Good Morning, 

There's some news that I wanted to make you aware of. Smith Micro has acquired all of the e frontier America products. Excluding the products from Japan such as Motion Artist and Shade. All in all we're excited about this and more info can be found at www.poserpro.net/blog/poser_pro/

Steve Yatson
V. P. of Marketing
e frontier America

e frontier America

Wow.  

Please be gentle with us non-professional hobby users of Poser.

:blink:

Now this is interesting. As far as I know, Smith Micro is also heavily involved in Linux based solutions - maybe a Linux version of Poser is a viable prospect now?

As Tim Allen would say, 'AHHHHUHHHH?"

Ah... err... uh...

So...? :blink:

(I'm a poor lonesome european and I NEVER heard anything about Smith Micro)

A new owner every year?

Reading the Smith Micro announcement, I think the Aquazone product's potential  seems to be of key strategic interest, more so than Poser.   EFrontier collected 6 million dollars in cash.

ok that was out of the blue...

and smith is not a graphics company until now?

Quote - ok that was out of the blue...

and smith is not a graphics company until now?

Seems to be the corporate direction these days an example is the Crysler corp being bought by an entity that had nothing to do with car manyfacturing up until now. To be honest I've never heard of SmithMicro software until this thread.

clsteve, get back in here and talk to us, dude

We have invested , nay, sunk in, a lot of money, time, effort and goodwill,  in buying and using Poser,  and the products that work with it.

Smith Who?

sclsteve I hope this is good for you guys. I wish you guys the best.

So, when/if I get the next version of Poser I will have yet another company folder on my C drive, to go with Metacreations, Curious Labs and E-Frontier. I feel like a collector:)

E-Frontier likely will have nothing more to say. They are already out of the whole thing.

Perhaps Smith will come and talk away some of the sick feeling in my belly right now. I remain in hope....

[self serving post] I hope this increases the chance of a Ubuntu Linux version of Poser. XD [/self serving post] Edit to add.

Quote - So, when/if I get the next version of Poser I will have yet another company folder on my C drive, to go with Metacreations, Curious Labs and E-Frontier. I feel like a collector:)

You could add "Fractal" to the front of that list. LOL

C:
   Program files
                           Metacreations
                           Curious Labs
                           eFrontier
                           Smith Micro
                           Guess What

:lol:

Well ain't that the shit...

Quote - Now this is interesting. As far as I know, Smith Micro is also heavily involved in Linux based solutions - maybe a Linux version of Poser is a viable prospect now?

Heh - maybe, maybe not. I ain't holding my breath anymore until somebody in Poser's codemonkey department stops weaseling about it whenever I mention the words "Linux" and "Poser" in the same sentence. (Meanwhile, somebody posted a neat little patch that will let me put a legit copy of Leopard OSX on a PC without doing the hokey-pokey or a goat sacrifice first - it's what I've been waiting for, for a very long time.) /P

Hmmm, I don't see any mention of what will happen to the development staff (as meaningful as it would be anyway).  That's rather ominous.

OH NO! NOT AGAIN! If this happens again I'm going to switch to Daz Studio even though I can't use it.

11/15/07

Steve Yatson
V. P. of Marketing
e frontier America

Well, a million questions spring to mind along with feelings of trepidation. These will do for now.

Will you be continuing with the product line, or staying with E-F? What will happen to the Poser development team?

What Web-site will now handle support for Poser users (tutorials, updates, news, downloads, etc.)? When will that transition be made? The only thing at their web-site now is the news of this purchase: http://www.mkr-group.com/SMSI/corporate.html

What will be the relationship of the Poser product line, and content line, with Content Paradise?

Is Poser Pro still scheduled for release, and will there be a side-grade at a reduced price? In other words, do the established users go along with this deal?

Does SmithMicro (SMSI) already have a strategy to develop the Poser/Graphics assets (a plan of where to go from here), or is that the next thing on their agenda?

Will someone from SMSI take the time to communicate with us (here or at http://www.poserpro.net )?

LMK

:blink:

The good news is it was not bought out by Corel. :biggrin:

11/15/07

There is no hint of any of this at the E-F website, and the forum at Content Paradise has a thread with plenty of questions, but no answers or new information yet.

LMK

Whoa!! 

There's always Studio folks!!    Hey, no throwing fruit and vegies, I'm hungry!!  DAZ in many eyes evil and blah blah blah but at least they don't get sold out ever year or so.  Sheesh, this is getting a bit concerning! I guess all we can hope for is a bright new direction and continued support for one of this industries most supported and most enduring applications. 

Have to say... didn't see that one coming!! 

Quote - The good news is it was not bought out by Corel. :biggrin:

Or Microsoft. :lol:

I've nothing against DAZ Studio, I just don't get along with it very well - and it doesn't do many of the things I need.

I have my fingers crossed and hope that this will work out well for Poser. I do wonder what will happen with the related assets. I would like to see the Miki 2, TY2 and G2 figures continued. 

....I can't help but attempt to quell the mild heart-attack I feel coming on.....While I'm a user of both Poser and DAZ|Studio, I see a, at least my own, need for Poser to be owned by...well, by a company that knows what the hell they're doing.  Smith Micro, in the short amount of time (today) that i've known about them, read their website on what they're all about, etc...well, they're not instilling ANY confidence in me.  This feels like it might be a shove-off.  I hope and pray that I'm wrong.

Interesting! Not sure what that really means to us as hobbiest.

I did see something at the blog that struck me.

Quote - We're excited to be part of Smith Micro and as they grow, so will Poser. We feel that we bring a great deal of value and diversity to the company. We're confident that we'll have the resources and direction to take Poser to places we never could before. Thanks again for your support through many dark times, it's wonderful to finally see the light.

Steve talks about now finally having the resources to take poser to places they never could before (due to financial costs?).  Could it be that e-frontier will still be doing the development of the software under the umbrella of  this Smith Micro company?

All I know is that I hope a bunch of people aren't suddenly finding themselves out of work :(

Attached Link: http://www.smithmicro.com/

I'm a little surprised that it happened now because E Frontier sunk a lot of money into PoserPro and the site says it's poised to be released this Winter. That means E Frontier doesn't get the influx of money from selling the 64 bit version of Poser. I'd have expected that a sale wouldn't go through till after they had a chance to recoup some of their investment in the new version.

There's no mention of ContentParadise, but I'd imagine that it would go with Poser to SmithMicro.

Quote - The good news is it was not bought out by Corel. :biggrin:

Amen to that! Sorry I had to get some sleep after that post. As I said on the blog I think it's a good thing. The dev team and most of the others are staying with the products. Smith is a large public company. It feels like MetaCreations was in some ways, so I'm happy about that believe it or not. We did have a lot of resources in those days and that's always a good thing. The bottom line in most of these things is that the people make the technology to a great extent. It's extremely difficult to pick up a product and start with a new team. My point is is that the Poser team probably could have put the kaibash on this deal if none of us wanted it to happen. Smith is a solid company and as I said on the blog, we bring a lot of value and we diversify their portfolio so it's great for them also. 
Poser will continue, for the better. Poser Pro is coming and the next version of Poser (7) will also. CP will go with Poser, and you'll see some major changes to it and the e f site. Again I believe for the better. Porbably not right away though.

take care

Hmmmm.  Very suspicious or auspicous timing.  The supposed release of Poser 7 Pro should be within the next five weeks - if the proposed release window is to be maintained.  And the holiday (big spend season) is upon us.

SmithMicro develops, among other things, StuffIt which is the MacOS counterpart to WinZip - but not zip files.  I don't quite see any connection here between file compression, fax, cell, WebDNA, QuickLink, etc. and Poser.  At least with e-frontier, it was a 3D CG application company taking on a 3D CG application.

Hey, you guys can buy me out for a cool million! :thumbupboth:

*My point is is that the Poser team probably could have put the kaibash

hey! what did I do?? stop hitting me! aarrggghhhhhhh*

hmm  it seems to deal in a lot of communications ie. phone software....does this mean we will be able to render from our cell phones in the future ?:biggrin:

This is quite a surprise!
But Smith Micro makes alot of quality stuff already, so I'm going to wait and see what they come up with.

http://www.allume.com/win/index.html

Quote - The good news is it was not bought out by Corel.

Watching it get bought out by DAZ would've been funny, though.

/P

Next year: Autodesk buys Smith Micro? :lol:

It's the people, not the company, that ultimately makes the technology.

True, but it's the management that makes the decisions.

/P

A free copy of Aquazone with some nice reef fishies would make me feel better about this news. LOL.

I love the aquazone fishies! It's popular with the chicks.

Quote - > Quote - The good news is it was not bought out by Corel.

Watching it get bought out by DAZ would've been funny, though.

/P

I guess it could happen. Eventually. Maybe.

I think I'd be happier if Corel had bought it, at least then there'd be a chance of someone who might actually want to develop it getting their hands on it (Daz3d) at some point in the future.
You know how you get a gut instinct about things? how you can tell straight away whether you like a person/something or not? well I'm getting a sinking feeling looking at Smith Micro, I mean look at the list of software they have for sale, all developed by OTHER people & sold to Smith Micro.

Who owns Renderosity btw? Maybe it could buy Poser next year

they apparently thought poser was good enough to buy, assuming this isn't an hoax. the poser market is large enuff now that they wouldn't buy it in order to bury it in favour of a competing product, ala microsoft. it also explains the delay in the release of version 8. I'm optimistic, as new owners of poser have always got new coders to fix the stuff that wasn't properly implemented in the previous version.

I hope that the acquisition leads to some new and exiting developments with Poser and related products :)

Quote - I hope that the acquisition leads to some new and exiting developments with Poser and related products :)

Amen to that

I'm hesitantly optimistic about Poser and Smith Micro. Now, I'd like to know what's going to happen to the products from Japan (Shade, Motion Artist, etc). I've been trying to transition into using Shade, since I believe that it's a good idea to be familiar with all the leading products, and I integrate Motion Artist a lot in my web design. Are these products going away, is someone else purchasing them, or will e frontier be continuing to develop them? I was also considering getting the Amapi upgrade. Should I bother, or is this going away?

Quote - OH NO! NOT AGAIN! If this happens again I'm going to switch to Daz Studio even though I can't use it.

LOL, I'm with you on that one, I guess it's time to re-install D|S and become more familiar with it.

I'm hoping EON(Vue) will be able to maintain a good working relationship with Smith Micro as they did with EF ie..SDK procurement etc etc.  As those are my 2 main apps.

I love aquazone fishes. Couple guys here in the office have it as a screensaver. When they leave for lunch and the screensaver kicks in, it sounds like someone left a faucet on or a running toilet :lol:
Throws me for a loop every time i hear it.  My office shares a wall with a restroom, I worry about a flood ;)