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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 09 6:42 pm)
Subject: Announcement from Curious Labs
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Thanks for the update about Curious Labs. I am a bit concerned about a line in the announcement, and it's goal. "Affected by the cuts are executive management team members, developers, testers and marketing staff." Testing of products is always a major part of any software development company. How has the restructuting added to the testing and commitment of CL products if your cutting those jobs. Don't need to know about CL's business model, or it's inner workings really, I wouldn't expect that. However in light of the recent Poser 5 beta testing and letting the user beta test Poser5, will this be a ongoing procedure for CL and it's software?
hmmmm... Major layoffs, Kupa leaves the company, restructuring. A VERY business like announcement concerning both the U.S. subsidary and the parent company... No announcement in the Beta Forum (guess we can write that off - only Steve has been answering in there since before the first of the year). Mention of partnerships with other companies, but doesn't list them. What does this mean to us? Well, don't expect P6 for a few years. Or a SR3 release. Or the promised content. If they've layed off testers and development staff (programmers), then they won't be doing much other than a holding action until some money comes in from somewhere. I think we can also say goodbye to the personal touch that was provided here. First Brian and Anthony, now Steve. I'm glad the SR2-1 release removed the security stuff. Wonder if... The last time I worked for a company that did this, it was sold in 3 months. I guess we pin our hopes that somehow someone there gets their act together, or we wait for Daz Studio and plan a migration. Hey, maybe Daz can buy Poser! Too depressing...
the Handwriting is on the wall they are going the way of Metacreations Thank God DAZ Studio is going to be OSX native!!!!
Bummer! After finally getting around to patching P5 this past weekend, now I worry about if this is as good as it's gonna' get. Guess I'll start paying more attention to DAZ's plans for releasing a Poser-like product. Maybe some of the laidoff CL people should go help 'em out. I don't see how CL is going to be able to make good on its promise to keep Poser alive and improving when it appears they laid off most of their creative talent. When will coprorations ever learn that it's an almost certain death spiral to try to acheive profitability by cutting out the creative heart of their business staff. I feel badly for Steve Cooper and the others who gave it their all against some very difficult odds and ended up being laid off for their efforts. It happened to me earlier in my career with a company I co-founded. (And I also got laid off yet again this past November.) This latest CL news just adds to my being a bit depressed as of late.
Intel Core I7 3090K 4.5 GhZ (overclocked) 12-meg cache CPU, 32 Gig DDR3 memory, GeoForce GTX680 2gig 256 Bit PCI Express 3.0 graphic card, 3 Western Difgital 7200 rpm 1 Tb SATA Hard Drives
Six months, tops. As for DAZ buying Poser, why? They're a year into development on a comparable product that will use previous content. It'd be a lot of unusable legacy code to sift through to find a few nuggest of gold. And, since their programmers aren't familiar with the code, it would probably take longer to fix Poser 5 than to finish DAZ Studio. In an ideal world, I'd like to see Poser bought by Adobe or Corel or a similar company that can put enough resources into it. Competition is good.
Metacreations did the same thing, we saw how THAT went. wolf, am I right? Remember how cool of a company they were before they hired all the yuppie biz-types? (and profitable, I might add...) What the hell was that shift to "refocus" on? :) When a company press release contains the words "refocus on core business..." or something to that effect, it's usually equivalent to a redneck saying, "Hey y'all, watch this!". Hailing from WV, I speak from experience, as many of my friends and family were rednecks. :) Hopefully time will prove me wrong, but I've seen this strategy MANY times before - and the outcome is always the same. Larry & Steve - thanks for everything you guys have done for the Poser community, and please - snatch up Poser (again) quick! ;)
FyreSpiryt said - "In an ideal world, I'd like to see Poser bought by Adobe or Corel or a similar company that can put enough resources into it." Well, Adobe has taken large financial losses and has laid off, IIRC, 25% of their staff. As for Corel, would you want them to handle Poser the way they handled Bryce? I hope all of the naysayers and badmouthers can finally get a goodnight's sleep. Looks like they won.
