InMusic really has no choice but to fight this acquisition considering their relationship with Serato. But, the Engine DJ ecosystem is really great. Beatgrid analysis of classic tracks is the only weak point. I wish they could license Ableton Live tech on that.
Virtual DJ works with about any hardware (for now, wonder if Pioneer will shut them out). An InMusic / VDJ closer collaboration might be beneficial to both. To me, VDJ is much better than Serato.
For me the âmonopolyâ is not a concern and hereâs why.
Where did fake stems come from? Not from Serato or Pioneer or Engine os or even Traktor 
Actually, it came on an iPhone first along with Vdj.
Did the big bad pioneer or serato come up with that innovation? So letâs put the losing of innovation because of of this marriage/monopoly to rest.
Also Pioneer Dj takes a lot of pride in having their gear being supported by all major dj software players (SAR, Atomix, Native Instruments and Algoriddim) and all have hid and waveform support. Thatâs a big piece of the puzzle contributing to the industry standard propaganda. On the Denons you only get that total support from Vdj.
Now back to why I have no concern and why mostly everybodyâs monopolistic concerns come from riding a unicorn.
If Pioneer messes around and alienate what makes their gear accessible to everyone in order to shepherd all they can to a closed ecosystem then I can guarantee you that the danger of a mass exodus away from it will happen.
What Inmusic should be preparing for and even enticing this mass exodus and let those who feel that they were sold out by it feel like they have a new home.
Inmusic does have a big stick for serato. Because a lot of licensing revenue comes from them and the fact that Inmusic can actually come out in the open and say that they can impose sanctions on serato should tell you that Inmusic dose not have to simp over it.
Now what really should concern me and all of yâall is that fact that $100m is floating around. This tells me that everything is overpriced and that we are really cattle in this game.
All good points. However, $100M isnât a lot of money in commercial retail. Especially, when itâs money to squires a software company with majority market share within the market.
$100M is a lot.
My company which has $25M in heavy machinery (in my plant alone) and has solid contracts with Pharmaceuticals such as Pfizer, P&G, 3M etc⌠sold for $100M.
For a software company in a niche market thatâs a lot.
All of us should be concerned about the 100M floating around.
And if youâre not convinced thatâs a lot then ask inmusic why they couldnât pony up that cash?
Some of the smaller software startups Iâve worked for have seen acquisitions in the $2-500m range for products that were not customer facing. Thereâs always a tit for tat on company valuations.
There was an attempted acquisition of Serato a few years ago, but the details of which were never made public. Not sure if that was InMusic or someone else.
There are only a couple acquisitions which InMusic have publicly stated the values for ($17M for M-Audio for ex.). So, it is hard to gauge what InMusicâs budget is.
Understood and I agree itâs hard hard to gauge budgets from these companies. But doesnât $100M floating freely around like itâs nothing concern you?
With that kind of money floating around we should see something better than what we see now.
For example: Atc has $100M to acquire Sar but couldnât allocate $1M in one year for 10 employees to work on just stems alone.
IG is definitely one of the worst places for irrelevant and opinionated comments lol 
But I think this kind of topic just splits opinions naturallyâŚ
Torq was great. I still have a boxed Conectiv and Vinyl set. Donât they also have Deckadance from the Stanton acquisition?
Iâd have difficulty disagreeing with anyone who said that Serato is less important than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.
Ok, itâs not quite an inane as âAlphaTheta aquire Blockbuster Videoâ but Serato certainly has less relevance now than it did back in their now gone hay-days of Serato forcing customer loyalty by way of little black SL boxes.
The problem is, its still immensely popular in the US, which is essentially the bulk of the DJ gear market⌠just look at all the British Youtube channels who review gear, they all quote the price in dollars and talk as if they are addressing Americans. Americans by and large love buying gear too, its the same in the photography space, they often have to be number one in the queue for any new item that is released, in fact im sure they invented the term âgearheadâ âŚDPReview, the biggest photography gear website going, were British owned and moved to America because that is where that market thrives.
