Wow, heavy news. It sure hit me like a ton of bricks. The universe has changed shape today. Some things occur to me: * What's going to happen to DP now? They are clearly going to become the poor distant, almost orphaned relative in terms of being in the Pro Mac-Audio loop now. In the long run this could serve to consolidate third party developer support for Mac based audio hard/software to be in line with the Apple/Emagic model (whatever that may be). * How will this new alliance effect Digidesign support? Apple is clearly trying to go head to head with Avid with their Final Cut Pro soloutions. Can they then turn around and remain in bed with Digidesign (Avid's partner) with their audio efforts? Or will this be the dawn of a new era where there will finally be a serious contender for the keys to the Digidesign kingdom, in the way that FCP has become a contender for Avid's keys to the palace? * Emagic, instead of always being one step behind and out of the loop in terms of various Steinberg controlled protocols (VST, ASIO, etc) will now be calling the shots together with Apple; leaving whatever will be left of Mac based DP and Cubase Users to be the second class citizens. * Worst case scenario: I see the universe being divided into three camps: 1. PC based audio being dominated by Steinberg 2. Mac based audio being split between propietary Emagic/Apple soloutions, and 3. Digital Performer/Digidesign soloutions. The last thing we need is a major split in the Apple audio community. As it is now, the big players (Apple, Digidesign, Emagic, MOTU, Steinberg) are all somehwat compatible with each other; to differing degrees, sometimes with the need of third party drivers, etc. But they can all communicate for the most part. It'd be a shame to see an already small community become more fragmented by all this. -- Eli Krantzberg Nightshift Orchestra / Almat Productions http://www.nightshiftorchestra.com

>2. Mac based audio being split between propietary Emagic/Apple >soloutions, and >3. Digital Performer/Digidesign soloutions. this will just push MOTU and digidesign further into hardware, which is probably where they make most of their money anyway. Pro Tools will not go away, and neither will Digital Performer (at least not for quite a while). I think it will be a boon for all the standards and will in the end, increase the platform advantage from a setup and hardware/software compatibility perspective. The fact that Cubase SX is still coming to OS X and Propellerheads' Reason is one of the first audio apps ported would seem to indicate that protocols from Steinberg and other companies (VST, rewire, etc) will not suffer, and hopefully, as has been suggested, will on the contrary be integrated into the OS in a superior fashion than previously was the case... For the Apple-owning naysayers, cross-platform capability is nice, but it's even nicer for those of us with an investment in Apple hardware that Apple might be able to really OWN some markets again, don't you think? If Apple can't take advantage of its strengths (hardware-software integration, creative marketshare, etc), then it's bound to become increasingly marginalized by lower-cost PC solutions. I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too. Apple has been unaggressive for far too long. my 2 cents - MT