Corel had the chance to buy Poser when Metacreations sold off their 3D apps but they declined. Since then, it has been owned by two graphics oriented companies, egiSys and eFrontier. Neither of them kept it. I agree that the whole soft-warehouse feel of SM isn't what one would necessarily prefer, but if they hang onto it and continue development, that in itself will be a welcome change.

I keep expecting that the entire 3D people ala Poser thing will explode any day now but I suspect that if it does, it will be more in gaming, avatars, MMORPGs etc. The Daz Gizmodo alliance may be telling in that regard. No one other than Daz and the open source MakeHuman seems to be inclined toward the low to mid-range character rendering and animation area. That's good in the sense of less competition but to survive, Poser needs a stable company with a commitment to it's future. If that means it has to share space with fishy screensavers and ageing compression packages, then such is life. At some point though, if they want to appeal to a larger (and especially a more professional) market, Poser needs its own identity separate and apart from the Ginsu knives and the Pocket Fisherman.
 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken