Ah!  Insider Knowledge!

I've got an uncle who spoke to a friend of a friend of a guy who works for a large Wall Street firm.  He's got some hot stock tips that he'll sell you for the right price.  :sneaky:

I hope they do something good with that, we wanna better software don't we ? and that cost money.. it seems like a good movement..
and the last thing i would care about is a new Program Files folder, come on... that is funny lol

Cath

Quote - I hope they do something good with that, we wanna better software don't we ? and that cost money.. it seems like a good movement..
and the last thing i would care about is a new Program Files folder, come on... that is funny lol

Cath

:laugh:

Agreed.

Quote - I love aquazone fishes. Couple guys here in the office have it as a screensaver. When they leave for lunch and the screensaver kicks in, it sounds like someone left a faucet on or a running toilet :lol:
Throws me for a loop every time i hear it.  My office shares a wall with a restroom, I worry about a flood ;)

and we all know how much kittie kats love water!!  :lol:

as a Poser user since #1, I'm a bit skeptical myself. I never bought P7..heard too many bad things, and I'm still not sure how it stacks up overall, so right now I wish I would have invested more of my cash into the D|S add ons when they were on sale recently.

Hopefully this Smith place isn;t just a company trying to make some quick bucks for its shareholders.

I was in a company that was purchased by a similar company...they raped my company ...squeezed as much blood out as possible, then dumped it.

Quote - Sold for six million dolloars. That would buy you 12 homes in California.

I don't know what area you hail from but I'm in Silicon Valley, trust me 6 million dollars would not buy 6 homes, much less 12 in this area!!  :lol:

Quote - Peng if Daz brought out a fully working Linux version I'd switch in a second, Poser is about the only thing that keeps me using Windows these days.

Now see, that would be very very cool.  A graphics company getting into the whole OS thing and customizing it beyond our wildest imaginations to run all of our favorite apps, tablets and other needed tools with updated versions of WINE or PARALLELS (iirc there is a version of Parallels for LInux as well as for MAC).  I know that Corel tried their hand at the OS thing years ago but they just didn't put enough umph into it and back then it was still more of a geeks paradise and really, imho, not ready for prime time yet.  

Does this mean the setup room will finally be fixed???

*as a Poser user since #1, I'm a bit skeptical myself. I never bought P7..heard too many bad things, and I'm still not sure how it stacks up overall, so right now I wish I would have invested more of my cash into the D|S add ons when they were on sale recently.

I'm starting to think the same.......

Quote - That only leads to one conclusion, E-Frontier wasn't doing to well at all.

Err, so what? Even if Sato Hisself came onto the fora and began begging for money outright, you can't attribute eF's troubles to Poser, or Shade, or ...? It would require a hell of a lot more in-depth knowledge that you would posess on-hand, unless you're eF's CFO or something.

Quote - At any rate, compared to D/S, Poser has been selling peanuts...

Can't compete with free - at least not for what most folks use Poser for, anyway.

Quote - ...and I really think regular Poser has seen it's best days and perhaps it's last days.

That I wouldn't be so sure about. It depends a lot on what gets done with it. I won't say that D|S didn't take a big ol' bite out of Poser's selling strength; it sure as Hell has, and will likely continue to erode Poser's marketshare. But I wouldn't be so quick to call the junk dealer to come and carry off Poser, either - at least not yet. Maybe in a year, perhaps two, depending on what gets done with it. But not quite yet.

Quote - The sudden coming of Poser 7 Pro to all of this and the desire to move away from the hobby market into the mainstream of 3D makes sense now also.

IMHO, I suspect that Poser Pro was more of a natural attempt to try and expand its market; to try and find other sub-markets, where D|S, Carrara, Vue, Bryce, and other hobbyist apps wouldn't already be there and waiting. The arrival of COLLADA sort of topped it all off - but I gotta give 'em props for at least trying in that direction. I don't see it as any sort of desperate 'oh shit we're doomed! ' move.

