This isn't something that can be reduced to a single sound-bite.

Genesis 3 facial bones don't work in Poser, so I wouldn't look to it ever working in Poser - It's only a loss if you need a fat chick. Poser is a bit further up the 3d chain than DS is. And once Daz implements content encryption (as they have been talking about), I don't see DS moving out of it's niche (although I suspect that is why they are now pushing the Morphs3d website. They are following Poser's lead into 3d game content).

There have been chicken littles proclaiming the death of Poser since I got my first copy over 11 years ago. The people hollering it usually have an agenda. If it was dying, we wouldn't be getting new versions every 24 months or so.

The markets and the business models for the two programs are different - most people in these and other forums have a hard time grasping this simple fact.

DAZ's business model is built around selling you figures and content.

SM's business model for Poser is selling you the toolset, so that you can leverage the content you already own or desire, rather than replace your content - that is why we have things like the fitting room, the cloth room, etc. Poser enables you to add new features to your legacy content (like weight-mapping) rather than requiring you to dump your products and buy new ones. As Poser users, we don't have to go out & buy a new wardrobe everytime a new figure comes out (other than shoes - shoes are still problematic).

The best example/comparison I can give is with the render engines built into each program. With DS & genesis 7, you get to buy Iray shaders for almost everything (at $17.95 a pop). With Poser, anyone has the ability to extend the program to add that capability for free (or pay) - rather than dumping a couple hundred dollars into Iray shaders, we can simply download EZSkin 3 and quickly convert all of our current shaders to work with Poser's new render engine, Superfly (which is based on the Cycles render engine in Blender). What works better for you? For me, it is all about value for the dollar.

There has been grumblings over V4 content for some time. Vendors work under the If I make it, they will buy it along with I only make what I am personally interested in.
What we are having trouble getting vendors to understand is that:

A. It is no longer October 2007. You can not expect to see the sales for a brand new figure to equal V4 out of the gate. V4 at the time, was a major advance over V3 & Sydney. The market has fragmented and the added capabilities in Poser have changed buying decisions for customers.

B. The V4 market has been saturated for quite some time. What does your hookerware bring to the table that the last 144 outfits didnt'? They don't like that question.

C. With the release of Wardrobe Wizard (and later Xdresser, and now the Fitting Room), clothing has been decoupled from figures. This is a major game changer that vendors have yet to acknowledge. I have dozens of outfits for V4 that have never gone on V4. When a new figure comes out, I don't have to go out & buy content for it (other than shoes). I have run my V4 clothing runtime (60+GB) through the fitting room and it is available for any figure I choose.

So what does this last point mean? If a vendor wants to sell me an outfit - it has to be better (or different) than anything I already own, for any figure I already own. I was not surprised that vendors are having a tough sell for figures not named Victoria 4. Those of us who are using them can quickly leverage our legacy content, so that new product needs to be higher quality to convince us to buy it. That takes time (and work).

Vendors have made it quite clear over the past few years that their production pipeline is based on how quickly they can get a product out the door, not how well the product is made. I actually had a vendor tell me they didn't have the time to learn the features of Poser 9 - while making their first product for Dawn, a character that can only be used in Poser 9 or later. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader how many products I would purchase from that particular vendor.