I can proudly say that I have been with Poser from the very beginning.  In fact I was one of the first people to post on the first official Poser forum (Remember the PFO with Willow and Ian?)
Back then it was our little secret, mostly a toy, but also something very unique that finally gave artists the ability to create 3D human forms.  (Back then they were barely human forms) LOL

And as we saw our little program grow and improve over the years, we watched our little secret software become more and more popular....just look at this place and you can see that for yourself.

Poser has changed hands a few times over the years until it finally ended up under the "Smith-Micro" banner.  I'm sure this decision was largely based on financial concerns.  And we have seen Poser go from a home-grown piece of software to a program that is just one of many in a large stable of programs that SM has to offer.

There are a few things that turn me off about Smith-Micro (and I'll make my apologies later), the first thing is their website, it looks so....corporate.  Like you are looking at a website for Home Depot or Priceline.  It's very cold and un-artistic looking, the exact opposite of say Renderosity or Daz.

And then if you want to find Poser, you have to search out amongst the many other products, some not even graphics software, to find it.

When all this really hit home for me was during the recent contest for Poser Pro 2010.  The announcement was made that the top 30? videos (I can't remember the correct number right now) will win the latest version of Poser Pro.   Well up until the very last day there were only like 12 entrees, and I don't think the final count of contestants topped 30.  I was wondering "What Happened?  Where is everyone?   I was going to post a message here asking why more people are not entering, but damn if I was going to spoil my chances of winning!  ;-)

But the point is, I know there should have been a lot more of you that would have entered if you knew about it or could find it on the website.  I think the rules for the contest were hidden two pages deep into the site.  I had to bookmark it so I could find it again easily.  So that's when I got the feeling that our favorite little 3D rendering program has gotten swallowed up and lost in the vastness that is Smith-Micro....and to add to the confusion, Content Paradise is kind of a sister site (I really don't know any of the behind the scenes stuff about this) where both sites have totally branched away from Daz 3D, the makers of our favorite human meshes.

So we have Poser being lost in the shuffle AND divorcing itself from the main models that most customers use with it!

So I apologize to Smith-Micro, I know that you are probably far from the giant greedy corporate machine I make you out to be, but in the perfect world our beloved Poser would have probably done much better for itself if it was taken over by DAZ 3D - That would have been a marriage made in heaven and I think both consumers and it's creators would have benefited much better.

Well that's my 2 cents,  I just wanted to vent my emotions and concerns for my favorite piece of software that has become so much a part of my life.   And for awhile I was just using Daz Studio, but I've decided to come back to Poser for now...  Sorry,  I strayed.