Quote - It seems very likely to me that you've never participated in a large scale software rollout.  "Many, many" companies simply do not operate that way.  They either develop and software with existing staff, which means that staff is fully utilized while this goes on, or they hire short term labor for the development effort and fire them when done.  The latter is more common for isolated development efforts, but this is a moderate extension of Poser 7, so it'd be madness to use outside staff for that.  Possibly to supplement existing staff, but even then there'd be training time required.  Producing commercial software is not something you do on a casual basis, it's full time work.

 

That's all well and good -- but it's pretty much irrelevant to what we're talking about.  You seem to be operating under the assumption that the release of a new software package automatically means the denegration of service on other existing software packages which are produced by the same company.  That's like saying that the release of a new version of Lightwave instantly equates to Newtek neglecting support to it's VT[4] customers.  Or that the release of a new version of Microsoft Office instantly means less corporate support for Windows.

Whether the work is contracted out or done entirely in-house -- while it might be critical to internal corporate function -- it is rather meaningless from the viewpoint of end users.  The only thing that the end users see is the final product itself.  Not how many programmers were required to get the software finished.......and whether or not those programmers were in-sourced or out-sourced.  Those types of issues are matters which I'm sure that the management at e-frontier has well in hand.

It's not a zero-sum game.  The addition of a new thing doesn't mean the corresponding loss of something to someone else.  As you yourself have indicated: they can always hire more staff, or out-source, if needed.

The issue that'll matter to an end-user is whether or not they are receiving support for their product (P7).  And once again: I submit that several SR's for P7 being rolled out at the same time that "Poser Pro" (if that's what they'll call it) was clearly under development is a strong indication that e-frontier has by no means 'abandoned' their P7 user base.  If anything, I submit that they are going strong in developing their product(s) -- and their market share.  Which is all good, in my book.

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