/P

11/15/07

Well, this has been an unexpectedly eventful day. Interesting times indeed. As usual the Poser Community demonstrates its immense reserve of imagination and restive creativity by producing four pages of speculation here at Renderosity three pages at Content Paradise forums, and several messages at RDNA, all from the very little bit of information that we presently have. I checked, but the prophesied mega-celebration of Poser’s demise has not started yet over at DAZ3D, where there is no mention of SMSI at all.

Anxiety is understandable. Anyone who has been around computers/software for a few decades has seen great products disappear literally overnight. One day a company is promising development, features, support, and a bright future, and the next day their web-page is off-line, and an answering machine tells everyone that the product line is closed out. There is absolutely no consolation in the axiom, "It’s not personal, it’s just business."

The Poser development team has been around for a while and has probably seen about every business model that one could imagine. If they, and most of the American E-F and CP staff, are staying on with SMSI, it sounds as if they like what they have seen in this deal. At the end of the day, they still have their jobs, and are speculating about great features planned for Poser 8. I hope it stays that way.

If the developers are still working to get Poser Pro out, it does not sound like Poser is already languishing in the garbage can somewhere. Maybe an established base of 500,000 users, a product line aimed at both small and large users, and a multi-billion dollar market in CG that still has potential for growth, proved attractive to a company looking to invest some money.

In acquiring Content Paradise, SMSI now has a real e-marketplace, and a very large stock of content and applications to sell, and not just the few applications that appear on some obscure Internet page. They also have partnerships with a number of content developers and other businesses. It will be interesting to see how their business model alters to handle these realities.

All things considered, clsteve has been very forthcoming with details. I see he’s been to a few blogs around today. Thanks for what you can tell us Steve. By the way, have we managed to perplex the folks at SMSI or have they even noticed us yet? Have they ever before seen anything like the Poser-verse? I would love to be able to watch the faces of some of the execs at SMSI reading this forum thread and I would love to hear the questions they would ask you.

LMK

http://www.poserpro.net

Oh yes we are......all doomed, that is.  I know it because I read it in a forum.  And believe me: they know what they are talking about........they never guess or speculate (blowin' smoke) about anything.

Well, I've been using posing since its first release and except for version 4 and poserpack I bought (yes, bought not free from a magazine) every upgrade. And every two upgrades have  been sold by a different company.  To the regular poser-user this sold-out can go in three directions:

1. Poser goes on the shelf, which is a bad thing, also for the developers. But I don't think that's going to happen or otherwise why did they pay 6 million dollar for it. But perhaps they have to whitewash some black money (so not very likely)
2. Poser  is going to be a mayor product, suitable for making the most advanced animations and movie trails. This would be great for the developers but it's gonna cost the user five times the price they have to pay now for it, in this case 80% of the current users will jump off the train and a small amount of professional users wil acquire it. So I think this will also mean a certain death.
   I don't know any figures, but I estimate  the hobbyist market is about ten times or more bigger than the professional market, and I know a lot of professionals who wouldn't be found death with Poser on their computer; just take a look a the CG and other so-called professional Fora.
3. Poser is going the way as it always has been,  a product for the common man, like Paintshop pro is, compaired with Photoshop. Perhaps they (smith micro  or whatever) will also made proline the same way as Vue does, and a lighter version for the hobbyist. But getting profit everywhere they can: common users and professionals.

For myself I go for scenario 3, but I'm an optimist, and the fact of being a pessimist: You'll never get dissapointed, but optimist have more fun in their lifes. And otherwise we still have DAZ-studio

regards and good evening,

Bopperthijs

Quote - Not that easy to calculate, IMHO. Here's why:

• Wanna lay odds on how many users got their copy of Poser from the 'BitTorrent/eMule Superstore'?

• I'm willing to further bet that 500k isn't specifically the # of license keys sold, but --in their own words-- "users" (and sounds a lot like how many folks that Rendo and CP counts among their respective memberships sorta-semi-combined).

• Also, you shouldn't forget how many got Poser as a legit freebie - out of 3D World Magazine, as a big ferinstance. Poser Artist went for $99 for at least, what - four years now?

• Oh, and let us not forget bulk licensing. Not enough to seriously affect the numbers overall (if they're truly sales), but enough to take notice of.

