e-frontier acquired Poser at version 5.  They did some upgrades with Poser 6, but nothing extravagant.  With version 7, they are bearing fangs and ripping deep into Poser's flesh to modernize ths now archaic beast.  Kudos to them!

Content is content - you either hate it or you love it.  I don't care either way - I just have to support it (long story).   The main concern is modernizing the application.  And e-frontier seems to be genuinely engaged in this process.  Mulitple undos alone shows their conviction!

Now, it is possible that there are two roads for Poser at this stage (either or both are possible).  e-frontier may decide to ramp up the possibilities with a new version that is 'state-of-the-art'.  This would probably cost more like $800 new and have modern features (that is, they'll optimize the code for performance and update other areas beyond what they are accomplishing now).  They could also keep updating the basic version while keeping the price low.  And they may diverge these two into separate versions (a basic and Pro versions, for instance).

Personally, I think that a divergence is a superb solution.  Keep the hobbyists happy with a basic version without all of the 'power optimizations and features' and lure in a new group (and those from the existing group) with a power version that lets Poser not just pretend to be an application - but makes it one of reckoning.  Despite my entanglements related to Poser, I have no qualms with this approach whatsoever.

Let's hope that the Japanese owners are reading this. :)

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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