Announcing Smith Micro's Acquisition of e frontier's Graphics & Animation Business

e frontier is excited to announce an agreement with Smith Micro Software Inc., where Smith Micro will purchase e frontier's graphics and content business, as well as the e frontier and Content Paradise e-commerce operations.

Smith Micro has been e frontier's worldwide distribution partner for 4+ years, which is why you can now buy Poser®, Anime Studio™, Manga Studio® and Aquazone® at your favorite reseller, and not only direct from e frontier. This acquisition will help us grow our graphics product line and we’ll be able to accomplish even more than we have since the acquisition of Curious Labs in 2004. It will also consolidate Smith Micro's consumer channel under one roof.

As you know, Poser has become one of the best known software brands in the 3D realm. We graciously thank our worldwide community for that. The very first version of Poser helped fuel the beginning of the 3D computer graphics market. Following that legacy, the addition of Anime Studio and Manga Studio allowed us to offer more cutting edge tools for both aspiring and professional comic and 2D animation artists. We plan to continue building on that legacy as the graphics arm at Smith Micro.

The e frontier team will bring a great deal of value and diversity to Smith Micro. Smith Micro is committed to taking Poser, Poser Pro, Poser content, Anime Studio, Manga Studio, MotionArtist and Shade, as well as Smith’s own graphics products, Photo Animation Suite, Photo Morpher and Image Manager, to places we never could before. You'll see a lot more coming from us in the future.

Once again, thank you for you continued support as we look forward to 2008!

Yup, guess it's official.  I got the same letter.  Looks like Smith Micro has been a part of this all along with making sure the eFronteir products are available in physical stores.  Ah... OK, I think all will be well then and perhaps better if they are willing to sink more money into the line allowing for more improvements!    I noticed the way the lettter is laid out is different further down. I like it actually.  Easy to read. 

From what I understand, the poser staff at efrontier are optimistic  about Poser's future, as the new owner does intend to continue developing these products.

I've heard the same thing.. nothing but upbeat scuttlebutt...very good to hear!

I found the info in the newsletter very positive.

yes, just to agree with wheat, smith wouldn't have bought poser unless they intend to finish the P8 alpha, that the P8 paid beta might be released by xmas.

Hmmmm.......yes, good is good.

BTW - harboring reasonable misgivings, or being cautious about the situation is one thing in my book.  But loudly asserting that We're All Doomed! before we've seen so much as a hint of things working themselves out yet is another matter entirely.

Quote- "From what I understand, the poser staff at efrontier are optimistic  about Poser's future, as the new owner does intend to continue developing these products."

I don't think Anime Studio and Manga Studio are poser related programs are they? From my point of view I've never been able understand why Vue can't import into Poser, but Poser can be imported exported into Vue. Now they're going to make Poser Pro export into the high end apps. It goes to prove that this whole thing is about the CONTENT going someplace other than Poser. Now I wonder why that is? Why is everyone upbeat? If Poser is all that and bag of chips then everyone would want to be importing into Poser and leaving the other apps when in fact that doesn't seem to be the case. All you hear is people whining about Poser and how out dated it's becoming and let's ask ourselves this. How many companies are going to own Poser? The thing's been passed around alot in a short period of time and the program is suffering from it. It should be way beyond where it is now. You all stay upbeat though. I think it's bull****.

?

shrug

Why would I want to import Vue content into Poser ? Vue's render engine blows Posers into the weeds

I have no idea, where all this leads to. I just watch it from the shore. In the end there is need for a program that is able to handle Poser content. Poser can do that in the best way. Daz Studio and Carrara 6 try to handle it too, although with different success so far. Don't know of Vue's capabilities in this respect.

Anyway. Poser will live on as long as there is no full replacement for posing and morphing Poser content. E-Frontier did manage to develop Poser 6/7, so let's set some trust into Smith Micro. I doubt that Poser ever will become an A application, but it will have it's place at the beginning of some production lines...

Quote-"Why would I want to import Vue content into Poser ? Vue's render engine blows Posers into the weeds"

So I've heard! 

And I've love to see Poser even bugglingly attempt to import EcoSystems - yah, right! ;)

Quote- " E-Frontier did manage to develop Poser 6/7, so let's set some trust into Smith Micro. I doubt that Poser ever will become an A application, but it will have it's place at the beginning of some production lines..."

I don't think anyone has any choice about the new owner and the A app part, that's the problem isn't it?   