--

Now as a counterbalance (of sorts) we do have... well, all of us schmucks in here who bought more than one version.

Given all of that, I'm less inclined to think that Smith Micro took EF to the cleaners or anything...
/P

Well, I'm not disputing their numbers - just calculating with them. ;)  Remember that many users have invested in a particular full version and then upgraded over the years.  For me, that means about $1500 (Windows and MacOS) from Poser 4 to Poser 7.  I'm certain that I'm not alone here - <><><>. ;P

One would certainly hope that they are not including illegal copies!  I don't in my register user counts and they would be 'cooking the books' if they were.  As far as I am aware, the ONLY version of Poser EVER given away for free and full use was Poser 5 for a limited time - I could be wrong though. :)

One reason why I chose $200 is as a sort of medium price.  Come 'on, most versions of Poser normally sell for $299 or more (depending upon the outlet).  Does whoever happens to own Poser at the moment actually have bulk licensing sales?

Even to be fair and cut that in half, that'd still be $2.5-5 million/year.  The quoted 2007 income from the other poster seems to indicate that this calculation isn't as bad as your refutation! ;D

Nonetheless, I will be emailing SmithCorp every 5 minutes to make Poser a plugin for major 3D apps: Maya, 3DSMax, XSI, Vue, er, Cinema 4D.  :P

There is a big disadvantage of writing long and winding stories, inbetween 20 people has replied as well, I sure have to learn to type faster! :crying: :crying:

well, a good evening anyway.

Bopper

"Poser  is going to be a major product, suitable for making the most advanced animations and movie trailers. This would be great for the developers but it's gonna cost the user five times the price they have to pay now for it, in this case 80% of the current users will jump off the train and a small amount of professional users wil acquire it. So I think this will also mean a certain death. I don't know any figures, but I estimate  the hobbyist market is about ten times or more bigger than the professional market, and I know a lot of professionals who wouldn't be found death with Poser on their computer; just take a look a the CG and other so-called professional Fora."

While the consumer market may be far smaller, the pro market has cash to burn. Soem studios think nothing of buying 25 licenses, and work stations, and some even more.

So IF (and I highly doubt it, but IF) poser's market went pro supporting high end apps, the retial price doubled, and the consumer base completely vanished, Poser could STILL make for MORE money in the pro marketplace rather then the consumer marketplace.

Some people balk at buying any content at all.. some balk at even buying a few measly plugins for DS which they got for free. To a pro company with a dealine, and a 30,000 contract on a commercial job, buying 30 poser licenses, and a few hundered bucks worth of content is peanuts.

Left on ASDF, Right on JKL:, thumbs on Space.  About 60 WPM - much less when coding though.  They don't teach you 'Typing for programming' in high school. :)

When I was on high school, PC's weren't even invented, and typing was something for girls.( sorry ladies)

regards,
Bopper.

Quote - They didn't announce their leaving publicly, but on a personal level only. I can ony respect that, so I'm not going to give names. If you knew those who resigned a while back you've gotten a personal call or email from them.

[...]

Quote - Btw... I don't make my conclusion from a forum, but from their emails.

@aeilkema: So you cannot support your claim statement in any verifiable way.

Therefore, there is no way of independently verifying your claims.

Sadly, that devalues your statement to the point of insignificance.

(This is not meant to be a flame. But when you get about a dozen spam mails a day of people who claim to have some stock market insider info - which was mailed to them on the QT, of course - you get very suspicious of people who claim to be in the know and who clam up as soon as they are asked for details.)

It's just......nothing short of awe-inspiring to read through some of the mighty speculation going on.  Pure speculation presented as if it were solid fact.

I'd rather buy a used car from my neighborhood Smilin' Jack gravel-lot car dealer than I would buy into some of the unmitigated guesswork that's on display.  Un-be-lievable.

:ohmy:

*   Quote: "Also CP will be part of the deal and will continue on."

*Speculation and rumour of the outcome of Poser itself aside, THIS is the part which REALLY concerns me at the moment.

I for one hope they manage to get someone to re-program that wretched site so that I don't have to book a two-week vacation to have enough time to shop there - I've never know such a sloooooooooooooow, unreliable and badly coded [professional] store....

