Do i hope PB can recover? YES.
I hope they can recover, too. I had great hopes that they would, and was very positive about it until Jim had his accident. Then it was clear that PB Inc. had not learned a lesson from the death of Bob, and the entire company was still solely resting on the shoulders of one man, so much so, that even products that are ordered can't be stuck in an envelope and mailed out, without Jim there.
It is NOT hard to put CDs in an envelope, address the envelope, put stamps on it and hand it to the mailman when he next delivers mail to the office. Filling an order is a fundamental part of a business, and the most important part if you intend to stay in business. To see PB struggling with such a basic thing is not reassuring. Orders need to be moved out of house, since PB Inc. can no longer handle them. There are several legitimate online services that will process orders for software, and even handle sending out a CD if a customer orders a CD. There are also online services that can handle the printed manual and send those out when a customer orders them. This would free up PB staff from these mundane tasks and let PB Inc. solely concentrate on working on the compilers. There is no shame in saying you can't do it anymore and need help.
Even if there are not going to be any further improvements on the compilers, this would allow PB Inc. to still sell the products to those who want them and ensure that customers are getting what they paid for, and in turn they can shut down the office and just collect the payments from the online companies. The forums could be moved to a professional forum hosting service and community members would continue to provide peer support, just as they do now.
If PB Inc. is ending, it does NOT have to end badly.
I still hope they can dig themselves out of this hole, and I truly would like to see the products survive and live on and grow. They just need to quit putting all of their eggs in one basket and quit depending solely on one person to carry the entire load. When you do this, it only takes one snowbird in Florida to change the course of your company's direction, or even grind it to a halt. Hopefully they have learned this lesson with what happened with Jim.
I can't say that I've ever been around a company who needed their user community more, but who seems to communicate with their users less.
It is bewildering. Now, more than ever is the time for honesty and transparency if they want to regain the trust that has been lost and the customers that have left.
The company makes rather the impression that they operate their own sell-out. No new printed manuals, low price starter releases, zero communication, uncertain sporadic service, and a growing rumour mill, that's the present state. Is this really necessary?
They are definitely competing against themselves with the lower price versions. It would be different if they were crippled products, but they are not, and are full-fledged old versions. Usually a competitor is the person who tries to undercut you, you don't try to undercut yourself. As to the manuals, if anybody actually has a PB 10 manual and does not need it and wants to sell it, please drop me a PM.