I think poser IS an A product.. for consumers. Vue6 I is an A product for professionals, and some consumers can afford it as well. Vue also costs a hell of a lot more then poser does, so I expect more from it as well.

I really don't want everything to be professional level A products with a high pricetag personally.

All of this sounds very familiar to me for some reason..........

:lol:

Well Gareee, I can understand that myself, we all have a budget in theory anyways. If you pay for a Poser upgrade every year to the next level of Poser then if they'd just wait an extra year or two you'd have saved enough money to buy a sweet app. However Poser 7 just came out not long ago and everybody is wondering about Poser 8 already and the release of PPro. I'd rather wait a few years and pay a little more for a sweet, smooth running and cool looking bug free app then upgrade every stinking year and wait for bug fixes that don't come until the next version is just about to hit the shelf. I don't know about everyone else.

Isn't P7 like a year and a half old already? I haven;t heard anything at ALL about poser 8 officially, and have only heard any murmurings about it in forums here.

If EF is still in developement on Poser 7 pro, then I'd think they would be working on P8 after that, so it'd be at least a few months away at best.

And droves of people are moving to DS, NOT because it does more, but because it's cheaper.. that has to be sending some kind of message to EF.

If EF released poser 8 with a ton of higher end features, but with a 600+ pricepoint, I think a ver small percentage of the current poser installed base would upgrade manily because of the cost.

I KNOW I wouldn't have bought P7 if it cost me over $500.

Poser's only real competitors at the lower end are DS, with a new engine, a interface some people prefer, but with quite a numbe of features lacking, and some still broken after many years in developement, and Quidam, which can;t use poser content, and while mildly interesting to many, still pretty far off as far as being any type of competitor.

Just liek there's a marketplace for Photoshop with all the bells n whistles, and there's a market for cheaper 2d graphics apps, that don't have the power house features photoshop has.

Quote- "And droves of people are moving to DS, NOT because it does more, but because it's cheaper.. that has to be sending some kind of message to EF."

The basic D/S is free, but start adding plug-ins and it doesn't stay that way long though alot of people find that they can live without the plug-ins and still pose and play with content.

Not to get back at Daz praising again because this ain't the point right now. We're talking about Poser and we can see that's almost impossible to do now without saying "it" (Daz). Moving on.

The thing is you mentioned not paying as much for Poser as you did Vue. You did pay for Vue and chances have it you'll do it again someday. The owners of Poser need to make the product worth it and desirable enough to entice you to buy it. How many people are still using Poser 4 pp or P5 raise your hands? Could it be because they didn't see a need to upgrade in many cases? 

All I know is that when something is HOT and it works goooood, people buy it. Funny, they find the funds.

Quote - Quote- "And droves of people are moving to DS, NOT because it does more, but because it's cheaper.. that has to be sending some kind of message to EF."

I dunno. I don't use a huge chunk of the plugins (I have them, but still...)

I do use it however because I can comfortably run the thing on a 7-year-old old Pentium III 866MHz - based Dell Inspiron 8000... without a hitch. Oh, and it's only got 512MB of RAM because that's all that the mobo can handle. You should see it scream along on a dual G5 Mac though... much mo' faster, and far more accurate. When/if I finally get off my butt and get a Core Duo rig built, I suspect that things will be operating far nicer still.

Now compare that with Poser 6 (not 7, which I don't have). I did, on the same crap laptop specs: P6 takes forever to load, and I'd wear the batteries out before so much as a simple-lighted one-figure Firefly render got done. Poser 4 loads somewhat closer to D|S in speed, but... it's freakin' Poser 4. It was made for those specs.

Okay - all that aside, the point is simple: I prefer D|S because it's as efficient as all get-out, even on low-end hardware. (Did I mention that the laptop has a crappy old 16MB GeForce2Go in it?) I'm sure other folks have very similar reasons.

Quote - The basic D/S is free, but start adding plug-ins and it doesn't stay that way long though alot of people find that they can live without the plug-ins and still pose and play with content.

True. Haven't bothered w/ dynamic hair since, err, roughly 3 months after P5 came out.

Maybe Poser can take a more modular approach? I don't think the codebase would hold up to it without being massively re-worked, but it's a proven idea, no?
 

Quote - The owners of Poser need to make the product worth it and desirable enough to entice you to buy it. How many people are still using Poser 4 pp or P5 raise your hands? Could it be because they didn't see a need to upgrade in many cases?

