MetaCreations has announced that they have found a buyer for Poser, the last of their assets with any real tangible value. egi.sys, the German parent of Curious Labs, has agreed to buy Poser in a transaction due to be complete in May. The good news is that Curious Labs includes the original creator and product manager of Poser, Larry Weinberg and Steve Cooper, respectively.
egi.sys AG and MetaCreations Corporation (Nasdaq: MCRE) today announced that egi.sys AG has acquired and licensed industry-leading graphics software products and technology from MetaCreations.
egi.sys AG has purchased Poser®, the award-winning 3D-character animation and design tool for digital artists and animators, and Office AdvantageTM, a plug-in application for Windows® which runs right inside Microsoft® Office to create more compelling and professional PowerPoint® presentations and Excel charts. These applications complement egi.sys' current graphics offerings in the area of three-dimensional computer graphics.
Under egi.sys AG, Curious Labs, Inc. will develop, publish, market and distribute future versions of the Poser product. CEO Larry Weinberg, the creator of Poser, together with Steve Cooper, president, and Seath Ahrens, vice president of research and development, are co-founders of Curious Labs. Steve Cooper was the Poser product manager at MetaCreations and Seath Ahrens co-lead engineer. Curious Labs expects to hire additional marketing, sales, service and support professionals from MetaCreations, together with developers and engineers who have been associated with Poser to ensure the smooth transition and continued development of Poser.
"We are very excited to be working with egi.sys to establish Curious Labs as the new home of Poser," said Larry Weinberg, CEO at Curious Labs. "It is already clear that egi.sys shares in our vision of bringing affordable and compelling creative tools to people everywhere. With egi.sys' research, technology and distribution capabilities in Europe, and with almost all of the development and marketing team of Poser intact in the United States, we will be well positioned to continue to innovate and grow this proven product line that has already proven itself successful under MetaCreations."
MetaCreations will continue to handle customer service for Poser and Office Advantage until April 30, 2000, after which time egi.sys AG will provide full customer support. In addition, MetaCreations will provide technical support until May 19, 2000. egi.sys AG will handle technical support starting May 20, 2000. egi.sys AG has also agreed to honor support and upgrade privileges to registered owners of Poser 4 and Office Advantage, subject to proof of purchase and within applicable time limits.
MetaCreations, based in California, sold the professional graphics software to egi.sys following a decision announced last December to restructure its business and focus solely on e-commerce visualization solutions for the Web. MetaCreations' e-commerce visualization business is centered on the Company's industry-leading, patented MetaStreamTM technology, specifically for the streaming and display of interactive 3D virtual product presentation over the Web. While the company decided to divest its graphics applications, it has continued to develop and support new versions of the products.
Curious Labs has already information on Poser to their Web site.
