A lot of people are asking me for my take on the recent Avid changes regarding third party storage, and forcing the updates to Media Composer Enterprise. There’s a lot of digital ink that’s been spilled that I won’t rehash (Neal Kemsley with a characteristically thorough and precise breakdown¹ and Paul Matthijs from Hedge² with a fantastic rant that I wish I’d written). 

Most people know Projective and Strawberry because we were one of the first to figure out bin-locking for Media Composer on third party storage — and the market need was obvious enough to get me to leave my job at Avid.

But the customer need was never for bin-locking as such; the need was for independence. Bin-locking was just a key requirement for Avid editors to accept moving to something new. 

Why is independence so important, you ask? This announcement from Avid is yet another perfect example. Think of all of the post houses, broadcasters, and content creators worldwide right now being forced to make a decision: Upgrade to Media Composer Enterprise, freeze their Media Composer version at 2025.12, or throw out their infrastructure. 

I can’t imagine a more tone-deaf, short-sighted tactic at a time when most of their customers are really struggling to keep their doors open. 

“Upgrade to Enterprise, you only have to pay $99/seat for the first year.” Why are they being forced to upgrade? So Avid can drive more Enterprise subscriptions. 

In other words, pay the toll — it’s only $99 to upgrade… this year. What happens next year is conveniently left out. It’s part of the wider trend of enshittification. But I digress.

The important thing is: a lot of customers will not enjoy being held over a barrel yet again, and will take this as the final straw and move to Premiere or Resolve. 

If you’re one of them, call me. 

We’ve helped many customers in this journey over the years, and I’m happy to show you how we can make it easy for you. You don’t have to sacrifice control and structure when moving to Adobe; and Strawberry can help you maintain the guardrails and workflows you’re used to in Avid. 

And big news: we’re also announcing our new Resolve Panel to help those of you who are looking at DaVinci. Happy to show it to you at IBC. (Stand 7.D12) 

Oh yeah, and for those of you who want to continue to work with Media Composer: fantastic, we still work with Media Composer Enterprise. Stay on Avid while exploring future options. Or don’t. With Strawberry it’s up to you. 

See how great it is to have options?