On 7/20/2012 1:54 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote: > I wonder if anybody has any information or informed opinion abut the > impact of MuseScore on the commercial products (Finale and Sibelius > particularly). I cannot see MuseScore being a significant factor for > professional composers, arrangers and copyists., but that is surely a > small percentage of the market. > > I could see a lot of schools and church music directors switching to > MuseScore, and that could be a significant bite out of Finale's revenue. >
I know that when I taught a music theory class at a middle school a few years ago I had the students download and use MuseScore. That was 10 sales Finale didn't get. But because of the ease of use right out of the box, actually, many such musicians (students and church musicians) are using the inexpensive product from Sibelius. That's something that Finale still hasn't conquered -- how to present first-time novice notation-software users with a totally friendly elegant (to them) looking result with a minimum of fuss. I agree that the professional arrangers and copyists may be a small percentage of the marketplace and for them MuseScore isn't an option yet. But for a large number of notation software users, including professional composers who are working in a fairly tonal idiom using standard notation I don't think MuseScore or Finale is the ideal software -- many of those composers are using Sibelius quite happily. And even some composers who are more forward thinking in their creativity are using Sibelius in preference to Finale. But Finale is still going strong, relatively speaking, and I am hopeful that the proposed injection of a large amount of money to modernize the base code of Finale will also bring some user interface changes and note entry changes that will make it every bit as appealing to new purchasers as Sibelius is these days. And with Avid's stumble in the marketplace (breaking up a successful development team and moving the development of an arcane piece of software to other development groups that aren't familiar with the product can't be good, in my opinion) this might be the opportune time for Finale to grab the lead. But as for MuseScore, it has its share of problems and while it does a great job for the price it isn't close to Finale or Sibelius yet. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
