Alesis just stuck their noses into aspects of the audio business they didn't belong in. There crap PCI card, and the over-priced Masterlink proved that.
When they bought GT mics, well, that should have told everyone something.
I don't think keeping the ADAT line hurt them a bit, it was probably the only thing making and money. It was their insistence on staying with the 3630, and their whole monitor speaker line, as well as their rather crappy mixers that probably did them in. Just too much other stuff out their that fly's better with the consumer in the same price range.
I think too that they held on waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long with their keyboards and sound module lines. Too little product for any price really. That whole "micro" thing they had just could never pay off. For just a bit more, everyone was putting out more versatile products.
Let us not talk about their entrance into the electronic drum market. I have a friend who is a drummer who worked for Alesis (at least up until last week) who said he would NEVER use those at a gig, and would probably favor a cheap real drumset for practice purposes and risk sound complaints. He felt they were that bad.
Alesis needed to grow up and make a stronger showing in the professional market. They never did. They also needed to stay away from anything that had to do with a hard drive, but they didn't.
Their doom is eminent!
I say good, it don't come soon enough. Possibly the market share they took with their somewhat cheaply made products can go to companies that made more dependable, more versatile gear. Companies that are maybe a bit more in touch with making products that don't have inherent flaws.
The upside is that Alesis's best selling product line, the ADAT is an easy machine to figure out by bench tech's, so support for the machines will still be around for a long time. With the fact that an ADAT is a glorified SVHS recorder so the parts are readily available (that was part of the whole original ADAT concept, and the reason they could build the machine for so little money) current users of the format shouldn't worry too much about getting them fixed (something that seemed to happen a lot.....)
Yes, I am a bit pissed at Alesis. They were are the forefront of the whole "make it cheap and they will buy" era that recording gear is in.
I suspect that Mackie is not far behind. They spend way too much money on international advertising to keep at their pace.
A disgrunteled past Alesis product line buyer.
Good Day!