Hi All,

First off, we wish to thank Steve Cooper, and the other members of staff that were laid off, for all their endless work and commitment to Poser. Thank you.

We would also like to follow up on yesterday's announcement on the changes at Curious Labs. We've seen many of the questions and comments raised, and we've posted some further information below.

1. The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business. The lay offs did help the company to remain financially stable, but these were also part of an overall strategy.

2. Steve Cooper and Larry Weinberg, while laid off, remain integral parts of Curious Labs. Steve now acts in an executive consultant role on a dialy basis to Curious Labs. Larry is focused 100% on a project for Curious Labs.

3. There is an international team remaining, most of whom have been with Curious Labs since it inception, and some from even the MetaCreations days.

4. The main focus of the team and the business, both at Curious Labs and Egisys, is now on Poser. We'll be focused on taking Poser forward, including improving Poser 5 Windows (yes, an SR3), Poser 5 Mac OSX, and Plug-ins for Poser 5.

5. As part of the restructuring we are implementing a new business model to improve the Curious Labs product development process. This model will include partnership companies, all focused on the Poser product line. We cannot say more on this at the moment due to the confidential nature of our agreements. We will provide more information when we can.

Regards,
The Curious Labs Team

Thanks for the update, mysterious "Curious Labs Team". Since I doubt that several team members hammered this out with alternating keystrokes, why don't you introduce yourself? We don't bite. Well...only virutally. :-) BTW, I'm Pablo but most folks just call me Paul.

Thanks for the update. Best wishes to you, I hope you can pull it off.

Hi, and thanks for keep us updated. Please feel free to introduce the team to us, either here on CL's web site... just kinda nice to see faces.

For some reason, I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.. Nevertheless - thanks for the update.

"There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the sunlight of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the CL Zone."

Hi Marc ;-)

Please. No names Anthony. From now on you may only refer to me as Inspector #12.

...and you may call me "occupant"

Scott, You mean YOU'RE the wrinkled old bag who's been making sure my Hanes say Hanes all this time? Wow... So everywhere I go, I take a piece of you with me?

I must admit, it's been good seeing Nosfiratu's name around here lately. It feels like the return of an old friend.

Yeah that's me Anthony. If you have any problems. You can reach me at: Inspector12@hanes.skidmark.com ;-)

Scotts' Motto: Check the Hanes on that Hiney!

Hi All, some clarifications: 1) We're posting under Curious_Labs as these posts are on behalf of the whole team here. There is a lot that goes into a product release: engineering, QA, UI design, product design, documentation, content, service, just to name a few. We want to better represent the effort that everybody puts in, hence "The Curious Labs Team" 2) Curious Labs and Poser is under direct control of Marc Keohane. Marc is primarily based at Curious Labs headquarters in Santa Cruz. Marc worked at Apple and MetaCreations. He was also the Director of Products for Curious Labs, working primarily with Larry and Steve, and is now Director of Curious Labs. 3) We're trying to roll as many of the staff that were laid off as possible into the partnerships. These partnerships will strengthen all of the development efforts on the Poser products, including engineering and quality efforts. 4) Not all Poser customers are on Renderosity, so we sent out the newsletter to try and ensure we reached everyone. 5) We've received many comments, and good advice, through both EMail and Renderosity on how we communicate with customers. The newsletter is just one part of a new process to improve our customer communications. As the next step we'll be bringing live a new web page, which will focus 100% on Curious Labs news and product updates. More on this, and other topics will follow - on a regular basis! The Curious Labs Team

Who is now incharge now that Steve is not at the helm? Can any time frames or the "new" goal milestones be shared, shuch as when a projected SR3 is going to be attempted for? When plugins should be done, etc. 2nd Qtr? 3rd Qtr? As a costumer it would be nice to have a bit more of an idea since the restructuring blow, and Steve's layoff. Thanks for the posted update, but all this news has left me feeling very ill.

missed it by that much! okay question 1 answered.

Wasn't that the exact same message they left before in their first post!!! I think I saw this part in "The Matrix"....with the cat. "deja vu". It means that someone has changed something.......!! Holy crap!!

Hehehe, dunno why but when a company post a message like this "we are financial stable" it is the contrary, just check the last examples from big companies like EMRON or WORLD COM, I have become very sceptical about any kind of great anounces likes this ones, and goes further when an anounce was made from a "Team" of a company that don't use names? real names, at least as a consumer I would like to congratulate or blame a specific individual than just a team don't you think? Go ahead CL, keep doing your brightest efforts to keep the market. Good luck!

.

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perhaps the statement "we are finacialy stable" was because of all the economic experts and buisness professionals that frequent this site were posting their oppinions that perhaps they were not. and, being, I guess the only one on this site that doesn't use the name given on my birth certificate, besides the person posting as Curious Labs, I guess I don't see anything wrong with that

isn't that backwards? shoudn't it be skidmark.hanes.com? ;-) A

I repeat .. make a version for only mac os X is not a good idea !! many old poser users on macintosh with mac OS9.x don't will purchase poser 5 because make a update to mac os X will be EXPENSIVE for all old apps !! this is a bad idea curious labs and with this you have lost many old mac Poser user Andygraph Andrea Mazzone Graphic Designer

Yeah, well what about the Timex Sinclair users? And the SunOS people? And let's not forget HPUX or AS/400! running for cover

will see ...

