They are, however, windows based boards, so if it crashes in the middle of a show to a BSOD............well it wouldn't be unexpected.
ETC Element and
Ion are also Windows based they just hide it while
Strand allows you access to some windows features. Both are just as likely to have a Windows crash. The critical thing
for both products is to keep your software updated.
...but was severely warned by many people that
Strand is not a company that should be worked with for consoles any more and that they are a dying bread.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to choose an
ETC product over a
Strand product, but the people who gave you this advice could not be more wrong.
Strand is owned by one of the world's largest companies: Phillips. The idea of them being a dying breed is ridiculous. The Philips empire owns
Strand, Color Kinetics (and therefore the patents on just about every
LED fixture),
Selecon, Vari-Light, Entertainment Technology, Lightolier,
Marquee, and Horizon controls. Most of them purchased in the last 3 or 4 years. Clearly, Phillips recently decided it wants to be a player in the entertainment lighting industry.
If you look at what they are doing with their purchases it's
clear that
Strand is a critical part of the plan. The new generation of
Strand consoles are running Horizon software. Since purchasing
Selecon, they basically threw out the
Strand fixture line and now
Selecon is the
Strand product
line. What is missing from the
Strand product
line? How about
LED's...
BAM they now own CK. Far from being a "dying breed"
Strand has some of the world's deepest pockets throwing money at innovative complimentary product lines and then using them to
build a new super product
line under the
Strand brand name.
Perhaps I misunderstood the quote and the person was implying that
Strand consoles themselves are somehow out of date and can't compete with
ETC. That too is very inaccurate. First off,
Strand released it's now product
line nearly a year ahead of
ETC. The software of both brands does have a different feel. However, because of the PC based, approach to
console design there is almost nothing one manufacturer can do that the other can't decide to add in on the next software upgrade. In the end both
ETC and
Strand consoles are just home computers, with
DMX outputs, and fancy USB device control surfaces. The software, and therefore the
console's abilities, are endlessly flexible.
Again there are plenty of legitimate reasons to choose
Strand or not to choose
Strand products, but saying
Strand is in trouble or that the consoles are dramatically inferior is ridiculous. I seriously doubt the people at
ETC are looking at all these moves by Phillips and saying, "don't worry about
Strand they will be out of business any day now."
ETC is the industry favorite right now, but
Strand has a mother company with huge pockets behind them. The half dozen middle of the
road console manufacturers are the ones who are really in trouble.
He works for 