Me (raises hand partially...) Mostly because I find myself mobile more often than I used to be, it's parked on the HDD already, and once in awhile I like to beat up on groups and joints a bit.

Quote - All I know is that when something is HOT and it works goooood, people buy it. Funny, they find the funds.

At that point I usually prioritize what I spend the dough on.

/P

Quote- "At that point I usually prioritize what I spend the dough on."

That's a good strategy. I think the content is the driving force behind the Poser community and not the software itself anymore. Now that there is more choices the developers are going to have to consider competition and how Poser stacks up with the rest. I use Daz Studio, but it don't do bones. I don't know how Daz plans on tackling this problem. Are they going to do it like Face Shop or is it going to be part of Carrara and then will it be in standard or pro? Will it be a seperate app altogether or bundled with something else, expensive in other words? Then of course we can truthfully sit down and match potatos. Until then   

I told ya.. it get only better, I do not believe somebody buy a stuff that have not future, they have a good plan behind.. Poser seems like a virus, jumping from one to another company sucking all the budget to improve it self..and move forward lol and we can all get only better from..
Cath

Amiga

It could be a good idea to save the links to a couple of recent threads.  It might prove amusing to resurrect them again in a year or two.

Perhaps someone should go find one of those old Poser 5 threads.  The threads wherein we were all assured with absolute certitude that Poser was dead.  The difference being that in this current case the prognosticators are on the prowl before Poser Pro has even been released or seen by anyone.

I don't have the time to fool around with this at the moment.  But I do believe that the old Poser 5 threads would prove to be instructive reading for today.

"...and Lo! ...as the Kittys of Doom accompied the Pink Pony which was carrying Posers mortal remains to the place that shall be unspoken. 

The path was light by the massed burning torches of the Pitchfork Brigade, with the funeral dirges playing in their ears, half neeked Victorias awailing "oh woe is us, the skydome is falling in".  :)

Seriously it this takeover really that bad for us ? 
Has anyone actually considered this could be a good thing ?

A good thing?
So you must be one of those, "The glass is half full" guys, huh?

We will have none of that here thank you very much!

She isn't a one owner car anymore annnnd has over 300,000 miles. The brakes are shot, it uses a little oil(if you know what I mean) and the doors don't close right unless you pick up on 'em. Oh, I forgot the tires are getting bald you might want to replace those soon. Here's the keys Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith leaves the lot just as "Grease Lightning" comes on the radio.

We'll see.

Yes, we'll see what else can you do? I mean really???

Quote - Yes, we'll see what else can you do? I mean really???

Nothing.

Uh......other than hand-wringing in the forums.  :biggrin:

And, yes mrsparky -- a few of us are at least willing to entertain the possibility that this might turn out to the better.  I know that such thinking doesn't fit very well into the average forum thread --- it's a dissonant note among the otherwise standard in-harmony sour concert.

I'm sensing that you all are not picking up that my statement was made with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek...ie; a joke.

Quote - I'm sensing that you all are not picking up that my statement was made with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek...ie; a joke.

No.....I understood exactly what you meant.  Tongue in cheek and all. 

My own comments were an agreement.

I see that at least most of you are optimistic about Smith Micro's purchase, but just in case someone had some fears, allow me to allay them for you.  I emailed these guys because I had the same concerns (I hadn't read this subject here at the time).  This is what they told me:

"I apologize for the confusion and any concern this announcement may have caused. Smith Micro purchase of the Software included the transfer of full production staff and support staff for those software titles. Content Paradise is also included in the deal. Customers will experience few to no changes. The release of Poser 7 Pro is still slated for this winter and development of the other software continues. Products will continue to be added to the available products at Content Paradise.

As always, contact me if you have any additional questions or if you need additional assistance.

Thanks

John Csaky
Customer Support Staff"

I think those of us who had concerns can relax now. 

*quote - All of this sounds very familiar to me for some reason..........

... it's like deju vu all over again :)

• Rick

Honestly, do you think a new owner is going to come out and say gee everyone we're gonna be the worst owners yet? Of course not and in response to letters they're gonna try to tell everyone that things are going to be bussiness as ussual or better. Do you believe E Frontier sold Poser only because it was for the good of Poser and all it's graphical software? How about Curious Labs? Gee those are sure some swell guys. It's about making money and they sold because they thought it was a good idea for whatever reason that was. I don't know. I'm sure the new owners have plans otherwise they wouldn't have bought it. We'll see how long they keep it and we'll see where it goes from here. That takes time. Enough said right? We'll know better a year or two from now how good they are at it. As far as worry, I'm not losing any sleep are you? Don't! 

