Now that's some GREAT news! I hope we can see some good (new) stuff from now on

XP as a dead technology has some advantages. For one thing hacking into the OS to create effects wont upset any service packs or upgrades into the future. I would not be surprised if some bright spark comes up with something like Compiz. XP might become the hobbyist OS.

Its important you make cutting edge technology, keeps the punters happy and brings new blood into skinning.

Two separate packages for two OS could be a good way to go.

I wonder if they will really abandon WPF. I worked for a company that used WPF for a client front-end and it was pretty solid. Some people within the company wanted to use AIR instead, but AIR seems like such a resource hog.

Look at it this way Brad: Yes, your user base is heavily invested in XP. Because your skinning products are held back by your commitment to XP support, these products fail to wow Aero/whatever users. If you want non-XP users, you'll have to take the leap and produce a cutting-edge product. So, in other words, XP support leads to skinning products that are hard to market to non-XP users, and leaves you with lots of XP users. By moving on, you will lose those XP users but you will gain new customers and hopefully a lot of good press for doing something new and exciting.

Takes a big man to admit something like that...

and an even bigger man to eat that man

Glad to hear it Brad, I will be keeping up with what your doing as u move on this.

Cheers.

Glad to have you on this side of the fence for a while!!

Coool.. cant wait to see whats in store..

XP still represents a huge portion of the market share, so I would continue supporting it.  It's never going to generate long term growth, but can be a nice cash cow in the interim.

There's probably a whole bunch of regular skinners out there who didn't even know Frogboy didn't 'just' run Stardock and provide the 'skinnables', but also skinned [skun] like the rest of us.

Back when it ALL was a hobby [other than the CEO-ing, of course]....when skinning was everyone's "diversion".

Lately I've been getting 'back' to it....though this time delving into the GUI 'interface' of an aeroplane in a Flight Sim..... loads of coding and trial-and-error.... and getting all anal over every last pixel....

And this means ? Anything getting better regarding the desastrous state of Object Desktop ? Or is this just another of Your countless 'Oh, I will do something.' threads again ? Sorry Brad, but You have lost my personal trust over the last 1-2 years completely...

Stalking Piper Cubs and Airliners. Shame on you.

Glad you're getting back to skinning, Brad. I hope that'll bode well for the software.

I like c242 and understand where he's coming from, but you return here and despite unhappiness from the past, don't lose hope for the future, mate.

I had a longer post but it kicked me out and I had to log back in, wtf.

is this just another silverlight push?

right or wrong, I equate silverlight with flash. Idisable flash so why would I think silverlight is a good thing?

Good to hear Brad!

DrJBHL : Believe me, I would be so glad if at least this one happened.

i for one am looking forward to you creating new skins. welcome back, brad.