Native Instruments has posted an official statement from CEO Nick Williams, reassuring customers and partners that support for NI products will continue through the restructuring.
The essentials of this statement are that the lights are still on and licensing works (which is vital for the partner ecosystem as well as individual customers).
Here’s the full text:
I want to personally take a moment to address the recent news about Native Instruments.
Please rest assured that business continues as usual at Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. Our hardware and software products remain on sale and available for download and activation. Our passionate and dedicated teams are here and supporting customers as normal. In product and engineering, we are continuing to develop and launch new products and features. Our NKS Partnerships team continues to process Kontakt Player licences and NKS Partner submissions.
We are working diligently and responsibly to secure a healthy, financially sustainable future for Native Instruments. As you may have seen, Native Instruments GmbH has entered a restructuring process in Germany, as have 3 of our German non-operating holding companies. In legal terms, we have filed applications to open pre-insolvency proceedings for those companies.
We are focused on providing continuity for creators, customers, and partners. We’ll continue to share updates as we have them.
I’m a lifelong musician myself, and have been a passionate fan of Native Instruments for 25 years. Our mission to inspire and enable creators to express themselves through sound continues.
The phrase “business as usual” for Native Instruments GmbH feels a little out of place — insolvency proceedings come with restrictions. That will be of particular concern to partners; having Kontakt Player licensing work is a bare minimum. But as I understand it, Germany makes ongoing support of staff in this case a requirement, meaning that you can count on that aspect and support in the short term.
This statement fails to acknowledge a level of disappointment and anger from NI’s customers and partners. Yes, it’s important to put people at ease, but there are some real frustrations from folks who have had a long-term relationship with NI — and they hardly started this week. My inbox has been overflowing with those sentiments.
But the other way to look at this — and this has come up a lot in discussions this week — is that a lot of overdue adjustments are finally happening. It was clear for some time that NI’s business was untenable with its debt load, accrued through private equity-backed acquisitions. And there were also public indications last year that something was up, including the apparent acquisition of the business by its creditors. (Pretty much everyone at NAMM knew something was going on when NI suddenly canceled all the meetings there this month.)
If you’re a user, none of this should dissuade you from working with the tools you have now. And longer term, we’ll keep tabs on the future structure of NI and any potential new owners for any of their current businesses and products.
On a non-business note — archiving. This Bluesky comment hit me. We’ve talked a lot about archiving and updating, from the updates to Absynth 5 to artists like My Panda Shall Fly working with outdated tools. I think we’re all aware that software in general is ephemeral, and people across generations are getting enthusiastic about archiving and maintaining tools — beyond what vendors alone may decide to do.
Update: Brainworx founder Dirk Ulrich has weighed in (with some dismay).
Previously: