This is a great question. My wife reminded me of how some companies buy competitors' companies just to demote their quality. (As a saxophonist, I know that Selmer bought, for example, Beuscher to keep them from competing with their saxophones [and other horns.] After the purchase of the company, Beuscher's output was then reduced to only student quality instruments.) Other times, the idea is only to entirely sandbag perceived competition. But it's also possible that Brainworx severely underestimated the effort and/or money that would have been involved to fully undertake maintaining the PPG line. Perhaps, the software was just as idiosyncratic internally as it was represented externally (I'm not a coder, so this is purely conjectural.) Against this, however, it appeared that Mr. Palm would have been happy to remain in at least a part-time consultant role.pdxindy wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 10:08 pmAlso, why buy it? I would assume Brainworx had some plan for the software besides sticking it in a vault where nobody could use it.dlandis wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 6:26 am So, it would appear that when buying a new machine, there is no way to reinstall (?), since the server is very obviously down. I'm not sure why Wolfgang Palm left us no permanent way to authorize the software, except that he presumably was genuinely convinced that Brainworx was going to continue his legacy (and was going to pick-up the customer service for pre-existing customers.) This, of course, didn't happen.
There are, at least, a couple of scenarios that do not betray a nefarious intent on the part of Brainworx. These, of course, do nothing to eliminate the frustration the customer feels when an otherwise useful piece of software is rendered useless.
