'Disruptive interpersonal relationships' cited as cause

Long-time staple of the sound waveform editing world, BIAS, has closed its doors. A notice on the homepage succinctly states "BIAS, Inc. has ceased operations. We would like to thank all the BIAS customers and friends for the opportunity to have served the audio community for over 16 amazing years. The BIAS Authorization Manager Server is functioning for authorizing and de-authorizing BIAS products at this time." MacNN contacted BIAS for a statement, but the unnamed official reached declined to comment on the closure.

An unverified comment left on Create Digital Music under the name of "Steve Berkley," the CEO and president of BIAS wrote about the closure, saying "please understand that we are not at liberty to discuss those reasons in detail since they concern matters of individual privacy. However, the conduct of certain employees resulted in disruptive interpersonal relationships which damaged morale and interfered with high functioning at a time when market pressures required that the company perform at an optimum level."

"Berkley" added that "Despite the high quality of our products and team, the disruption contributed to a lack of sales and marketing effectiveness that was fatal to the company. Our products remain among the best in the industry, and we [are] exploring various avenues that we hope will result in our customers still receiving the benefit of the products they have valued in the past." The posting did not explain why the company gave no prior notice to customers before closing down.

BIAS' products rely on an authentication server to control licensing issues. The homepage closure remark did address that the servers were still functional "at this time." With the shutdown of any company comes the inevitability of software support server closures. With software packages like Peak, SoundSoap, and others requiring functional authentication servers for proper functionality, the future of the software is in some doubt. BIAS' Master Perfection Suite and SoundSoap Pro can be authorized with an Aladdin HASP USB key which should continue to function even after server shutdown.

BIAS, Inc was founded in 1994 by Steve and Christine Berkley. BIAS' products include the flagship product Peak, a stereo sample editor and importer; SoundSoap and SoundSoap Pro, noise reduction and audio restoration software in standalone and plug-in form, respectively; Deck, a multi-track digital audio workstation specializing in recording analog audio sources; and the Master Perfection Suite, including six effects processing plug-ins for sound design and general audio processing. The last major release by BIAS was Peak Studio in November 2011.

By Electronista Staff

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