You know, with all respect...this is one of a couple of posts saying the whiners, bitchers, naysayers, and badmouthers caused this.... I have to disagree....at least partly. And I would believe most of the vocal people feel as bad, or worse than some of the loyal clan...why do I say this? Because quite a few of the bitchers have as much or more loyalty to Poser and CL as anybody, and have used the program for many years...before CL even existed...Some of them bitched quite loudly because of their disappointment. Yes, I sure said my piece, but the writing was on the wall long before then. If you read kupa's original explanation of the release condition of P5, he admitted it had to be released because of CL's financial situation. He had already laid off folks prior to the release. The release condition itself helped the lack of sales...nothing else. The bitching didn't probably help the overall situation, and more than likely caused quite a few lost sales, or at least caused many folks to hold off the purchase until a decent patch came out, but I doubt very much it was the ultimate cause. I will say there are a few here, and on other boards, that did carry their bitching to an extreme, and in many cases didn't even own the program and were still badmouthing CL...that may be a bit different case....
Humankind has not
woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound
together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle,
1854
I think the bitching probably hurt employee morale. I doubt that it affectected sale that much. It certainly had nothing to do with the economy. I do feel for the employees, however. There's no reason for a blaming game to start, I think. Life happens. We have to make the best. Q
Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le
hazard
S Mallarmé
Yea...there really is no sense in tossing more inflaming words around...sorry to fuel that debate...couldn't help myself... the whole economy is in a big hurt. I think the gov. tries to keep it at least in a positive spirit, so people don't get all paniced and worked up, but things seem pretty grim...hopefully the pendulum starts its return trip soon. The company I work for just had involuntary furloughs...and the prospects for opening the new year aren't all that rosy... Disposable income is hard to come by.
Humankind has not
woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound
together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle,
1854
Yeah, I personally want to thank all the whiners and complainers for helping to bring this about. And I do believe that all the bitching and moaning had an affect on sales. And for the people who think that "Daz Studio" (whatever it is) is gonna be "all that," I can't wait to see the looks on your faces when the first serious bug appears. (Didn't Vicky 3 just have an update correcting a few,...er...ahem...ERRORS that crept in?) If CL goes down, we ALL are the losers (even Daz). -jjsemp
Cassandra told the truth too-- nobody wanted to hear it and it did her no overwhelming good. Being able to read the signs, doesn't mean you built the road. I'm sorry to see Kupa go in place of a nameless faceless "business focus" Remind me again of what CL was focused on before this mess? Wasn't it Poser 5? Yeah, I thought it was. Seems clear to me now that Kupa can actually say or hint at what happened, that the money ran out waaay before the program was fully assembled and everything else was scrambling for duct tape. Considering that, Poser 5 is a kind of miracle. When it runs, um, strolls, it's quite nice, I like the darn thing. I'd better, this is -- for now and perhaps always-- as good as it gets. Must be allergies, I'm rubbing my eyes alot. The only thing I'm surprised about is that there were any Testers left to lay off. Emily
jjsemp, doesn't your second paragraph contradict your first paragraph? In all fairness to people here, they did not cause this. These problems are way older than anything that happened here in the forums. This was inevitable and I don't think anyone should be blamed for it or for preparing for it. Truth be told, the people in these few community sites are the only poser users left. Very little still exists outside of us. And I don't think we are enough to float Poser5 even if we all bought it. Just Anton this time, Anton
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
There are very few Poser sites compared to and outside the United States. The largest Poser coomunity site globally is Renderosity. Most other online Poser fann sites are closed, inactive, or not updated in over a year. As far as I know there are no Poser Content Stores as large as Daz, Renderosity, PoserPros and Bbay outside the United States if at all. So we are pretty much the mainstay of the market. I think the real problem was too many years between poser 4 and 5. People just moved on. Without new users the community got smaller and snmaller. So when a new version is rleased there are too few people to renew while the user list tries to rebuild. Kinda like losing too much blood before you get a transfusion. My point was that despite how peole feel about negative posts or bad press, mydelf included, people here didn't cause this. People don't have to approve, but they shouldn't be blamed. And if they were the sole cause of all this it even more truely is because we are all that is left.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
Steve, Not trying to upset you but you know I am not wrong. I'll conceed though and not argue the point or bring it up again. But these people did not cause this.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
God my typing is aweful...I really can spell.. I promisk. :)
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
Anton....there are tons of folks with Poser who don't participate in the communities nor purchase your products (or anyone else's). It may make a smaller world for DAZ and the merchants but the Poser world is much much larger than you see. And that's a lot of potential Vicky buyers. There are dozens who show up for my classes. Housewives, retired folks, curious folks. All they know is Posette and the Dork. Some of them even hate me after introducing them to what's out there. LOL Mehndi? Larry tooooooooo? Oh sh****************t.
Spit, Just my personal view. I researched it when I was going to open my own store.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
We have been through all of this before when Metacreations closed its' doors, and it was doom and gloom then.
Renderosity had about 15,000-20,000 members then and no Store. Now it has well over 100,000 and a huge store with a huge annual turnover. Many other sites have either grown or been established since then. Daz itself has grown enormously. There is much more money in the Poser economy because of the establishment of so many merchandising outlets. Many people now make their living from Poser. As a consequence, there is huge investment in Poser from tens upon tens of thousands of people. I doubt if they will let that die.
Prediction: EGISYS sells Poser in March (Metacreations style) and Steve, Larry and others (Renderosity?) buy out the rump company and re-establish the business. Poser 5 SR2/3 is released July 2003.
'nuff said.
Get on with it and good luck to all at CL (former and current).
You still Rock!
STORM
There is also a following in Japan. It is hard to track down the sites. I knew about the German version but only recently found that there was a Japanese version. Makes sense now that there were Japanese sites along with German ones. Still haven't seen anything as big as our community outside the us...mostly smaller fan sites. If anyone knows of any non-North American mega sites I'd love the link. From the foreign community sites I can look for smaller ones but never found any. Most of my old link list is dead. Some I lost.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
Storm, But everyone here has five aliases. Kidding.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
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Curious Labs Announces Company-wide Restructuring
Restructuring part of global strategy to refocus on core business.
Santa Cruz, January 13th, 2003 Curious Labs, Inc. announces today that it has restructured global operations to refocus on their core business, and to improve their product offerings through partnerships. Curious Labs parent company, Egisys AG, has also restructured to achieve the same goals.
Curious Labs, Inc has restructured all operational components to refocus on their core business of software publishing. The future company focus will be on publishing of the Poser and pro-V Studio products, and growing the established consumer, professional, Windows and Macintosh product offerings and market base.
Curious Labs has also trimmed a variety of staff to reduce expenses in the face of the current economic climate. The cuts will not impact the ongoing support and sales of the Poser and other core product lines. Affected by the cuts are executive management team members, developers, testers and marketing staff. The former executive team members will be continuing forward as consultants to Curious Labs, contributing expertise in development, brand management, and operations.
Curious Labs has also implemented a new business model with several development partnerships being established to enable the future of their core Poser product, including the development of new versions, updates and plug-ins. This new business model is part of the restructuring strategy to allow Curious Labs to focus on the core business, expand their product offerings and deliver the tools that their customers want.
In todays challenging business climate companies have to be more economical and resourceful than ever. said Marc Keohane, interim director of US operations. The changes weve made respond to these requirements by strengthening the company financially and enabling it to grow through an innovative network of partnerships. Our company as a whole is now poised to continue the commitments to our existing customers and add to that customer base as we go forward.
About Curious Labs, Inc.
Curious Labs, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EGISYS AG, designs, develops, and publishes software tools such as Poser, which focus on 3D human and character visualization for artists, designers, and web developers. The company is located in Santa Cruz, California. For more information, go to www.curiouslabs.com.
About EGISYS AG
EGISYS AG designs and develops tools, technologies and solutions that utilize 3D animated models and motion data, and can be delivered via the Internet. The company also manages the European marketing and distribution of Curious Labs Poser products. For more information, go to www.egisys.de or www.egisys.com.
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Poser is a registered trademark of Curious Labs, Inc. and EGISYS AG. All other products, fonts, company names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.