Quote - It's just......nothing short of awe-inspiring to read through some of the mighty speculation going on.  Pure speculation presented as if it were solid fact.

Not from this keyboard you won't... Guesses is as good as it gets for the unknowable parts (like how many sales eF got, where Poser is headed for certain, etc), unless someone from SM shows up and starts talkling (or can we call 'em "S&M" yet? I call dibs on that perjorative, just in case I ever need it).

Some of 'em are educated guesses based --mostly-- on what I've seen from the inside of the industry. The rest of 'em are just plain old everyday guesses.

The funny part is, I'm not refuting anyone entirely... because they're all guesses.

/P

Oh Well, I'm not surprised. I will see what happens. I would be happy with a stable P7 for now and I will have to wait and see what Pro will be like.

Extra folders will be no biggie. I only have 2 now. All my runtimes are in one folder, p4/5/6 except P7's. Nothing compaired to Daz's take over of my computwers folders. A couple of three in programs, a couple of three in MY Documents, Not to mention that figure crap on the desktop that,s 2 for on figure and I have a feeling it;s going to be that way for every one of Daz's figures from now on.

As for CP, maybe it will be for the good. Clean house and get some useful people working on it besides RC LOL. It gets tiring to read the same excuses, " it, your fault as a user that the rigging is poorly set up,  only people who use PS are worthy of our time"  and so on, I've seen some pretty crazy responses from the staff there. A good re-programming of the site as well.

This may be a good thing.

Quote: *Some people balk at buying any content at all.. some balk at even buying a few measly plugins for DS which they got for free. To a pro company with a dealine, and a 30,000 contract on a commercial job, buying 30 poser licenses, and a few hundered bucks worth of content is peanuts.

*I'm afraid you'll have redo your  calculations: The average (estimated) profit on a contract is about 10%,so on a $30,000,- contract about  $3000,-. 30 Poser licenses will cost you about $7500,- , perhaps $6800,- with discount.( and with Poser-pro that will be twice that amount)  If you have 30 people working on this project (for which you bought those 30 licenses) you are left with about $ 23,200- With a average price of $50,-fee an hour, you can let all those people work for less than 16 hours.  Subtract the amount of time you'll need for preparation, dividing the work, meetings, drinking coffee, looking at you-tube, empty your spam-folder, reading the  morningpaper. etc.etc. you're left with about 10 hours for every employee of which 16 hours or more are spent to learn everyone how poser works.  So you are in trouble. Agreed, you have 30 poser licenses, but your next client wants a Maya product and you only have 15 legal 3Dstudio licenses, 8 trial Cinema4D-downloads,some cracked Lightwave-warez and ofcourse 30 Poser-licenses. So to stay on target: No company will buy 30 Poser licenses for a $30,000.- contract, even a $300,000.- contract will be doubtfull. Only if you have a company with 30 Poser-addicts who have been spending 5 years of their life to learn poser, you have a reasonable change to make some profit.
So the moral of this is: Poser isn't for profit, Poser is for fun.

Regards,

Bopperthijs

Quote - When I was on high school, PC's weren't even invented, and typing was something for girls.( sorry ladies)

regards,
Bopper.

I took typing (electric typewriter) in high school to expediate creation of term papers and such.   Transfered nicely to computers later on.  Computers back then were only available in the 'Special Ed' classes.  Isn't that hilarious!?  The people considered 'in need of special attention to learn' had computers whereas the rest of us had IBM commercials. :D

@Xenophonz: I admire your optimism Robert and I guess taking a 'wait and see' attitude towards this is all that's left for us to do but I can't help help but think there is more than a grain of truth to aeilkema's analysis of Poser's decline.

My own worries about Poser's future began when Daz decided to unhitch their wagon from Poser's star with the release of D|S. Whatever it's shortcomings you can't beat the price and I couldn't see EF really beating it either. With Daz's release of Carrara 6 there is already a 'high end' Poser-like solution that will negate any success that may have been achieved with Poser Pro. So it looks like EF is losing the game from both ends.