I can see why InMusic are worried about this, Serato is a huge pull for their hardware sales (look at how many people moan about the Prime 2 not being Serato ready) and that door being closed essentially means to door to the US market closes.
I can only speak for my own circle of DJ friends, but I dont know a single person who uses Serato here in the UK, or Denon/InMusic stuff. Itâs all Pioneer with the odd Allen and Heath mixer kicking around, then a few events DJs who use VDJ with a controller, made by guess who?
Copied from my initial post re this matter just to give my 2 cents
According to Digital DJ Tips InMusic are intending to try and prevent Alphatheta from acquiring Serato, whether InMusic will have any joy or not remains to seen but to my mind such a move in the DJ world is unprecedented?
I guess the real issue for InMusic is what happens if they are unsuccessful, and could InMusic seek to end its relationship with Serato for any new projects not already in development.
Interesting timesâŚ
I have used Serato in the past but now I just use Engine, DDJT recommends InMusic should make Engine DJ a fully fledged DJ software liked RB, on that point I would agree, in fact I would suggest they do that any way regardless of what happens where Serato is concerned.
Depending on how this all plays out could there be reforms/measures put in place to restrict/prevent monopolies occurring within the DJ corporate world?
We also have to think outside of the Prime ecosystem. InMusic have a vast amount of âdumb controllersâ that come with Serato or Serato Lite in the box.
EDIT: Each manufacturer link didnât translate well but they lead to different inMusic brands.
I imagine those Numark controllers are a massive source of income for InMusic too, with the Serato brand being a good part of the selling point.
Yep, that is a critical aspect. Not everyone can afford an AiO-system, but most people own a laptop. So they buy a cheap/midrange controller to have fun with DJ software.
There is another situation with mobile DJs, who still need to rely on proper 13-16" laptop screens + keyboards for complex, cross-genre gigs with lots of requests, but donât want to buy an extra controller just for that. Hence, the added Serato support for the Prime 4 and Live units was very welcomed: They could use one device for both, standalone and laptop control. Yes, VDJ is also an option (and well implemented) but itâs a quite hefty 299$ extra and quite many people simply donât like VDJ.
Engine DJ âperformance modeâ would solve both issues, just like Rekordbox does. Maybe 3.0 with itâs renewed database already laid the foundation for that.
But as there are plenty of mobile / cross-genre / open format etc DJs who DJ perfectly well on Prime 4 screens then the âI need a massive laptop screenâ is more of a comfort blanket than anything else now.
Thatâs why having a choice never hurts. Plenty of DJs need this, plenty need that. Whatever. Also, there is no point in arguing about big laptop screens now. I just listed an additional use-case for a performance mode, next to be utilized by controller DJs solely. I can do without, but when I was bigger in the mobile business, I rather played with my 16" MBP rather than a small 7" touch GUI. DJs in the same situation get both options with most AiOs - which is good. The new Serato issue complicate things, though.
Combing all of inMusic brands Serato DJ controllers together Denon DJ/Numark/Rane/Akai Pro) and looking at Pioneer DJs Serato DJ controllers it leaves them pretty even.
Quantity of each controller sold is a different metric but the amount of products available for each are nicely spaced.
Should Alpha Theta take over Serato, theyâd have all of those controllers using one of their products. Thatâs a massive amount. Remember Serato DJ have the menu option for usage statistics probably capturing things like functions used, type of controller and days used option and they âphone homeâ should it be turned on. They have an accurate picture of how many DJs use their software, week in, week out. That data is handy for Alpha Theta.
Interesting that Prime 4+ is NOT on the website of Serato at the moment.
Perhaps because itâs similar to the Prime 4, but no mention of Prime 4+ eitherâŚ
It took a while for the P4 to be added too.
Iâve noticed thereâs been a bit of a lag between models that werenât developed with Serato as a collab and OSA, some as long as three months.
and watch and see. 