Ableton Forum

I think Jazzmutant should port the Lemur software to the iPad and sell it as an app.

That's it

after reading that article in CreateDigitalMusic today I think that they probably don't need to bother.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/04/1 ... o-founder/

The guy who runs Stanton sounds like he is in a fantastic business position to me. One where "making a lemur iPhone app" would seem like a very small deal.

Guillaume Largillier wrote:Despite a common misconception, the computer music industry is not and will never be a mass market. Companies such as M-Audio [Avid], Behringer, or Native Instruments may look like giants compared to JazzMutant, but they are nano-particles compared to large consumer electronic brands such as HP or Nokia. The volume and the gross margins are too small to amortize ambitious research and development plans.

They are gearing up to sell into the exploding multitouch consumer arena, Stanton are the go to guys for the big giants. Stanton hold lots of patents.
I think he will be too busy making bazillions selling b2b hardware/software solutions to those consumer electronic giants.

there are a lot of programmers who could now make Lemur like software for the upcoming platforms, Stanton will now go on to focus on hardware and integration. That's where the money is for them.

I've thought about that a bit, and I think that doing so might violate Apple's development agreement. As I understand it, Apple does not allow iPad developers to develop apps that allow other people to write programs for the iPad, and I would not be surprised if Apple were to consder the Lemur GUI-building software as something that lets other people write iPad programs.

I am quite confident that aside from this restriction, Apple insists that anyone writing iPad apps do so using development tools that Apple provides and nothing else. So I doubt it would be possible to port the existing Lemur software--the only way would be to rewrite it so that it did not depend on any development tools that Jazzmutant was already using, and it is hard to imagine that it would be worth the effort to do so, especially as they would have to maintain two separate versions going forward.

My understanding is that the reason for this restriction is that Apple wants to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to develop applications that run both on the iPad and on any other device. So if someone tried to take an application, such as the Lemur software, and make it run on the iPad, I would expect Apple to allow it only if they were confident it would not be successful.

ark wrote:I've thought about that a bit, and I think that doing so might violate Apple's development agreement. As I understand it, Apple does not allow iPad developers to develop apps that allow other people to write programs for the iPad, and I would not be surprised if Apple were to consder the Lemur GUI-building software as something that lets other people write iPad programs.

I am quite confident that aside from this restriction, Apple insists that anyone writing iPad apps do so using development tools that Apple provides and nothing else. So I doubt it would be possible to port the existing Lemur software--the only way would be to rewrite it so that it did not depend on any development tools that Jazzmutant was already using, and it is hard to imagine that it would be worth the effort to do so, especially as they would have to maintain two separate versions going forward.

My understanding is that the reason for this restriction is that Apple wants to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to develop applications that run both on the iPad and on any other device. So if someone tried to take an application, such as the Lemur software, and make it run on the iPad, I would expect Apple to allow it only if they were confident it would not be successful.

What I'm suggesting is that they should simply build on their expertise and know-how to create and sell the best app for music control on the iPad.

Keep in mind that someone else is already doing this (TouchOSC).

I'm not a big expert about software development, but I'm quite sure that a Lemurized iPad could exist, it could earn them a lot of money and help defend their leading position in the market.

Angstrom wrote:after reading that article in CreateDigitalMusic today I think that they probably don't need to bother.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/04/1 ... o-founder/

The guy who runs Stanton sounds like he is in a fantastic business position to me. One where "making a lemur iPhone app" would seem like a very small deal.

Guillaume Largillier wrote:Despite a common misconception, the computer music industry is not and will never be a mass market. Companies such as M-Audio [Avid], Behringer, or Native Instruments may look like giants compared to JazzMutant, but they are nano-particles compared to large consumer electronic brands such as HP or Nokia. The volume and the gross margins are too small to amortize ambitious research and development plans.

They are gearing up to sell into the exploding multitouch consumer arena, Stanton are the go to guys for the big giants. Stanton hold lots of patents.
I think he will be too busy making bazillions selling b2b hardware/software solutions to those consumer electronic giants.

there are a lot of programmers who could now make Lemur like software for the upcoming platforms, Stanton will now go on to focus on hardware and integration. That's where the money is for them.

It seems to me that the consumer multitouch arena has already exploded with Apple, and without any help from Stantum.
I'm not sure thay can eat much on Apple sales.

And even if they can make money with windows based, multitouch capable laptops and devices, why leave that big Apple market to someone else ?
I would at least try to eat a slice.

And if they focus on b2b hardware/software solutions... is the Lemur development going to suffer?

(I don't want to criticize on Jazzmutant or anyone... I'm just sharing my thoughts)

Dr. Zoiberg wrote:I'm not a big expert about software development, but I'm quite sure that a Lemurized iPad could exist, it could earn them a lot of money and help defend their leading position in the market.

Of course such a thing is technically feasible. However, I think that Apple's policies toward their developers are intended to make it difficult for a company such as Jazzmutant to make applications available on the iPad that are similar to applications that run on other platforms, such as the Lemur.

Dr. Zoiberg wrote: It seems to me that the consumer multitouch arena has already exploded with Apple, and without any help from Stantum.
I'm not sure thay can eat much on Apple sales.

And even if they can make money with windows based, multitouch capable laptops and devices, why leave that big Apple market to someone else ?
I would at least try to eat a slice.