There did seem to be a ray of hope with EF's ownership of Poser because at least Poser found a home with a company that did have a nice array of other graphics apps. I don't know if the same thing can be said about Smith Micro.

Hopefully everything will turn out for the best but this move is disconcerting.

• Rick

Pengy,

Having read many of your 'guesses' over the years, I have to say they're usually a lot more accurate than some other people's 'facts' - lol.

Despite having stopped buying poser after P6, and switching over almost completely to daz studio, I'd still be very sorry to see anything drastic happen to it. When I first heard DS was coming out, I was strongly in favor of it, before I even saw it, simply because up until then,  poser had had a monopoly on the market. Competition is (almost )always good.

So, by the same token, I'd hate to see poser go and for DS to be left with no competitor. Whether you use poser or not doesn't matter. If it goes under, it'll affect us all.

However, I'm not prophesying doom & gloom, at least not without more facts. I've used poser for 10 years, seen it sold and resold, and it's always managed to keep going. It's no fun, but at least poser's still around and continuing to be developed. Pity no one has the time, money, resources and sheer guts to tackle the core and maybe drag it into the 21st century, but as I always say, you can't have cake and a desert too.

I wish the new owners good luck and hope they realise that this community will appreciate the personal touch. I'd love to see the day come when they take the time to interact a little bit with us and keep us informed of progress. And, (dare I say it?) even listen to the users!

Hmmm.... maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

mac

Quote - > Quote - I love the aquazone fishies! It's popular with the chicks.

 

Excuse me while I install AquaZone!

Mike

Squee!!  Fishies!!  :biggrin:

Smith Micro is making alot of money. (169 % profit for 2006 alone). 
And it seems like they gotton be be so profitable by focusing on providing the average consumer with well-made, reasonably priced goods. 

If we are accepting guesses, here's mine. I think they are planning a commitment to Poser.
Check down the page,the last 2 on the job posting for sales,  a Senior Account Manager and an Account Manager to help with an "exciting new product launch".

http://www.smithmicro.com/default.tpl?group=subcontent&id1=6&id2=207

I think I like my rumor best :)

:biggrin:

Not holding my breath for Poser's future. 

When it happens, it'll happen, whatever - great transformation or nasty crah-and-burn.

If it's going to stink, I'd just hate being collateral damage, after spending so much time and effort and MONEY on the darn thing.

Quote - Not from this keyboard you won't... Guesses is as good as it gets for the unknowable parts (like how many sales eF got, where Poser is headed for certain, etc), unless someone from SM shows up and starts talkling (or can we call 'em "S&M" yet? I call dibs on that perjorative, just in case I ever need it).

Some of 'em are educated guesses based --mostly-- on what I've seen from the inside of the industry. The rest of 'em are just plain old everyday guesses.

The funny part is, I'm not refuting anyone entirely... because they're all guesses.

/P

Sounds reasonable.  So we agree........insofar as to say that at this point in time your guess is as good as mine.  :mellow:

They're not going to kill off Poser!  Poser will always be there for the hobbyist!   What I would like to see though is Poser Pro turned into a plug in for the high end 3d apps maybe Photoshop CS3 as well.

Quote - @Xenophonz: I admire your optimism Robert and I guess taking a 'wait and see' attitude towards this is all that's left for us to do but I can't help help but think there is more than a grain of truth to aeilkema's analysis of Poser's decline.

My own worries about Poser's future began when Daz decided to unhitch their wagon from Poser's star with the release of D|S. Whatever it's shortcomings you can't beat the price and I couldn't see EF really beating it either. With Daz's release of Carrara 6 there is already a 'high end' Poser-like solution that will negate any success that may have been achieved with Poser Pro. So it looks like EF is losing the game from both ends.

There did seem to be a ray of hope with EF's ownership of Poser because at least Poser found a home with a company that did have a nice array of other graphics apps. I don't know if the same thing can be said about Smith Micro.

Hopefully everything will turn out for the best but this move is disconcerting.

