To apparently solidify his core base, Dorwart then promoted his in-house supporters to new positions and most likely salary increases. But the question remains if this massive sweep of management changes and promotions across the company will address the serious problems that Stanton faces in the future.

Stanton's FinalScratch OPEN - Nice House Nobody Home?

Stanton stumbled badly in regards to their fallout with Native Instruments over the FinalScratch debacle. Native supplied their Traktor Software and Stanton produced the ScratchAmp to allow DJs to mix digital files on turntables for the first time. The massively promoted system, but soon became eclipsed by the simple and rock-solid Serato Scratch solution. Meanwhile, Native, who jumped into the hardware manufacturing game themselves, decided that they didn't need Stanton's expertise and opted to not renew their contract.

Instead using this as an opportunity to elevate the software component of FinalScratch, they sat on their hands. They didn't develop their own software and they didn't acquire one of the many concerns in the market offering mix software. Several companies, including PCDJ, were ripe for the picking, but instead of grabbing some of the low-hanging fruit, Stanton started to whine publicly about the matter.

More mismanagement and public relation blunders followed including the alienation of a small portion of the Apple community who had upgraded to the new lineup of Macs with Intel processors, which were not going to be immediately supported. A negative online groundswell developed that was only fueled by Stanton's continued blame-game with Native Instruments, and their inability to come up with a decisive and immediate solution.

In the meantime, their other product lines have stagnated. After Peter Phillips of design firm The Brewery (London, UK) turned their products into iPods two and a half years ago, Stanton hasn't delivered an innovative, cutting edge product since. In fact, they haven't even developed a DJ controller, like every other single DJ-oriented manufacturer, to support FinalScratch, a natural extension of the product base.

One of Stanton's New iPods Mixers

Now comes word of six internal employees being promoted into key positions. Aren't these the same people who were with the company while they were staggering along during the last couple of years? Why not bring in some fresh faces to invigorate the company? Unless Dorwart is nervous about his lifespan at the concern, the moves don't make a lot of sense to industry watchers.

Opening up FinalScratch's timecode technology as "OPEN" source was a knee-jerk reaction, and didn't address one of the major phobias of Digital DJing -- namely the fear that the system is going to crash in the middle of the perfect mix, in front of a critical crowd. Even though, it's obviously the future, DJing with a laptop still hinges on the system working flawlessly. Creating an OPEN system with unrelated components that can't be certified stable or vigorously tested, is a recipe for disaster. How many DJs are going to risk their reputation in order to stay loyal to Stanton and their ScratchAmp? Not many...

Stanton's in-action has also opened the door wide open for their competitors to quickly fill the void. Companies with marketing muscle now have the opportunity to move in and offer compelling cross grades to soak up the Stanton slop. Serato, distributed by Rane, has the most to gain and should attempt to capitalize on this situation with a savvy promotion. With the playing field suddenly getting very crowded, increasing their consumer base and thus their position in the market, should be a priority for Rane.

One thing is for certain, Native Instruments, M-Audio and Stanton's other competitors play for keeps. Stanton's blood is in the water, and the sharks smell dinner.

The Future: Only time will tell for Stanton. Will their new management and internal promotions pay off? Or are they just stuffing the pig before the slaughter?

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