Replies to various posts:

Things could be worse; Poser might have been bought by Autodesk, and imagine how expensive that would be.

Poser 8 already? I'm not upgrading until I've learned 7. I'd still be working with 6 if it wasn't for the Talk Designer, and I had to wait until after the Limited Edition was no longer being sold before I could afford the upgrade.

I haven't heard a single poster on any of the Poser forums complaining about the software being outdated.

I'm hoping Micro isn't like Electronic Arts, which buys smaller game companies, and then dumps them a year or so later.

Not sure what their plans are, to be honest... even stripping all the buzz-talk and generic BS that any publicly-held company spews (they all do)... nothing really mentioned.

Unless/until SM comes in and mentions what exactly they intend to do w/ it, I figure they'll just run it as usual.

/P

I wasn't too happy about the direction e-frontier took with Poser, so I'm cautiously optimistic that a different company may have different ways of doing business.  What I've been upset about is the feud between e-frontier and Daz that has hurt, rather than helped the poser community.  I'd like to see an reconsiliation with support for Poser exports to Carrara again.  

I'd also like to see some new and innovative figures--to me the G2 people are homely creatures that no one really loves.  They have jt problems and the G2 men share the same body and just have different texture maps and heads.  

Most Poser users have been requesting an interface overhaul as well, perhaps this company will listen to what people really want.

I'm not overly optimistic about Pro Pack, but I'll wait and see what it turns into before I make a real judgement.

Not to turn this into a daz bashing thread but I also do not like the bad blood between Daz and poser it just wasn't good for the 3D community either. We can only hope for a new road ahead and that's all you can do fo now until things unfold.

I thoroughly agree with the both of you on those points.  Enough of this stupid feud!!   It's not doing any one any good in the long run so hopefully this new company will put that away and move forward with better relations with DAZ and vice versa!! 

Go Smith Micro, GO!!  :lol:

Heh - IMHO, that whole "bad blood" thing is overblown.

The bad blood died a long time ago, when CL got bought by EF. There may still be a person or two in the Poser team who may hold a grudge (I know who at least one may be), but otherwise things are much different now than they were in 2002/2003. Things have changed greatly since then... Poser is no longer the only kid on the block, nor is it even the big dog among hobbyists that it once was. They can't quite carry the attitude that they once did, and it showed even as far back as 2005. Sato also ran a tight ship, making sure that the clone posts and snide BS that (at least from one person in the Poser team) was being flung around had shut down, which helped cool things down greatly.

Nowadays, Poser needs DAZ as much as DAZ once needed Poser. The evidence lies in the massive popularity of Vicky, Aiko, and a shedload of DAZ products that dominate. OTOH, Poser is still the most-known name outside of our little industry, for that kind of app, among the 3D enthusiast (and even pro) crowd.

Poser has one hell of a challenge ahead of it. It has to remain relevant. It has to shed the cruft. It has to stop chasing little-used features (e.g. the Face Room) in favor of  agility and stability - which IMHO are not always mutually exclusive. Poser also has to keep an eye on interoperability and an increasingly cross-platform market. Poser Pro is likely a good start, but more has to be done. Some ideas I would posit are along these lines:

• overhaul the codebase for speed and efficiency. From what I've heard, Poser 7 does run better than 6, but there's a lot that can be done to improve even further: hyperthreading and multi-core/SMP awareness stand out in my mind... and not just for the renderer. Making it modular would likely help greatly as well.

• get some Linux love going. DAZ|Studio could take greater advantage of this than Poser (becuase D|S is free and can be distributed directly with a distro or with a package repository) . OTOH, Poser could benefit greatly from expanding its platform to add one that is arguably very popular with the 3D/CG industry.

• build an SDK and distribute it for cheap or free. No, not just "use python", but expose some classes - build a no-shit SDK that folks can build plugins for (for instance: if I had the time and inclination, the first thing I'd do with it is to ditch those crap magnets and build something like D-Form).

• bring the price down, or give it the same feature-set as Carrara. Otherwise, why the hell should I pay $200 (or so) for something I can get a much larger feature-set for in D|S + Carrara? To get the same major feature set, I'd have to buy Poser + Vue... now we're talking $400+ in initial outlays. Yuck. It's time to face pricing realities.

• get more aggressive with marketing. That goes for SM and DAZ.

Those are just a small number of things... but they would be a damned good start.

