So Reuters is reporting that AVID Technology Inc is exploring a sale.

Now it’s current financials are pretty good, though it missed analysts expectations which dropped share prices by 20%. And supply issues from Covid kept them from being able to deliver new audio hardware.

The thing that is crazy is that Media Composer is such a small part of their business. I have read as little as 2% of sales. They are mostly a protools and and storage company that also makes Media Composer, which is basically the industry standard for video editing software (though not always the preferred software to use).

The problem is that the studios that use Media Composer, all rent systems that are bulletproof and tested. And that you keep offline. So an old stable AVID system that they rent and has been paid off years ago. The studios will not run the latest and greatest AVID because that would mean getting new systems and making sure they work and are rock solid. So though the Studios are the largest users of AVID, they can’t be bringing in much money to AVID’s bottom line.

And maybe AVID Technologies would sell themself off as parts, sell their storage, and audio divisions, and media composer. But who would buy Media Composer? Or maybe they sell the News version with the storage to keep news organizations happy?

I have heard people say Blackmagic, as they are worth more than AVID, but not by much. And why would they want AVID except for taking some tech to use in DaVinci, and DaVinci works pretty well on it’s own right now.

And maybe the studios would get together and buy Media Composer to keep it working for them into the future, unless they plan on switching to Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, but those both require the latest and greatest hardware, which I don’t see them every moving over to if they don’t have to.

Looking at their web site, it doesn’t even look like AVID offers any hardware for Media Composer anymore, now days you use 3rd party hardware like Blackmagic or AJA. Which is great as AVID hardware was always overprices, and Blackmagic makes great products for much cheaper, but it is also a revenue stream that AVID isn’t making anymore. So maybe Blackmagic Design would take on just Media Composer to keep selling hardware, and make it work even easier with DaVinci, but there would have to be a reason that makes good financial sense.

And with Adobe Premiere Pro’s Productions feature, AVID finally has a company biting at their heals when it comes to huge projects, sure you can’t see individual bins, but with auto save at a minute, and productions breaking projects into small parts it really is competition to AVID.

This is all speculation anyway, but AVID going for sale could send shockwaves through the industry, because how much financial sense does keeping Media Composer really make?

I will certainly be keeping on eye on what happens to AVID Technologies in the future.