As the CEO of Stantum (JazzMutant) says - The music market is totally minuscule compared to the domestic gadgets market in general. Even if Apple could eventually dominate the global market with a 40% share of all and every kind of gadgetry ... they would still leave a market worth trillions.
The "music making" sector just doesn't register next to the market for monitors , laptops, televisions, etc.

In a gold rush you sell shovels. Stantum have a load of patents on shovels. Everybody in tech-manufacturing now wants those shovels.

They don't need to "make money with windows based, multitouch capable laptops and devices", they just need to sell shovels. B-2-B

Read the article, it says all this.

The idea that Apple’s iPad would drive JazzMutant out of business, therefore, is the opposite of correct. JazzMutant is Stantum. Stantum is in the business of licensing its specialization to OEMs. The Lemur shows just how potent that specialization is, in a way that literally gets rooms full of people dancing and gaping at projections. Apple’s technology is available only to Apple. With Microsoft, Google, phone vendors, and PC vendors all getting into the touch business, that means Stantum just became very big news

The Lemur is their techdemo for OEM licensees, it makes it easy to see the product. So Lemur won't suffer - it will remain their techdemo for everything new they come up with. That could mean haptics. it could mean anything. They certainly won't leave it behind though.

Why they will not put Lemur on iPhone / iPad
putting official Lemur software on iPhone does nothing for their real business, but harm it!
because the Lemur is a nice techdemo for their actual product ...and that's hardware licensing to OEMs

why put your demo on the competitors hardware?

All the major players - Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, Samsung, etc etc etc etc - all have their own touch screen tech. Point me to where any of those folks are paying Stantum a single dime in patent licensing fees. I've not found a single example.

Stantum will make a shitload of money off their patents, no doubt. But it'll be from the occasional obscure manufacturer of dashboard GPS devices or some other relatively minor gadget.

I keep reading how important Stantum is, but again I've yet to find a single business arrangement that's going to elevate them beyond the status of mid level Euro tech company. Am I just not looking in the right place? Could be, I suppose.

You'd be surprised how merely holding a few patents at the right time can make you very very powerful and wealthy.

I started to type a lot of stuff about business, as my dayjob has involved a lot of it and it exposed me to some weird shit.

in those funny little things that you think nothing of - people are making billions upon billions of € $ £.
little deals, on a method of manufacturing a smaller chip, a faster buss. licensing the tech, the expertise.
That's business - it's not done out in the open. Try to find out where you laptop is actually made and by whom. who paid who. where did the money go. where did the grant come from. what country did the factory move to and why.

It's a secret
and it's secret because there's a fucking ton of money in it.
You think HP, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, etc, etc want to try and reproduce work in a way that infringes patents, work they could just license?
licenses make the world go round.


lets put it like this :
which would make more money - selling 1,000 Lemurs a year to musicians at $3000, or selling Acer a license to use Stanton multi-touch in the 38.5 million netbooks Acer sell per year
lets say the license is $10 per laptop

Option one - the musical option brings you $3 million gross p.a.
Option 2 - the sell out brings $385 million gross p.a

or, you can do both.

Pfft. Nothing is a secret these days in the world of business alliances. Especially not something as massive as touchscreen tech. And certainly not within a publicly held company - where merely the news of key business alliances/licensing agreements have an enormous impact on stock prices. No major tech outfit is going to 'secretly' forge a deal with Stantum or any other developer. Absolutely positively never.

Companies form alliances to better their position in the marketplace, and that's never kept secret.

I'm not sure what your angle is here.
what are you trying to prove?

No-one is saying Stantum is some kind of God corp, only that boutique music technology manufacture is less profitable than selling B2B services and licenses to domestic appliance manufacturers. So Stantum have said that their core business is focused on that as their primary market

Is there really something so controversial about that? Something you disagree with there?

you appear to be raging about nothing

with all the money earnt with the patents, they could develop a music app for the iPad and
use that app to drive people into the lemur interface; some of this users will buy the lemur hardware if it really is better.

think of Apple Safari for Windows

Angstrom wrote:I'm not sure what your angle is here.
what are you trying to prove?

No-one is saying Stantum is some kind of God corp, only that boutique music technology manufacture is less profitable than selling B2B services and licenses to domestic appliance manufacturers. So Stantum have said that their core business is focused on that as their primary market

Is there really something so controversial about that? Something you disagree with there?

you appear to be raging about nothing

^ I haven't used the rolleyes in ages because I really hate it, but in the case of your hamfisted attempt to deflect I'm going to make an exception.

deflect what?

you are making no sense

Jeff Han = Loaded

Those stupid touch screens for American news (or the one Colbert used to draw snoopy), they got more latency than a 5 year old Lemur and go 100.000$ a screen.
Bigger screen, better resolution and control signals as if they're being piped trough a 28k modem.

Stantum and Fingerworks were the only other big players in the game and Apple bought Fingerworks. Anybody who reads any Mac rumors site has read about Apple patents for years, I don't doubt Stantum read them too or maybe even had similar patents earlier.

As much as people like to joke or rant about the Lemur, its been here for half a decade and It'll still be a while before we see anything remotely as responsive and able to track 20 fingertips. And when we do it might still be their technology.