/P

Daz has their own software now and the best most popular content period. Once they achieve rigging and joints Poser better have something to stay in the game. They're competitors and both make software. It's too late. Cooperation will be limited and there is no sense in begging now it's too late. Keep up or get out of the way. :)

Believe it or not, cooperation is in the interest of both parties for now.

D|S is huge, but isn't big enough (yet) to self-sustain.

If Poser dies, Renderosity and RDNA will likely die with it, as both have banked heavily on Poser in one aspect or another. CP would compare to the Hindenberg, crash-wise.

DAZ doesn't need Rendo for forums (I sorta saw to that). DAZ does need Rendo however for those items that don't quite make the cut as a PA item, but are still nice to have (mostly because PoserPros is still nowhere near as large, traffic-wise). Rendo has largely thrown their lot in with Poser, and only recently have begun hedging their bets with D|S support... but if you want that, you go to DAZ' fora, where it's more commonly mentioned and more readily available.

Sites like PPros (a sorta division of DAZ), Renderotica, Animotions, and 3DC would still hold up okay, because they're largely agnostic as to what they do and do not feature, or have a good balance of what they do and do not feature.

/P

I agree on the faceroom being a waste of time...but tthat's just me. I would rather take my obj to Zbrush and do some damage there...but again, that just might be a perferential workflow thing.

I think it's in all's best interest (poser,daz, etc) to get along. Competition is good, but monopolies are not.
Again, jmo.

Poser isn't going to be abandoned. I said cooperation would be limited because of the reasons you just gave, it's in both of their interest. Let's face it Daz is and has been an agressive marketer and it has been aggressive at developing software. To a degree Daz got where it is today by climbing from the bottom and not the top. Poser has faithful followers that won't leave it. If anything though Daz Studio has filled a nitch in being free. It introduces newb's to 3DCG and it also serves as a marketing tool for Daz. As far as Content Paradise is concerned, they could and I think do use the same strategy by offering Poser 5 for free. It's far from being over and the idea of any monopoly is a far ways off. Both need to worry about a third party competitor in the long run. It's a highly competitive business all the way around 

Yes, I haven't really heard/seen anything about d/s to make me want to fire it up and see what it has.

To date I can usually get what I want from Vue, Max and/or Poser. Poser's render engine isn't the greatest, but with moderate prodding it can pull a decent enough pic off.

People want to make art (good or bad, doesn't matter). There is a lot of pre-made content out there and there is need for an application that can help in the process. For a long time Poser was almost the only application for a reasonable price, that solved the problem. Now we have D|S and with Carrara 6 and a constantly improving native importer, it becomes more and more an alternative.

Still a lot of contant is specially made for Poser and very easy to use with it. A lot of poeple use Poser at the beginning of their workflow. Firefly is a nice render engine, but it certainly has its limitation compared to other midranged application like Vue Esprit or Carrara.

Thus IMHO Poser should go the integration way. It will never be a full range application, but it has its strength in working with Poser content. Stability, Performance and a Plug-In system support is certainly an issue. An overhaul for the GUI is also most wanted. There is a market for Poser 8 and I'm really curious how it will look like.

That will depend on how much Smith Micro will invest in Poser.  I await the outcome with interest.

Smith Micro forked over big bucks for Poser, so I think it's safe to assume that they won't shelf it--unless they have some compete application that they want to introduce in it's place that is (but I doubt that since they kept the staff). Right now besides Daz Studio, the only other program specializing in human figures is Quidam, but their figures are more cartoonish and not as realistic.  Fine I'm sure if you're doing cartoon work, but no substitute for Poser--at least not at this stage.  I also feel it's terribly over priced for what it is.  Quidam content is extremely expensive, along the lines of Turbo Squid too.  It's not really aimed at the hobbiest market at this point.

What about iclone?

I'm not fvery amiliar with iclone, my impression was that it was primarily for creating interactive environments for web pages.

Interestingly enough, I got an email from them the other day and they of course were advertising iclone and also a content creator program that can be downloaded trial for free on cnet. I don't know how hard it is to make content for iclone but the models seem to be low poly and the content is bringing some money. Now granted it don't look as good as Poser does, but it claims to make animations easy. Basically what Poser and Daz do only with higher poly models and bettter textures that look a whole lot better, but if there is a hole or void for content provided for iclone then maybe somebody needs to make some. The characters look like avatars with good textures. Why not make Poser and D/S import and export iclone content and rig it? Of course market it here and there?