I seem to remember speaking of the inevitable end SU as we knew it back when they were purchased.
It's probably rare for a buyout to ever bode well for any given piece of software.
I worry that Thea Render's days are actually numbered.

I agree - resist the cloud at all costs! (But what do you do when M$ and Apple design their platforms for eventual conformity?)

My mainstay meat-and-potatoes programs Photoshop and CorelDRAW have both gone the way of the cloud.
Their corporations claim that this move is to both progress with modern tech as well as curtail piracy, though anyone with a brain can see that their design is to protect your wallet from too much (of their) cash.
Instead of paying $800 for an app and getting a good 5 years out of it OR until you feel the need really warrants upgrading, now you pay $40 a month, which is not only $2,400 after the said five years but really, $$ a month forever no matter how long the investment was really paid and done fore.

The other major drawback is the fact that you must be connected online to access your app or operate parts of it... this can actually get pretty bad.
Here in the small town I work in, our Comcast internet quite often fails and is often "being worked on" for hours at a time on random days - which means no phone or internet for us at our inconvenience.
Not their fault but is a result from the bad combination of rural remoteness combined with the after effects of unavoidable post-hurricane damage issues.

Don't get me started with Thea, I had to nicely ask them via email for some kind of weird code file to install my licensed copy at home on my particular system (where there was no internet.)

Maybe its just the times and everyone will eventually be forced to follow suit.
Anyone catch Microsoft's plans to get to a point where only "authorized/certified" app versions of any software would be the only ones allowed to work on their planned (Android-esc) OS?
Say good bye to trusty old custom .exe's and vintage apps running natively.

I still use Corel X6 (An Install Version!) as well as a non-cloud CS2 and CS5 versions of Photoshop, but sooner or later, my next PC and 'modern' OS will not play nice with them. Since I'll need AI as well I'll have to kiss off $120 at least, every month (after some realistic value point) just for the privilege (of what?).


I know less about these things than it sounds like I do, but I do gather that Michael has a certain sense of kinship if you will and a ton of personal capital in MoI ever to allow it not to be the 'friendly' program, it helps that the fact that Rhino is such a juggernaut staple tends to inadvertently protect MoI in its 'shadow' from being picked off so easy by corporate vultures, if I'm correct in saying.