• Rick

We'll see Rick, we'll see.  I already have C6Pro, so my bets are well hedged.  But I'm not betting against Poser.  Not now.  I've seen nothing to justify some of the predictions in this thread -- based upon nothing but rumor and......words.  If things change in a negative direction next year -- then so be it.  But I'm not expecting that to happen.

I'll give up on Poser when it gives up on us.  Not when a new version is just about to hit the shelves.

It's just possible that Steve's optimistic estimation of Smith Micro's ownership is justified -- and that Steve is giving us the straight story.  And Steve is more of an insider than some others, even if they have spoken to someone (Perhaps a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind?  Could be.).  So -- while it's wise not to buy anyone's story totally at face value -- I'll take the companies' word for it until the situation proves otherwise.  In the meantime: I'm not going to base my own actions on the speculations of others.  I'll still be buying Poser Pro.

Now that Poser headquarters is going to be only 5 miles from my house... I wonder if they'll be hiring... Especially if, as ailkema says, lot of people had left ;)
I'm sure they can use a know-it-all like me somewhere :lol:

Apply for the job, Connie!  Perhaps then you'll be able to come in here and post announcements like this one!

Ahhhhh......fun, fun! 

Conniekat, they are advertising for alot of postions on their website.

Yeah!  Connie, go for it!

I have been negative so far in my comments about the new owners.  Now let me share my hopes for Poser going forward:

Looking at SM's existing strengths and domain, poser looks all poised to become a distributed computing app.   So perhaps I shall be able to use Poser from any pc anywhere in the world, with either a broadband mobile connection, or an installed high-speed cable connection.

I could be possibly looking at :

• Network rendering on a scale never before imaginable;
• Access to Poser and to content stored on remote network storage, on a pay-per-use or subscription fee;
• Collaborative scene creation on a scale never before imaginable;

what else, what else....

I could apply for, um, a director of product development.
I are an enheeneer, just not a software enheeeneer.  It'd be a longshot.
However, a plus is, I'm pretty good at telling everyone what to do :tt2:  :lol:

If the new housing market keeps diving any more, I may have to look for another job for real.

*".....working with the Director of Marketing in assessing market requirements and resource availability; setting up and maintaining a fiscal year budget for each product; leading the QA department to obtain feedback on the quality of the developed software; managing product release activities. Developing on Mac OS X, Windows in C++, Python; and utilizing UML Visual Modeling, and Rational Unified Process...."

I know just enough about all of the above to be dangerous, which should make me perfect fit the leadership position :lol:
I are a director of data visualization right now, where I work.

But if I did that, I'd lose all my friends here, and Poser would no longer be a hobby, and I would have to be really serous and careful about what I say...  I'd hafta act uppity and respectable...

And I'd fight with all the financial people about not letting out buggy releases just because they need to meet the budget etc etc...... Business as usual. They'd end up hating me.

And... I really like it where I work now!

[Edit] and I'd have to spellcheck before I post ... hmph

And I'd fight with all the financial people about not letting out buggy releases just because they need to meet the budget etc etc...... 
 I'm sure once you popped out the claws they would see things your way.

*what else, what else....

*How about instancing?

Yeah?
Well, what have you got to lose?
Maybe they'll offer something interesting, give you your own catbox and everything.

Quote - Yeah?
Well, what have you got to lose?
Maybe they'll offer something interesting, give you your own catbox and everything.

They might give you free catnip, too!    Maybe even a tinkle ball!

A tinkle ball?!
Now that's just crazy talk, man.

:biggrin:

Is tinkleball some sort of a litterbox aid?

Yeah, you place it outside the box...that way you have an excuse for not actually going potty/poo inside the box (though I see little paw prints inside the box!)

Maybe if we make a litterbox with an inner and outer rim... so when the little kitty bum sticks over the edge, the tinkle ball still falls inside box!
Hows' that for thinking inside-oustide-inside the box.

(Gawd, someone shush me up today, I'm all silly and hyper... what was this thread about?)

Xeno, see what you started! 
We were being all serious and and rrrrespectable and you had to say........ tinkleball!

A 'tinkle ball' was a term used in the movie Stewart Little -- a movie which my nieces insisted on watching.  It was a plastic ball with bells inside, so that it "tinkled".