Native Instruments CEO Nick Williams today shared a statement on the future of the company, which earlier in the week went into Preliminary Insolvency.
Preliminary Insolvency is a court-orded phase where an administrator steps in to protect debtors’ assets, and to see if changes can be made to enable a company to stabilize its financial situation.
While his statement is short on the type of details that customers may be hoping for, Williams says that it’s business as usual for the company:
“Please rest assured that business continues as usual at Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. Our hardware and software products remain on sale and available for download and activation. Our passionate and dedicated teams are here and supporting customers as normal. In product and engineering, we are continuing to develop and launch new products and features. Our NKS Partnerships team continues to process Kontakt Player licences and NKS Partner submissions.
We are working diligently and responsibly to secure a healthy, financially sustainable future for Native Instruments. As you may have seen, Native Instruments GmbH has entered a restructuring process in Germany, as have 3 of our German non-operating holding companies. In legal terms, we have filed applications to open pre-insolvency proceedings for those companies.
We are focused on providing continuity for creators, customers, and partners. We’ll continue to share updates as we have them.
I’m a lifelong musician myself, and have been a passionate fan of Native Instruments for 25 years. Our mission to inspire and enable creators to express themselves through sound continues.”
Are you worried about the future of NI, and about applications that may need depend on ‘cloud’ resources for installation? Share your thoughts in the comments!
CUSTOMER SUPPORT!?!
I haven’t bought any Native Instruments gear since MASCHINE MK 1. Which is no longer supported by NI. So heads UP, if U invest in NI’s gear, U will only receive max 15yrs support for that piece of NI gear. Also, I haven’t bought their software since KOMPLETE 8 [CD version].
I’ve moved onto AKAI PRO’s MPC hardware & left the MASCHINE platform in the dust. NI only value the customer, when their necks are on a chopping block.
Im not sure, if they are legally obliged to provide you support for 15 years for your MK1.
15 years? Not even double digits. NI killed stuff by simply removing support in an update and then giving some BS excuse. Happened to me with Komplete Kontrol MK1, Traktor S4 MK1 and Maschine MK2. This was very cool tech and the ethos this company had still made me believe in them even after 3 instances of very expensive planned obsolescence. Now years later I think this was like Stockholm syndrome since, you know, NI was very cool and all that with Google execs visiting them and outlets calling them exactly that, the Google of electronic music…. Uncle Benz remembers.
But hey, dont believe me, check this post from years ago. That the NI executives dint knew about this? They were ither oblivious, incompetent or both. If this company is to be saved they need to clean top of house or sell it in pieces. Sorry for the employees but ZERO sympathy for the management.
https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/17363/komplete-kontrol-s-series-mk1-keyboards-end-of-life
Lemme get Maschine Mk3 or Maschine++ please 🙂
Buying hardware from them right now would be insane. They just axed 100 people from the hardware side of things.
15 years of support seems like a long time
That’s right, in my case Roland too, for example, refused to provide assistance for a 15-year-old product, and it was just an operational request, i.e. how to perform a specific hardware setup operation.
So, business as usual.
I think that if something that’s going to become “vintage” breaks, you have to go to a third-party service provider.
A different matter, however, is the infamous NI generally poor customer service, which takes an average of ages to get a reply.
Honestly, I’m amazed if a company like NI goes out of business! If it does, it’s only a reflection of their poor choices in pricing, support, and product development system. For in all seriousness, this company is on top of most, in hardware and software for music producing, so how can they do this bad?
Well, I have had an issue with them in the past, with the guitar rig control 3 pedal… It lasted me only 6-7 months, when all of a sudden Apple changed their USB protocol in their OS and rhus on their entire lineup of computers, and the pedal became obsolete! That was my shortest lived product in my life, and I’m 47 now!
Worst of all? NI didn’t come with functioning drivers, nor a new model! As they started to move away from their guitar line, back then.
This issue let me sceptic of buying an NI keyboard, as well as the lack of a good 88 key graded hammer action. Then the pricing of their complete packages, are way too much for non-professionals (musicians not making good money from their music), so it becomes an elitist product, which then creates hacked versions, which make those who pay, quite imbeciles, and the negative loop is horrible.
Instead, they should go with a system like some 3d, video editing, programmer tools, etc… fair system where it is free! to use the full versions of everything when you are making less than X amount of dollars a year. And then for those making good money, they are to pay a professional price for the product. This would democratize their software, and make people happy to invest in their other products, like their keyboards.
