Within a year of release FCP X surpassed FCP 7 seats [1]. In 2017 FCP X hit 2 million seats [2]. Now maybe everyone in Hollywood jumped ship after FCP X, but it

Within a year of release FCP X surpassed FCP 7 seats [1]. In 2017 FCP X hit 2 million seats [2]. Now maybe everyone in Hollywood jumped ship after FCP X, but it's pretty clear that FCP X massively expanded the market for Apple. And looking at Avid's stock price over the past 5 years [3] it doesn't seem like their focus on "professionals" has paid off (no idea what Adobe Premiere's numbers are). Since FCP X launched, Apple has steadily iterated on it (with the last major update releasing today [4]). It's clear FCP X was a good move, not just from a business perspective, but technically as well; it performs much better on Macs than Premiere or Media Composer (search YouTube for comparisons). Randy Ubillos confirmed that in an interview after he retired [5]: >One of the things I like about working at Apple was that Apple didn’t have a problem with starting over again - if that was the right thing to do. You don’t want to talk about ‘sunk cost.’ The effort you’ve put in in the past has gone. From now on, what is the best way to go forward? It doesn’t matter if we spent six months working on some feature. That doesn’t matter. Is it the right feature? If so, great, continue forward with it. If you don’t do that with a product and somebody else who doesn’t have the history, the legacy you’re trying to hold on to will jump in and take things out from under you. ... >The very last conversation I had with Steve Jobs was right after the launch of Final Cut Pro X. I was getting ready to get on a plane to go to London to record the second set of movie trailers - we’d hired the London Symphony Orchestra [to perform the music that was going to be bundled with the next version of iMovie] - and Steve caught me at home: “What the heck is going on with this Final Cut X thing?” I said “We knew this was coming, we knew that people were going to freak out when we changed everything out from under them. We could have done this better. We should have. Final Cut 7 should be back on the market. We should have an FAQ that lists what this is all about.” He said “Yeah, let’s get out and fund this thing, let’s make sure we get on top of this thing, move quickly with releases…” and he finished by asking: “Do you believe in this?” I said “Yes.” He said “then I do too.” [1] http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/04/some-final-cut-pro-x-data-points/ http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/04/some-final-cut-pro-x-d... [2] https://www.cultofmac.com/478369/final-cut-pro-x-hits-massive-2-million-users-milestone/ https://www.cultofmac.com/478369/final-cut-pro-x-hits-massiv... [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVID?p=AVID https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVID?p=AVID [4] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/12/final-cut-pro-x-introduces-360-degree-vr-video-editing/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/12/final-cut-pro-x-intro... [5] http://alex4d.com/notes/item/back-to-1-0-randy-ubillos-interview http://alex4d.com/notes/item/back-to-1-0-randy-ubillos-inter...