ran out in April and I hadn't got around to updating it before this came out. So I didn't get the discount and had to pay $199. I wish I had know they were going to extend it though. I hit a lot of sales in August and would have preferred to wait another month or two.

Darn that Plugin Boutique and their deals.....

No, the discount was only for those that "upgraded" to Platinum. Those that had a subscription running on (which was my case - my subscription would only end in October), had to pay also $199,00 - at least that's what I was charged. Otherwise, Cakewalk owes me $100,00.

[dzilizzi]

I'll be surprised if they don't extend the deal a bit longer. Given their (lack of) support in the weeks leading up to the deadline, it's the very least they could do.

You guessed right. They extended it through the rest of the year.

They didn't extend it. If I hadn't paid my $99, it would now be $199. This deal was meant for Platinum users who purchased it since its inception. I don't understand the confusion.

I do think they should have made a similar deal for Pro users though.

I have been a Platinum User since it first came out as well. The discount prices were only for those who had a current subscription. Mine ran out in April and I hadn't got around to updating it before this came out. So I didn't get the discount and had to pay $199. I wish I had know they were going to extend it though. I hit a lot of sales in August and would have preferred to wait another month or two.

Darn that Plugin Boutique and their deals.....

No, the discount was only for those that "upgraded" to Platinum. Those that had a subscription running on (which was my case - my subscription would only end in October), had to pay also $199,00 - at least that's what I was charged. Otherwise, Cakewalk owes me $100,00.

But one of the "upgrade" choices was from Platinum to Platinum. I think based on what I read on the Cakewalk site, you should have been $99 if you had a current subscription.

And? I don't really understand how they differentiated either. I just figured it was because my subscription lapsed.

[dzilizzi]

Okay found this in the FAQ's
"I just renewed a SONAR Platinum annual membership this year. Do I still have to pay the full $199?
No, your price will be $199 minus the amount you paid when you purchased your annual renewal. Click here to see your price. (this discount only applies to annual membership payments not monthly payments)"

And it a comment on the thread - "Yes, if you log in you will see that we are only charging you the difference in price from $199 and what you paid earlier this year. We sent out emails to folks like you a couple of weeks ago. So because you renewed, you would pay $99. Just log in to the store and you will see your price."

Did you buy it at Cakewalk?

[excessional]

I'm a casual user and have Sonar Plat. Works fine for me but it's not that intuitive...

To be honest I only bothered to upgrade from the middle version of SonarX3 because I got AD2 (+ 3 Adpaks and 3 Midi Packs) and the Flyout EQ for around $100 in total. Both of those are fantastic.

I doubt I'll bother with the lifetime upgrades though. Other than playing around with Rapture Session a bit I haven't made any use of anything they've brought in in the last year....

[noelb]

No we're not going out of business. We simply had a hiccup with support at a bad time leading to a backlog. This has been explained several times on our forums. We have rectified the situation since and are rapidly catching up with the backlog.

Regarding the lifetime updates we had a promo until Aug end that discounted the upgrade for annual Platinum users who had two CONSECUTIVE annual updates. They could get it for $99. As of Sept 1 you can still purchase lifetime updates but the old promo isn't available anymore so the lowest price for a qualified user is now $199. Users of other older versions of SONAR may also qualify for upgrade pricing. Just check the price in the cart to see what you qualify for. It is still a pretty incredible deal considering that you pay once and get updates to the software forever.