Quote - @ OOM, I think your remark was unnecessary, DAZ is working as hard as they can, if you don't have some sympathy don't reply!! I have been where DAZ is presently and I DON'T envy them the issues they have. I also believe that ssgbryan spoke out of line, he/she has nothing to back that statment up with. I am sure DAZ has more than two people working on all the issues.

ldgilman, I have a business relationship with DAZ.  I treat DAZ just like I do any other business that does dumb things.

The maximum effective range of an excuse is 0 meters.

DAZ is a business.  It isn't a person. (I'll believe a corporation is a person when the state of Texas starts executing them.)

The business of DAZ is making money, that is my backup (and my BSBA degree).  It isn't providing emotional support to artists.  The forum provides a reason to go & purchase DAZ products, and provide 1st line customer support.  Those things indirectly support the bottom line - they don't directly support it, therefore the forums will always be a lower priority.

Looking at it from a business perspective - the changeover has gone poorly.  It can be traced back to a number of decisions that were poorly thought out.

The old storefront had to go.  DAZ has been adament about that, because of the amount of manpower required to keep it going.  Going to a new storefront, in and of itself, is a very good idea.  The falldown came in the execution process.

1.  I can't comment on what criteria DAZ used to pick Magneto, I have no visibility on it.  A lot of people use it and are happy with it.

2.  The first bad decision was the decision to set the product up in-house, as opposed to contracting it out. 

Rule of thumb in business - if the task at hand isn't a core competency and you have no intention of doing enough to make it a core comptency - you contract it to to people that do have it as a core competency. Setting up a storefront isn't something that DAZ should be doing on a reoccuring basis.

In this case, had DAZ contracted the store setup to someone else, it would be up and operational right now.  Potential customers are seeing the little green alien, or worse, they are seeing that they are logged in, they are logged out, they are logged in and decide to go somewhere else.  Or they pay for something & they don't get it - If they don't know about 'rosity - where are they going to get information?  It appears that the contact emails are going into the bit-bucket.

3.  The decision to do the setup in-house was more than likely made on the idea that DAZ would save money.  Having the store down as long as has been is costing DAZ revenue.  In addition to the loss of revenue currently, they are going to lose more money because DAZ have already stated that they were going to provide some coupons to customers to make up the delayed store.  That is an unprogrammed financial loss.

Then there is the whole erosion of "goodwill". - All of the coupons in the world aren't going to change a perception that outside of content selling, DAZ doesn't seem to know what they are doing. 

The leadership of DAZ appears to be working under the impression that they have an infinite amount of goodwill with the customer base and that the customer base will follow them no matter what.  That isn't a good bet.  They are shedding long-term customers who have decided that (for whatever reason) that DS4 isn't their cup of tea (I don't have a problem with using it, assuming they ever figure out why it won't run on any 1,1 Mac Pro and finish the documentation - My time is valuable.).  And then there is the wholesale changes DAZ has made to the PC club, which now no longer makes financial sense for anyone that isn't using DS4.  Which is why I will probably be leaving the PC club after 7 years.

The truly scary part about this is that DAZ doesn't seem to learn from prior screw-ups.  Every one of the screwups from the last few years are covered in Business 101, as far as sales go.  With the software, every mistake they have made has a chapter devoted to in in "The Mythical Man-Month" by Dr. Brooks - DAZ_Rand has claimed that the CTO has the book - I do wonder if he has ever read it.

None of this is personal - I don't have a personal relationship with DAZ - it is simple observation.