I'm going to recall a little historical story related to my own career which I feel bares some similarities to what has been seen here.

I've worked for over a decade as a television editor in London.

When I started there were several choices of non-linear editing software, across various OSs.

Adobe (Premiere still exists), Discreet Logic ('Edit' was sold to Autodesk along with Smoke & Inferno FX / compositing packages), Media 100, Lightworks - to name but a few.

But the BIG player (Nokia of it's time) was AVID. Then out of no-where Apple released Final Cut Pro (FCP).

A bit like the opensource community, young trailblazing aspiring editors voted with their feet to grab (or crack) the £500 apple software solution over the £60k Avid systems. There was a reel feeling of "let's stick it to the man".

But as an already experienced user the problem was 2 fold. FCP wasn't as feature rich (particularly at file and media management) -and the new breed of editor had little to no experience or professional training. Long story short but now there's a whole generation of technically inept editors without any engineering experience who have no grasp of TV video standards. Many are creative and talented, but many more can't support themselves.

The second problem was that Avid responded at a time when computers were able to perform more features using the CPU rather than using dedicated hardware. This meant that new features and software only version were rushed out with greatly reduced development and testing. Basic essential features became buggy and some were removed completely.

Wouldn't it have been great if everything learned from the N900 had been applied to the N9?

The result of the FCP onslaught has been a decade of catch-up by Avid. Pricing and support plans had to radically come down in cost. Whilst easily crackable software only versions were released in the hope that it would broaden the user base with new (student) editors.

Ironically Avid now resembles FCP in terms of freedom of thrid party hardware. Both software packages have innovative new features. However the latest version of FCP has been heavily crticised for dumbing down and losing key features.

The moral of the story is that things ALWAYS change.
It's funny that Apple was embraced for being liberal, whilst for the seasoned user it has felt limiting in someways but innovative in others.

Avid, Nokia, MS, Apple, Google etc etc will all have to keep evolving to stay in the game.

As for me, I can't keep up with all the new tape-less HD video formats, with the burden of faster turn-around at a price cut. I've spent the last year changing careers, and start training as a commerical airline pilot in December.

If you can't beat them, join them!