Sure, Hivewire could have done this or that better. It's easy for us, sitting in our living rooms, to criticize retrospectively. :D

Not having their sales information, and not knowing their business strategy, declaring Dawn a "failure" is a bit premature. Sure, you can say that the support from vendors in other MP's has pretty much vanished, but that's assuming the support was there in the first place. I don't think it was. From what I can tell, most vendor support was related directly to her release, not a commitment to continue that support.

In any case, Hivewire's main goal initially might have been simply to get enough dedicated core users that they could survive. 1000 people who spend $20 - $50 a month, every month, could be enough to keep a fledgling business going while more customers trickle in. If they succeeded in getting enough dedicated customers, then they weren't a failure and Dawn wasn't a failure. We simply don't know what their goals were, and as a result, it's unfair to judge.

They don't need everyone at the Rendo forums to be going wild over their products -- it's not like a forum post from an armchair business analyst is going to make an iota of difference to them. :D

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PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.