MakeMusic (Finale) recibe una oferta de compra

Alguien escribió:

As we stated above, we believe that MMUS requires significant intervention now for the following reasons:

· significant leadership changes - MMUS has had four CEOs in the last four years and now has to recruit a fifth CEO. Not only is this expensive and time consuming, it is very disruptive to the organization and to the company’s relationship and standing with industry partners.

· significant development costs ahead - we believe that the source code base of Finale and the other notation products is near end of life and significant financial resources are necessary to update and refresh the notation product line. A review of recent quarterly financial reports makes clear that the company’s expenses are rising while its balance sheet is contracting. This suggests a period of heavy investment ahead.

· significant revenue decrease in 2012 and beyond appears likely for the following reasons -

o we believe that the current Finale product release will be a partial upgrade versus the typical annual refresh and re-release cycle, which would generate higher revenues.

o SmartMusic subscription growth has stalled while spending on its development and marketing continue to rise. We believe that shareholders have much higher expectations for SmartMusic subscriber levels and are disappointed with this stagnation.

o the largest print music publisher, Hal Leonard Corporation (“HLC”), announced in late 2011 its entry into the digital music publishing, education and performance evaluation software market with its Essential Elements Interactive platform. We understand that HLC is using a more modern software platform. We believe this is a direct competitive threat to MMUS’s SmartMusic product suite and it will come from the largest industry participant that is also a significant contributor of content for SmartMusic. If MMUS cannot access quality content from HLC, SmartMusic’s allure in the marketplace is likely to be seriously damaged and the company may face increased repertoire development costs from other sources.

We are prepared to enter into immediate negotiations with you so that the company could commence this process now.