All the buyouts Slate/Plugin Alliance etc

[wuworld]

Quick questions for everyone. With Slate/Izotope/Brainworx/Native Instruments be bought,why is UAD/Acustica/Softube not having any issues surviving?

[SeeingInMidi]

Acquisitions or partnerships do not mean a company was dying prior.

[jamcat]

Maybe no one wants them.

[plexuss]

I would think that many people in the commerical software business consider being acquiered a success. To many software companies, they are building up capital with their product engineering effort. I guess they have to weigh the value of operating status quo vs being acquired. What happens to the product and to the customers is a different issue. An aquisition can go well and it can go to hell... just depends how its all managed. We see all kinds of different failures of plugin companies - I have to many products I bought that are defunct because the dev disappeared. I also have some that were aquired or merged that are fine. And some that deteriorated. It's a very risky market to be in as a customer!

[jamcat]

Particularly when it's an owner operated business.
You can bet Steven Slate is a very wealthy man now.
That is the definition of success.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

We do not know, really. Investment capitalism is a shady business. Often mergers and acquisitions are made with assets that have a negative intrinsic value (e.g. net loss-generating relative to inflation, or plain net loss). The usual plan is to restructure the business to turn it into profit.

[revvy]

Who’s in the Plugin Alliance alliance? Who’s bought whom?

I didn’t keep up.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Who’s in the Plugin Alliance alliance? Who’s bought whom?

I didn’t keep up.

They've merged into Soundwide umbrella company (I do not know its actual legal status, but it does look like merged companies work as contractors sharing the same market space and doing cross-promotions regularly).

[revvy]

Who’s in the Plugin Alliance alliance? Who’s bought whom?

I didn’t keep up.

They've merged into Soundwide umbrella company (I do not know its actual legal status, but it does look like merged companies work as contractors sharing the same market space and doing cross-promotions regularly).

Ah thanks.

So that’s Izo , NI, PA, BrW and one I don’t know, Sound Stacks.

[ATS]

Quick questions for everyone. With Slate/Izotope/Brainworx/Native Instruments be bought,why is UAD/Acustica/Softube not having any issues surviving?

Why do you assume they were having trouble surviving?

[chk071]

Exactly. Being bought out actually means that you're doing very well most of the time.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Exactly. Being bought out actually means that you're doing very well most of the time.

Not exactly so. I've got a couple of offers in the recent past with potential buyers obviously not knowing how exactly I'm doing. Investment is usually based on buyer's own valuations within its business situation. For example, it's very likely, what I can't even sell myself may perform much better on another market.

[chk071]

Well... at the very least it's not a sign of a business running badly, because, I surely wouldn't want to buy into something which doesn't create profit, unless I want to buy something really cheap, with hopes go get it running well again.

Or you want to buy out and cease competition. Or whatever.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I very much doubt Accusonus which was bought reportedly for $70mln by Facebook, could make that much profit in whole developers' lives combined.

[quintosardo]

I have seen a few situations (in other ranges of products) where a company was acquired just to destroy it and reduce competition. Who knows...