Beat Box: Wait, No Live 9 This January? Ableton's Got A Better Plan.

In the ever-so competitive world of software development, many companies have felt more of a need than ever before to routinely churn out new versions of their flagship programs. Marketing departments seem to be constantly lighting a fire under the pants of the engineers, telling them that “version X needs to get released before the upcoming convention” to keep the customers happy when they see a shiny new box of the program that touts features they allegedly can’t live without. That is, before they even realized they needed those features in the first place!

We’ve witnessed what can happen to the customer’s confidence in programs that have rushed release schedules. Adobe released an update to their Creative Suite (CS4) in mid-2008, roughly half the frequency at which they were coming out with updates prior. Although CS 4 has a number of features that are amazing (i.e. the ability for Photoshop to recognize 3D objects), it has commonly been plagued with bugs, disappointing sales, and poor customer service over the past year. 

The audio software industry is no different, with many companies in this field fixated on the summer and especially the winter NAMM conference schedules. Ableton has released a new version of Live on an almost yearly basis since 2002, relying heavily upon NAMM to help promote each incremental product launch.

When Live 8 came out last year, it touted a number of nice features and effects. Me, like many other people, rushed right out to buy the upgrade. Now personally I haven’t had many problems with the program, however many others haven’t been as lucky. Lack of stability, constant crashing, and issues working with certain external instruments overshined how ambitious of a release Live 8 really was. 

However, instead of Ableton deciding to sweep all of this under the rug in a mad dash to release Live 9 this January (and make the people who paid their hard earned money to shell out on yet another update) they have decide to suspend ALL future product development at the moment. Instead, they are going to focus on fixing every problem with Live 8 they possibly can, as well as focus more on customer service. This was an official statement they made just earlier this week.

For Ableton to publicly disclose this announcement on their site is unprecedented and is only good in the long term for the consumer. Although it’s undeniable that they are going to forego an opportunity to release a major update to their program this January, I find it’s a better price to pay than to potentially lose long term frustrated customers. Especially in the DAW/audio software industry with companies like Apple and DigiDesign eyeballing these angry Live customers like a hawk. Plus the fact that in an economic downturn, when consumers do reluctantly shell out money on something, you damn well better believe they are looking to justify the money spent.

With Ableton pretty active on social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and their own forum over on Ableton.com, I can only hope that they will continue using these mediums as much as possible to learn about and fix any problems with Live and help better serve the customer. Ableton has a pretty solid reputation in customer service during it’s lifetime; hopefully this will continue as they proceed to make Live 8 the best it can be.  

Innovation is an important thing; in fact it’s what helps drive software manufacturers across all platforms. However, try finding a consumer out there who will chose innovation over functionality. Live’s move is only going to help strengthen their relationship with customers, which should hopefully create more buzz and demand for the next version than ever before. 

And although they are on a much larger scale than Ableton, Adobe should take note here!

So what are your thoughts on Ableton’s move and Live 8 in general? Were you anticipating a new version, or are you happy with their decision to put on the brakes a little while before releasing it?

(photo credit: undersoul007)