Then they should try to also release different products like audio interfaces, DAW controllers and studio monitors. Making the possibility to become a NI-fanboy, where every piece of someone’s studio, could be made solely of their products.
The sky’s the limit for what they could come up with, that would make the company thrive for decades if not hundreds of years.
Ps. MetaPop website was great to nurture musicians, and the prizes were amazing (NI was behind it, so NI products where the prizes)… but then they chose to take it offline.
I would gladly work for the company to bring product ideas, as well as new thinking for their future thrive. They can contact me!
All these companies are legally bound to provide for instance spare parts for ten years after the production ends and after that we’re dependent on third parties selling deadstock parts etc. The more software-dependent the gear, the more likely it is to become obsolete when computer manufacturers move onto new connectors and even excellent synths like Nord Modular or DSI Tetra will or have become difficult but not impossible to operate when computer OS’ are no longer able to run their editors. It’s just how the game is.
Well, Tetra is MIDI-CC controlled so not reliant on software to make a noise, just takes someone to make a controller map some other way if needed.
That’s the problem with hardware dependent on software, isn’t it? If the company behind it disappears, your flashy gadget turns into a doorstop overnight. NI is a dead man walking at this point. If the long term survival of the company is called into question, who is going to want to invest money for their plugins, let alone hardware?
A bunch of Maschine owners are about to get Kored.
Just making sure to keep updating all my stuff in Access just in case. If NI were to go under at least I’d have all the latest versions running on my laptop. It’s not like people aren’t out there running decades old software on ancient PCs still….
And the Reaktor library?
“Business continues as usual.” Until it’s not..
Everyone knows that CEOs always NEVER say one thing and mean or do another. /s
I’d be boned if Logic suddenly went belly-up, but I gradually discovered that using ‘gear’ from various manufacturers is a safety feature. I’ve been able to keep going several times when someone cratered. My synth eggs are mostly in separate baskets. Its partly self-defense.
I feel for pros who are NI-heavy, because no matter what the company does next, they have to go into disaster mode and preserve their studios. Those who need audio for soundtracks or commercials are on a schedule and won’t care that your fave vendor is having business convulsions.
Anyone who went through the KORE fiasco might just be smirking now.
By Logic you mean Apple Logic? The DAW that was developed by eMagic and was so good that Apple bought them out, immediately erased all support for Windows, and then dissolved eMagic into Apple so that only Apple fanbois could access it only through the Apple store under Apple rules. Well, it isn’t as if Apple intentionally bones everyone at every drop of the hat strictly for profit, is it? (*cough* right to repair *cough*) Funny story. I found Apple’s FTP site where all of their software was stored, and it was completely unsecured. This was a couple of decades ago. I downloaded everything. Then Apple took the site down. Didn’t secure it. Just took it down. Interesting behavior.
And some of us were eMagic Logic users. Remind me how many times I have had to pay for Logic? Remind me how many manufacturers have shops you can go into to talk to humans and play with things (free in person lessons). Offer on line and phone support? I get a decade or so out of each Mac I buy on 0% finance. Logic has been an Apple product for a long time now, they have no reason to offer Windows support. Logic was available as a walk in and buy product from shops when it was a physical item.
At work I use Audition and that is subscription only. Previously it was Pro-Tools. Perhaps you could explain how Pro-Tools was less of its own eco-system than Logic especially in relation to cost.
Obviously he had to make that statement. Obviously it means nothing. The owners are now millionaires and the only thing they care is take the responsibility of their back and enjoy the money.
Btw, irs funny or interesting or indicative that Melda will outlive Native instruments!,
Should we espect a sale on NI products?
Would you even buy one with no long-term support?
The CEO may want ‘Business continues as usual’ but he wont get it as sales will fall if people even suspect financial instability, let alone if insolvency has been anounced publicly. It will get worse before it (hopefully) gets better…faith needs to be restored, that is never easy and takes time.
I wouldn’t freak out. I still wouldn’t buy anything and back up everything but I don’t think anything will actually happen other than they will dump their debt and keep on doing business as usual which is also a shame as that’s why they got in this position in the first place. Nothing like buying up companies left and right and then watering down the products by firing the workers that made those products so valuable in the first place.