What does the guy who led the original Final Cut Pro revolution think of the Final Cut Pro X release?

Yes it did!

In case anyone is interested in my take on the release of Final Cut Pro X, here it is.

First, let me say this first article is just about the release, and not about the software itself. I promise that henceforth I will focus on the actual FCPX software and forget all the hullabaloo.

But this article is about Apple’s business strategy (or lack thereof), my industry perceptions, and looking back a bit to see if we can predict the future.

First, some background so you take this article seriously

I am the guy with a lot of the FCP “firsts”. From what I know, I have been editing with FCP longer than anyone in the world. (Outside the original dev team, of course.) With my wife Michelle (the brains of the operation), I produced the first FCP training course, Final Cut Pro PowerStart. I was the first to demo FCP 1.0 in public, launched the first FCP website (fcp411.net), taught the first FCP workshops, presented first FCP free seminar tours, hosted the first FCP user group meeting (May 1, 1999), co-hosted the first Apple trade show hands-on classroom (with Randy Ubillos), produced the first FCP marketing CDs for Apple, and I’m pretty sure I was the one that got Apple to start putting cool-looking reflections under all their graphics (okay, that’s not really an FCP first.). read more...