Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[idoru97214]

I use software to make music, not demonstrate to the world my capitalist values and hip sense of who's running their company right. FFS.

And Kontakt and it's ecosystem are the best thing out there in sampling quality of sound and choice. As long as it works, I will use it. For the music I like to make. Not the virtue signaling about venture capital and what I think about it.

Kontakt is huge. Either NI figures or how to fix their model, or someone buys it. One of those two. It's not going to disappear anytime soon.

[Shabdahbriah]

^^^ that ^^^

[ksandvik]

I second. A business with lots of consumers will not be killed, rather it's an asset that many other companies want.

[BONES]

You bough some samples for $25. You can buy that shit anywhere

I prefer to support someone who's willing to curate them for me and put them into a very useful interface so I can spend my limited and very valuable time on more important stuff.

[234north]

Kontakt is huge. Either NI figures or how to fix their model, or someone buys it. One of those two. It's not going to disappear anytime soon.

There has been an enormous amount of pearl-clutching over this whole thing and you are 100% correct. Too many people and companies rely on Kontakt. It's not going anywhere.

[digitalboytn]

The article linked earlier mentions over €250 million in debt, and that the root cause of the bankruptcy is not poor sales, but poor financial decisions.

What NI are looking for are investors who are willing to buy over €250 million in debt.

That linked article is an excellent read and a sobering reminder of the current plugin malaise in general...

The €250 million in debt is the real issue here...

The administrators will be looking to achieve the best possible outcome and whoever buys the company may not have to assume all of the debt...

But one thing is for sure...

Someone is going to take a hit on that €250 million

[HM]

The article linked earlier mentions over €250 million in debt, and that the root cause of the bankruptcy is not poor sales, but poor financial decisions.

What NI are looking for are investors who are willing to buy over €250 million in debt.

That linked article is an excellent read and a sobering reminder of the current plugin malaise in general...

The €250 million in debt is the real issue here...

The administrators will be looking to achieve the best possible outcome and whoever buys the company may not have to assume all of the debt...

But one thing is for sure...

Someone is going to take a hit on that €250 million

Yes the article "Why I Think Native Instruments Is Doomed" is good and more or less spot on:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-th ... tti-mravc/

(despite that both facts, and more subjective conclusions, offend or disturb people, that is)

Someone is possible trying to take a hit on the €250 mill ,.. but it will most likely be after
a split up of the "actives", killing some of them, and only if a fraction of the price is in reach.
It´s not a law of nature that creditors will just accept the offers they are given. Far from.

Various reasons not to, one of them could be that technically they often can deduct a loss
in their general taxation as compagny. So when bids falls to a certain level they dont care,
(or dont care att all), as loss is just forwarded to remaining taxpayers, you/me, in essence.

F.eks. Creative could have accepted any kind of offers for E-mu, under the parole: "all is lost,
we just got to accept the best offer", but they did not, they just sort of buried it, and choose
to only keep the rights for the brand-name. And then they closed the activation-server.

[HM]

double post, delete

[cron]

I use software to make music, not demonstrate to the world my capitalist values and hip sense of who's running their company right. FFS.

And Kontakt and it's ecosystem are the best thing out there in sampling quality of sound and choice. As long as it works, I will use it. For the music I like to make. Not the virtue signaling about venture capital and what I think about it.

The ideological stuff is an interesting take, because not throwing more money into the half-billion black hole at this particular moment feels quite pragmatic to me.

[stratology]

Different perspective:

I can understand that Kontakt is so integral to some musicians' workflow that they consider it 'too big to fail'. But that is just wishful thinking. Understandable wishful thinking. Bigger companies that catered to creatives, like Kodak and Polaroid, went out of business.

Products from NI, Izotope, Plugin Alliance are just tools. A tool becoming unavailable has never stopped any creatives from being creative. Adapting to change is just part of the job.


The current situation is:
- all products from NI, PA and Izotope may be abandonware
- all workflows depending on these tools will still work for at least a few years, regardless of the outcome of the bankruptcy proceedings
- if the company goes out of business - which is a real possibility - the decision for musicians to make is to either hold on to abandonware for as long as possible, or to find replacements for the tools.

[machinesworking]

Different perspective:

I can understand that Kontakt is so integral to some musicians' workflow that they consider it 'too big to fail'. But that is just wishful thinking. Understandable wishful thinking. Bigger companies that catered to creatives, like Kodak and Polaroid, went out of business.

Products from NI, Izotope, Plugin Alliance are just tools. A tool becoming unavailable has never stopped any creatives from being creative. Adapting to change is just part of the job.


The current situation is:
- all products from NI, PA and Izotope may be abandonware
- all workflows depending on these tools will still work for at least a few years, regardless of the outcome of the bankruptcy proceedings
- if the company goes out of business - which is a real possibility - the decision for musicians to make is to either hold on to abandonware for as long as possible, or to find replacements for the tools.

I think the "too big to fail" line isn't about NI, it's that regardless of what happens Kontakt will live on. I don't think that's a given, but it's very likely, if the programmers that are most familiar with it are up to working for someone else. There's a near zero chance that during liquidation and bankruptcy they don't get bought out. Stripping assets to pay debtors is usually part of the process. It just really depends on if enough of the kore people who code Kontakt are interested.

I'm also curious about what happens with Absynth 6? Can Brian petition to buy it back and will they try to overcharge him for his own product?

[swilow11]

It's interesting that they're still doing beta testing for improvements in Massive X.

[dayjob]

The amount of debt seems bonkers. Such terrible decisions

[Sascha Franck]

Too many people and companies rely on Kontakt. It's not going anywhere.

This is completely irrelevant at the current state of affairs. Whomever is willing to purchase Kontakt's IP will have to pay enough to at least somehow satisfy the creditors which will be paid a proportional amount of whatever the insolvency assistant is able to get out of NI's assets.
It's pretty important to know that at this point, it's all about getting as much money out of things for the creditors. The time anyone would have NI's fate in mind was kinda over when things went from preliminary to formal insolvency. Now it's just about getting the most cash out of whatever assets.
IOW, it's not about what any musicians may think Kontakt is worth, but about whether someone willing to continue with Kontakt is willing to pay a sufficient amount of money for it. Hypothetically, there could just be anyone bidding more and then just let Kontakt die.
Not saying that this would be likely to happen, but theoretically, it could as well be a competitor who would then just grab some parts of the code so their own model would be able to import Kontakt libraries to run on their own sampler - and nowhere else.

Seriously, this is just about money right now and not about any idealistic values.

[Sascha Franck]

The administrators will be looking to achieve the best possible outcome and whoever buys the company may not have to assume all of the debt...

Exactly. In fact, that's usually the case with insolvency. The insolvency administrator is now trying to get the best deals out of all the NI assets and the resulting cash will then (at least usually) be paid proportionally to the creditors.

But one thing is for sure...

Someone is going to take a hit on that €250 million

In pretty much all cases of insolvency, someone's left with money lost. The guilty persons/companies are then facing whatever penalties (in Germany, you are usually not allowed to run any kind of related business for a number of years (3?) anymore, there might be financial penalties on top, but I'm not enough into things to know what these may look like - but the entire insolvency process typically is more or less meant to not completely ruin anyone's life).