DivX for Mac
Well it’s good news and bad news today so lets start with the good news.
DivX announced that they have finally released a version of their excellent DivX Pro encoding software for Mac users. DivX is probably one of the best compression codecs on the market today providing amazing quality from tiny file sizes.
Here’s how they have cheerfully presented it:
“Spring is here and in full swing and with it, we have launched our newest product offering, DivX 7 for Mac. With HD Playback, Gesture Controls, superior AAC, and Support for DivX video creation, DivX 7 for Mac has everything you need to create and play high quality DivX videos.”
And now news from the dark side:
Corel Announces Workforce Reductions
Corel have announced a reduction worldwide in their workforce citing the current economic downturn as the reason why.
Personally I think that’s bollocks (rubbish for those of you unfamiliar with the term bollocks!).
In their annual report to investors last year they blamed many of their products “reaching the end of their life cycle” as a cause for their financial woes. I think more to the point they have failed utterly to develop their products in response to consumer needs to keep them fresh and marketable.
Speaking of marketing… well they just don’t really.
I am sure the takeover of Intervideo last year was a move by Corel to get a hold of some fresh product via the Ulead range of video editing tools and software but then they promptly dumped Media Studio Pro and Cool 3D which were two wonderful programs.
Since then they have been picking over the carcass of Media Studio Pro and incorporating the the pieces into VideoStudio resulting in VideoStudio Pro X2 but unless they get the concept of product development through their heads they will fade from view there as well.
In its current incarnation VideoStudio Pro X2 can hold its own amongst the likes of Cyberlink Power Director, Adobe Premier Elements and Pinnacle Studio et al but this is a competitive market of the quick and the dead. Compare Corel’s sluggish motion on a number of fronts with the all out “balls to the wall” attitude of Magix at the moment.
Magix have come out with all guns blazing with a very, very good consumer level video editing suite in Magix Movie Edit Pro 15 as well as a top end “prosumer” suite called Video Pro X which is clearly aimed at the serious enthusiast.
As an example of Corel’s slow descent into unconsciousness let’s take a look at their “user to user” forums. The old Ulead forum was a hive of activity back in the day but since Corel have taken over it has become a graveyard by comparison. Over 9 months ago problems with the software the board was running on were being reported… and reported… and reported with Corel all the while sitting on their corporate hands doing nothing.
It is hard to comprehend an act of greater business stupidity than to allow one of the most powerful selling points of your premier software to sink slowly into the swamp for the sake of a server upgrade and a $100 software update! Yet that seems to be the case here.
Time will tell as to whether Corel can get their act together or whether VideoStudio goes the way of a few other good programs that fell into their clutches!
