You don't have to read it.
"Avid Technology delays earnings report; Tech firm has battled challenge from rivals" by Hiawatha Bray | Globe Staff, February 26, 2013
The day after the Academy Awards is usually a celebratory event for Avid Technology Inc., as the Burlington company gets to proclaim how many winning Oscar movies used its video and audio editing products.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Night at the Oscars
But on Monday Avid also disclosed that an unspecified accounting problem prompted the company to delay indefinitely its fourth-quarter earnings report, which was originally scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
Avid offered little additional explanation. But disclosure of the accounting problem comes just a few weeks after chief executive Gary Greenfield stepped down and was replaced by Louis Hernandez, a longtime member of Avid’s board of directors....
Despite the Oscar glory, Avid has been a troubled company for years. It has not been profitable since 2005, as a host of rivals, including Apple Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. , offered editing products of comparable quality at lower prices.
To fight back against Apple and Adobe, Avid spent more than $600 million buying two companies in 2004 and 2005 that sold audio and video editing products aimed at consumers. Instead, Avid wound up selling its consumer businesses last year for just $17 million.
Founded in the 1980s, Avid transformed the way movies were edited. With the Avid system, films were first translated into a digital format, then edited using computers instead of scissors. By the 1990s, Avid’s gear had become standard equipment in major movie and television studios worldwide, and Avid had launched a line of audio editing products.
“They invented a lot of this stuff, and they are the standard.” said Joe Zaller, president of Devoncroft Partners of Coronado, Calif., a market research firm that specializes in digital media. “Nobody holds a candle to Avid in this stuff.”
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Yeah, but the state economic recovery is going great.
Also see: As expected, Avid falls out of compliance
Blown out like a candle in the wind.
Related: An Avid Reader of the Boston Globe
How much of a tax subsidy did they get?
