None of this stuff is going anywhere. Some company will buy either the IP or the whole enchilada at a decent price, not even fire sale prices. If you’re a middle manager or programmer, maybe update your resume. Start learning Swahili for when they move production to Africa.

Relax. The sky isn’t falling on your sampler. Apple isn’t going to swoop in and buy a company that claims Mac compatibility when it takes them three major versions (Komplete Kontrol) just to get a .component AU plugin to load inside a VST3 wrapper for their own hardware controllers.

 

my advice is 90 % hardware and 10 % software. im serious

 

The worst part about investing in software is you never know when it could tank, and your software is worthless after a few years of OS updates. If a product goes under, fully cancelled, no further development, the least they could do is make it open-source, so the community could continue its development.

 

Dirk himself said flat out when he quit in 2024, things were 'not going the way he had thought they would'. It was no secret, he told you in 24 NI was dying thanks to its new 'management'. They managed to squeeze as much as they could out of us for another year, now that they got they money from the Absynth holdouts, what's left? Spend money and fix Reaktor? They don't spend money, they just steal it however they can.

Same shit happens any time an 'investment firm' takes over if you haven't learned this by now.

 

Maybe. NI wanted to go the Avid route and "conquer the world," without going the Avid route (i.e., buy out the market leaders, e.g., Media Composer, Newstar/iNews, ProTools, Sibelius, and "integrate" them).

I think iZotope will be fine - Berklee might buy them outright, or partner up with someone who wants to. There's a lot of value there.

One Dirk Ulrich saw the winds turn and the storm coming, sold off in time, and bought not one, not two, but three hardware companies.

In my vaguely informed opinion (having dabbled in software product design, management and consulting), this is partially due to the after effects of the pandemic: a lot of folks, myself included, had to sell gear to fill in the income gaps for 18-24 months - and thank God we could. But guess what we couldn't sell: software licenses. I had over $24,000 worth of software licenses - not a scratch on them. But no takers - as I imagine was the case for most if not all of you reading this.

So that's one partial factor. Another is that everyone and their corporate grandmother believed that:

1. we have endless funds to subscribe to Apple, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, plus cell, internet, gas, power, gear/studio/home/car insurance, Clear+ (well worth it when you travel a lot), etc.,
   
   
2. if Slate and Waves (and Roland) could leverage their relative positions in the market (Slate because they were first, presumably; Waves because they 'own' much of the pro touring rigs, and most US pro studios - and Roland because... it's Roland - no surprises), then there was unlimited growth for other companies,
   
   
3. once we bought in the "ecosystem" (I got on the Komplete and Arturia merry go round early myself), we would feel compelled to upgrade/update every other cycle on average. Thing is, I'm up to 823 plugins currently, many of which I've tried a couple of times and never again. Some Komplete libraries I've got no use for - in fact I want a refund on them - and most I've only used a dozen instruments or presets. Those of us who work in music for a living, we have little time to go through all the presets. I did that decades ago, when I was a student - and even then, I felt half of them at least were garbage.
   
   My point being, the appeal of subscription and continual updates and upgrades is wearing thin on most of us. There's just too many libraries to keep track of, too many features to master, and frankly, too many companies, and far too many products. Some of them are great, many are good/decent, but it's like everything in the world: the top of the pyramid is pointy, the base is widest.

Bottom line: a dollar is a dollar (or Euro, Pound or Yen) in your pocket, and our plugin subscription budget isn't just competing against fellow plugin companies: it's competing against Amazon, Apple, Disney, Netflix, etc - never mind WholeFoods, T-Mobile, Comcast.

Native Instruments used to be an excellent company - good product design, and an instinct for what pro and amateur musicians needed. Maybe they will bounce back - like Fender and Gibson before them. Maybe not - like G&L. I certainly wish they would.

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2026 at 2:34 AM

Billionaires are not in the business of making the world a better place though. Ask your neighborhood psychopaths for insights as to what s/he would do if s/he were a billionaire.