The End of FINALE

[odod]

Sad news for FInale Users

https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/end-of ... president/

The end of Finale

35 years ago, Coda Music Technologies, now MakeMusic, released the first version of Finale, a groundbreaking and user-centered approach to notation software. For over four decades, our engineers and product teams have passionately crafted what would quickly become the gold standard for music notation.

Four decades is a very long time in the software industry. Technology stacks change, Mac and Windows operating systems evolve, and Finale’s millions of lines of code add up. This has made the delivery of incremental value for our customers exponentially harder over time.

Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.

Effective immediately, we are announcing these changes:

There will be no further updates to Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)
It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)

After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:

It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
Support for Finale v27 or any other version of Finale will no longer be available

A new journey with Dorico

There is, however, a new future for the notation industry: Dorico, developed by Steinberg, the creators of Cubase and a subsidiary of Yamaha.

Many have competed with Finale over the past four decades, enabling positive and healthy stimulation leading to incremental innovations, but when Dorico launched in 2016, it set a brand new bar for the industry. The dozens of quick releases since then have demonstrated the Dorico team’s passion, dedication, expertise, and long-term commitment—qualities that have been the foundation of Finale’s DNA and success.

While Finale development has come to an end, we know your musical journey has not. I want to sincerely express our warm and deep gratitude to all of our loyal and passionate users. Our entire organization thanks you for your trust, and we believe you have a bright new phase of creativity, productivity, and efficiency ahead with Dorico.

To ensure that Finale users continue to have access to the most advanced and efficient tools available, MakeMusic has partnered with Steinberg to offer an exclusive discount on Dorico Pro.

[MichelRE]

What the owners (developers) of Finale don't seem to understand, and never seemed to have understood, is not that Dorico had a "passionate, dedicated, experienced" team...
It's that they actually HAVE customer support.
Something which Finale has not had in nearly 20 years.
There were no "innovations" in Finale's "incremental" changes. It was always tiny insignificant items, with no response to long-standing bugs, or real new features that had been long asked for.

I made a request for an item in Dorico, and low and behold, the very next update (a few months later) had the new feature in it. "Just for me", as I was informed by one of Dorico's staff.

THAT is customer support.

[JJP]

What the owners of Finale don't seem to understand, and never seemed to have understood, is not that Dorico had a "passionate, dedicated, experienced" team...

Whether or not you use Finale, the sudden loss of one of the major tools in our industry is not good. Many Finale users woke up to a shock today, and some could be concerned about the future of their livelihoods. This is going to have large financial and logistical impacts on some organizations. Professionals have built their careers in Finale, and some still use it for very valid reasons. Some users are going to be dealing with hardship as a result of this announcement.

Some people dealing with difficulties may be on this forum; so let's please avoid saying "I told you so," "they should have known better," or any other berating of Finale users. Platform wars don't help any of us create better music.

[MichelRE]

don't misquote me.
I explain VERY clearly my thoughts on the situation.
I used Finale from version 3, on a Windows 3.1 machine, waaaaay back when, and have been a constant user until I finally switched to Dorico.

The problem with MakeMusic and their attitude is exactly as I posted in my above comment.
It's not an "I told you so", and there's no berating of any users, Finale or otherwise.

As a matter of fact, at no point in my post do I even mention users of any software.

[OCTO]

Frankly speaking, I think the version 25 is a rock solid and can be used for years if note decades ahead.  And of course, there will no be "updates" that brings more bugs, that everyone was afraid of.
People who make absolutely amazing scores, such as Wess-music, still work with 2012.  Many engravers/composers will work on older machines dedicated only to Finale.  Something similar to SCORE, that is still surviving.

Finale can do many things that other software can't (yet, I am totally unfamiliar with Dorico!), so I think there will be still a high demand, particularly working with very, very complex scores, alla Ferneyhough, or Schenkerian analysis.

I would suggest MM to remove all licensing, and make the software open-source, someone might just keep it running.

[JJP]

don't misquote me.
I explain VERY clearly my thoughts on the situation.
I used Finale from version 3, on a Windows 3.1 machine, waaaaay back when, and have been a constant user until I finally switched to Dorico.

The problem with MakeMusic and their attitude is exactly as I posted in my above comment.
It's not an "I told you so", and there's no berating of any users, Finale or otherwise.

As a matter of fact, at no point in my post do I even mention users of any software.

I mistook "owners of Finale" to be people who own the software, i.e. the users. You were referring to MakeMusic, the developers of Finale. My apologies if I offended you.

[MichelRE]

I mistook "owners of Finale" to be people who own the software, i.e. the users. You were referring to MakeMusic, the developers of Finale. My apologies if I offended you.

Apology accepted

I've added a tiny correction to my post to avoid any future misunderstandings if someone should come across this thread.

[John Ruggero]

I would suggest MM to remove all licensing, and make the software open-source, someone might just keep it running.

+1

[Fred G. Unn]

I would suggest MM to remove all licensing, and make the software open-source, someone might just keep it running.

I would think there's about a 0% chance of that happening, LOL! This isn't like Leland Smith coding something out of a labor of love. Peaksware is a holding company. They bought MakeMusic either because they thought it would be profitable or they thought MakeMusic's intellectual property would be valuable. Finale obviously either wasn't profitable, wasn't profitable enough, or was going to be too expensive to maintain, so they just killed it off. There's no way they are going to give up the IP though, and probably a lot of it is being used in SmartMusic anyway. It's just a different situation than SCORE or Encore dying. Peaksware and it's subsidiary MakeMusic are still in business, it's only Finale that's being discontinued.

[MichelRE]

I was wondering if SmartMusic would also die if Finale went the way of the dodo.