. - and thanks to CL for the info ;o)

Poser 5 for MacOs X and also Classic, S9. Bryce 5 run in the two Systems.

Ohh I forgot that we are dealing with a company full of experts which has been released the buggiest program I've ever heard (according with the 1000s of posts I've read over here) keep the good work Guys!

Apple doesn't support OS 9 anymore. Apple said last autumn that beginning with 2003 the new Macs that are sold can't be booted into OS9. But - on the other hand - most OS9 apps run fine in Classic mode under OSX. That's how I run Poser.

"If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition;
if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions."

Take care of those words !

Isn't it Nosfiratu ;) ?

A'kin

That's a real hoot. I didn't think that technology would ever be mentioned here. Am I being sarcastic and slamming them? Far from it. They are my livelyhood! I am the lead (read: only) AS/400 legacy support systems technical engineer for our company. I have to maintain machines for more than twenty bakeries. Fate decided to tease me by having 3 systems suffer hard disk crashes within the last two weeks. Oy! Sincerely, Bill

An OS 9 version would be ridicoulos - developper support has stopped for this operating system, and even ported programs should try to take advantage of Apples new technologies- simply ported programs are lame mares

"The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business." Pardon me, but I heard those words before, a year ago, when hundreds of employees at my former employer lost their jobs, the company went "Chapter 11," and sold out to another company. A year later, the news remains dismal as yet more employees lose their jobs and the "new" company continues their previous plan. By the way, you should not advertise an old service pack as if it were a new one.

Ok "Team" you're not getting it. I completely understand the team concept and it's just fine internally and sometimes among business associates, but definately not customers. Customers want to hear from and talk to a person. They want to know that there's someone who will seize the responsibility to take care of them. A team does not inspire that confidence. Suggestion: Read some articles or books by Tom Peters.

This forum is amazing. Dramatic, but also amazing.

As the world turns...such are the days of our lives. Great to see you back Anthony!

I did some research about egisys - and what I find is quite amazing. I think that they have pulled he break before CL went out of rudder. Ok - egisys is financed by Tuebingen Seed Gmbh which seems to belong in majority to two Southgerman cities. Seed has founded six life sciences companies mainly as university spin-offs and they expect about 10 years until making profit or products. Who actually gave the risk money besides the cities is unknown. I will try to find out more....

...

I agree Grammer !!!But unfortunately Some people think they will be able to run MAC OS 8.6-9.2 And /or win 95 for the rest of their lives :-/ and software developers should spend resources creating last century programs forever for those die hards who want to remain stuck in the past. Its not realistic.

Mac OS 9? What about Windows 95. I'll never upgrade to that expensive OS (like Win 2000 or XP). Microsoft gets too much money already. I'd rather spend thousands of dollars on Poser stuff! If it won't run on Windows 95, it's no good.

Illusions, Are you thinking of HeathKit?

Windows 95 - This is exactly the problem that almost killed CL - developping for windows is developping for several operating systems not a single one, if they would be clever, they simply should restrict to one system and say that Poser does not support the others. This is how other companies do it. It is ridiculous (again) to assume that Poser will run on all windows versions without major changes. Look at the beta thread, no other company would have tried this. On our PCs with english Windows 2000 SR3 it was running without problems, but not on German SR 3 and English SR2 . This is hard, but this is life.

"If it won't run on Windows 95, it's no good." Tell that to all the Cg professionls running MAYA ON NT, win2K pro, and XP.

"The main focus of the team and the business, both at Curious Labs and Egisys, is now on Poser. We'll be focused on taking Poser forward, including improving Poser 5 Windows (yes, an SR3), Poser 5 Mac OSX, and Plug-ins for Poser 5." A very sensible move.

There really is someone up there looking out for all us poser addicts, I am really happy to read this latest piece of news from "Team CL" :)

"The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business." Isn't that Enron's last words? Also is CL going to make all responses with numbered lists? 1. Yes. 2. Yes-Sir-ee 3. Yes and yes.

The interesting thing is that Tom Peters is on record as saying that he couldn't work for an "Excelent" company... :) And let's not forget the Tru64 people either :P later jb

Hey CL, glad you are going to be around, got a suggestion- why don't you offer a 4+ version, based on Poser 4, not 5, with some little fixes that would be easy to do, like allow more than 255 folders in Poses, etc, maybe throw in a Raytrace or Firefly optional renderer and sell it for half the price of Poser 5 to newbees- then let them update to 5 later for the other half of the price. Sound like an idea? We really need some new blood.

I like your idea Jim. :)

Glad to hear something from CL, however tongue in cheek in may seems. "financially stable". I'll try this one with my banker next time I'm broke. On the positive side, I think it would be time for Poser to allow plug ins to be developped by third parties. It could become modular and you'd buy separates add-ons that would suit your work (I never do any animations for instance, but I'd invest a bag of bucks to get a really user-friendly interface or a cloth room working with no frames...) Just ideas. Compiler