In my opinion, it is a BAD business decision to create a company that depends solely on the existence of another.

That really has more to do with the slow divergence of DAZ and EFrontier's interests. It's very dangerous, for a company like DAZ that sells models that work with Poser, to have to rely on what another company does with that program. If Poser hadn't found a new buyer a few years ago and been abandoned, DAZ would have been put out of business. Developing Studio was a way for DAZ to ensure their survival as a business that no longer wholly depended on Poser's future. Studio still isn't as feature rich as Poser and its development pace seems to have slowed down since it's initial version 1.0 release. Eventually, Studio will start having features that complement new DAZ figures. DAZ Studio already has a native feature, for V4 clothing, that requires a magnetize clothing workaround in Poser. That's probably just the tip of the iceberg for the two companies' diverging interests.

I wonder if DAZ and EFrontier had any significant discussions before Poser 7's release. If they did, there wasn't any public announcements about the results. DAZ hasn't made any official announcements regarding Poser 7, so there's little reason to think that there are any new features that they requested (if such requests were ever made). The fact that V4 incorporates Poser 6 nodes instead of Poser 7 sounds as if there wasn't a lot of cooperative communication between the two companies over the new Poser release.

There will probably eventually be a time, as Studio matures into real competition against Poser, when DAZ will have to do something to differentiate between the levels of compatibility their products have against the two programs. It's not likely that Poser support will be abandoned in the foreseeable future as long as Poser continues to be sold. Too many people use it. As Studio matures and incorporates new features to allow more realistic figures and rigging being developed by DAZ, there will someday be a more significant divergence between the two programs.

I don't think a gap between the two companies will be bad. As long as Poser is the dominant posing program, DAZ will always provide figures that work well in Poser. As DAZ continues adding features to Studio that allows for more realistic figure renders, there will be reasons to switch to Studio. If Studio starts doing some things significantly better than Poser, or gets features I want that Poser doesn't have, I'll make the switch. I'm always amazed when people get emotionally involved in software and techniques. I can understand the reluctance to learn all the nuances of a new program, but a lot of people develop an unreasonable emotional attachment that goes beyond a learning curve.

As 3D artists, we're mostly looking for similar things such as more realistic figures, easier and more realistic posing, hair and cloth that looks and moves realistically. Does it really matter whether DAZ figures and DAZ studio provide what we want or Poser 7 and EFrontier figures do it? Whichever company provides the best solution, the other company will likely have to follow suit to remain in business. If Poser remains on top, DAZ will continue providing models that work in Poser. If DAZ Studio/figures become the best solution, Poser will have to provide compatibility with those figures.

It's less a war than an evolution. As users, we'll hopefully be the winners. I wouldn't expect much of a symbiotic relation between the two companies because there doesn't seem to be much of that going on right now. Both will do what they must to remain viable in the future.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon