For a full explanation of the issues, please visit our website http://www.sibeliususers.org and our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SaveSibelius

In July 2012, Avid Technology announced the closure of Sibelius UK, home of the Sibelius development and support team. Avid claims this will make no difference to Sibelius.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

At this very moment, a massive revolt is going on amongst Sibelius users against this ridiculous decision. Within 3 days of launching our Save Sibelius campaign, over 5,000 users 'Liked' the page, which has been seen by over 485,000 Facebook clients.

Sibelius is a music composing/arranging application designed, maintained and supported by the Sibelius Team in the UK Office. The UK Office is closing, and the programmers and designers who have made Sibelius a major success will not be able to further develop the best computer based composing/arranging application in existence today.

With the release of Version 7, Avid can reap profits to ameliorate its Wall St losses for many years from product sales without any ongoing development or technical support. However, Sibelius is far more than just code, it lives and breathes in the hearts and minds of its inventors and developers. Remove them, and Sibelius eventually becomes roadkill. While Avid are claiming ongoing support for Sibelius, this claim would be substantiatable only by leaving it in the hands of its present development team, who have been responsible for crafting Sibelius into the world's best selling and most successful music score writing application.

Avid are only trying to say what they think we want to hear.

It is imperative that Avid reverse this decision and divest its holding of Sibelius to a viable new owner immediately so as to avoid a diaspora of its development team to other jobs.

We implore those of you who use this marvelous composing application to sign this petition, spread the petition far and wide, and moreover to go further if you can, by visiting our website and Facebook page. If enough people get behind this campaign, we can force Avid to listen to its customers and back away from this reckless decision.

The inventors of Sibelius, the Finn brothers, recently wrote the following message on the Sibelisu forum at http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcenter/chat/chat.pl?com=thread&start=602525&groupid=3&.

Please persuade Avid to sell Sibelius back to them by signing this petition, and clicking in the Email The Board on our website.

MESSAGE TO SIBELIUS USERS

"We were very concerned to hear earlier this month that Avid is terminating the jobs of the Sibelius development team in London and handing the software over to other programmers, apparently to cut costs. As far as we know, Sibelius continues to be extremely successful, so this cost-cutting is a response to financial problems elsewhere in Avid, not with Sibelius itself.

Ever since then we have been quietly trying to do everything we can to change this situation, including twice offering to buy Sibelius back from Avid. However, Avid has declined. While they haven't given a reason, we assume that Sibelius is a substantial source of profits to them, so they don't want to sell it to anyone.

We naturally feel very sad about this treatment of our friends and colleagues who have been key to making Sibelius a success, and who have become the world experts in this specialized field. We are also very grateful to the many Sibelius users who have expressed their concern and support; though at this point, it seems unlikely that any protests will change Avid's mind.

We hope Sibelius nonetheless continues to be the world's most successful music notation software.

Ben & Jonathan Finn

Sibelius founders"