David, I don't know if Avid's sales will rise this quarter, but if they do it won't be because of special NAB prices leading to big sales on the show floor.
In place of time-limited discounts, Avid is getting very aggressive in year-round pricing of selected products. For instance, the MCX (Mac) boardset kit, with the "Professional Toolkit" and AVR75 options had a list price of $24,500 just 3 months ago. It's now priced at $15,000 list. For another (more subtle) example, Avid has not recently lowered the list price of their 9GB wide drives, BUT dealer margins today are triple the margins of 3 months ago, which amounts to a hidden discount.
I don't agree that Avid is inherently constrained in their revenue growth. Avid has only recently priced their MCX (Mac) aggressively against MDEA, and they are gaining share in that price range.
As for the high end, this thread has recent posts about Avid online for network broadcast. This market is booming as NLE's gain acceptance as a substitute for tape online. In my market (Boston) Avid is the only NLE in use by call letter broadcasters. I know of one local station that's now upgrading all 17 of their NuBus Media Composers to PCI.
Will Avid's potential for revenue growth be realized? I haven't a clue.
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