The first signs of Pro Tools 12.5 with cloud collaboration came with a tweet from Avid Worldwide Pro Audio & Pro Mixing Segment Marketing Manager - Tom Graham and now Avid have officially announced that Avid Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools is now available to select customers through an "Early Access" beta program.  Avid have also announced Pro Tools 12.5, although information is still sketchy.

The announcement of 12.5 seems to back up their plan for more frequent updates, with 5 updates in just until 12 months. You can read more about the development of Pro Tools 12 over the last year in our article The Story Of 2015 - The Development of Pro Tools 12 - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The details from Avid are limited and don't tell us much more than we already knew but here they are.... 

Avid Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools Features

• Post projects to cloud storage space and invite others to collaborate.
• Work on projects with others in real time, or create offline and share updates directly.
• Share audio and MIDI tracks, edits, mix changes, automation, and more.
• Communicate with collaborators through text chat.

Dana Ruzicka, Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Avid said...

Pro Tools 12.5 confirms Avid's commitment to delivering powerful workflows that connect artists, media professionals, and their work in a much more collaborative, efficient way so they can focus on creating their best work. Avid Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools will radically change the way people make music, and open up unprecedented new creative possibilities. We're excited to give customers the opportunity to experience this groundbreaking innovation.

Pro Tool First Collaboration

Also confirmed was the missing piece of the Pro Tools First puzzle, session file exchange. You may recall in our Pro Tools First review we raised concerns about the inability to interchange Pro Tools First session files with Pro Tools Session files. Pro Tools Cloud Collaboration will allow Pro Tools First and Pro Tools users to exchange session files with one about via the Avid Cloud.

If you are at NAMM 2016 Avid are running demos with musicians remotely.  Check it out and tell us what you think.