Roman Ormandy from Caligari has sent out this email to the registered users of trueSpace. Microsoft (who bought up Caligari recently and made trueSpace available for free) has been cutting back their projects and trueSpace is feeling the knife. Roman has posted some tips about the imminent doom and is urging people to get all their goods while the goods-getting is... good. <_<

If you haven't taken advantage of getting trueSpace 7.6 and a ton of great video tutorials and other resources, you ought to step to it right away. It's not clear exactly what will happen or when, but it looks like things could shut down on various levels. I'd guess Roman wouldn't be putting this info out if he didn't think something big was in the pipe, but I'm spectaculating here.

I'd be sorry to see trueSpace die off mostly since I have a long history with it, but considering Microsoft almost let SoftImage die a while back, I'd say they have a < stellar record with this sort of thing.

Anyway, on with the announcement:
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Dear Caligari customer,

You may have heard that Microsoft Corporation, reacting to difficult business conditions, has been evaluating many of the products it produces and making the difficult decision to reduce investment in certain areas.

It is with regret that I have to tell you that trueSpace is one of the products affected. As a consequence, you will see reduction or elimination of services offered for trueSpace. For example, there will be no phone or email support offered for trueSpace by Microsoft, and our web site may also be affected. While the dates are not absolutely fixed, some services and contacts may come to an end as early as Friday May 22^nd 2009, while others will continue as long as possible with no firm cutoff date available yet.

While we are working to minimize negative impact for the community, here are some things you may want to plan for in near future:

1. For those who have purchased and paid for Caligari products, download a copy of all purchased software from the repeat downloads area.
   Please log in with your username and password at:
   http://cart1.caligari.com/ebuy2/enterdownloads.asp
   If you have forgotten either your user name or password, please visit:
   http://cart1.caligari.com/forms/memberform.asp

   Ensure you keep the copies and information in a safe place, as they may not be available for download again. Be sure you also have a copy of all required serial numbers, as there will be no support staff to assist you after a certain date.

2. For those who have downloaded trueSpace7.6 since it became free, if you do not already have a copy of the installer kept on your hard drive or on CD / DVD, you may wish to download the trueSpace7.6 installer and keep a copy in a safe place.
   Please log in with your username and password at:
   http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx
   If you have forgotten either your user name or password, please visit:
   http://cart1.caligari.com/forms/tsmemberform.asp

3. Download a copy of any training that you wish to keep from our main website.

4. Download any useful plug-ins you wish to keep from the forums.

5. Download any useful information, training, tips etc from the forums that you wish to keep.

6. Contact any Caligari staff or forum users who you wish to keep in touch with, and arrange to have an alternative email address to contact them.

   As a community you may decide to set up a new forum or meeting place. Please use the existing forums to announce the location of that new meeting space, and we will also strive to put that information onto our main website. I personally plan to visit any such meeting place to keep in touch with you and hear about your new plans.

All of us here in the Caligari team would like to thank everyone in our community for your long-standing support of trueSpace and Caligari. Our community – that is, all of you – were truly one of our best assets, and you have created incredible work, and we hope you will continue on to do even more amazing things.

I personally want to thank all of the Caligari staff for their amazing contribution to development of trueSpace and building of this community. During 25 years of trueSpace history the product made a difference in lives of many people and the world is a better place for it.

Roman Ormandy,
Caligari Founder