My two cents on Stardock.............

In my opinion, Stardock's out of control on the Premium Dream pricing scheme. The real reason this site is hot is because of the free submissions made by aspiring artists who frequent this site like TheMasterBaron, AzDude and others who have really brought Stardock's Dream Site area all of the hype it has and have also saved Microsoft's butts. Stardock's Premium Dreams have had little impact on the overall success of Dreamscene's, if anything Stardock and Microsoft are riding the coattails of all of Stardock's free submitters. Also realize that if the free users stopped submitting, Stardock would be dead in the water on Dreamscenes. Stardock shouldn't have any premium Dreamscenes, they should be free contributions for all the hits and revenue their users produce. They can charge for Object Desktop, Windowsblinds and the rest of their 100+ other products they have for sale on their site. Just to add, my opinion on why Stardock is charging is because Microsoft made things much harder for Stardock with Vista. In the XP days, Stardock brought Vista-like interface changes to the table. In that era, Stardock cornered the market on GUI customization. Today, things aren't so rosy. Vista performs many of Stardock's Object Desktop features natively, leaving Stardock to find new ways to make money. Understand Stardock's days are numbered in the GUI customiztion business. As OS's get prettier with age like Vista and MacOS, Stardock's software can now be considered "bloatware" and a waste of precious RAM and processor time.

Also, isn't Stardock getting any Microsoft kickbacks being that Dreamscenes and Deskscapes/Dreammaker are collaborative efforts as they work into one another, I mean Stardock has bailed Microsoft out on what would have been a pathetic release with only 10+ dreams available from Microsoft when Stardock currently brought over 200 more Dreams to the table? Finally, if you purchase any of these Premium Dreams, you'll have to activate this product, a little overboard for a $10 wallpaper. Even better, if your system should fail and you are reinstalling Windows and you don't take backup images like a friend of mine who purchased one, then chances are your going to have to call/e-mail Stardock to reactivate your Premium Dream as this activation is paying attention to your SID's when activated to prevent piracy so a reinstall or sysprep would force reactivation, yuck! Saddest part, after the paying customer has all these hoops to jump through, I can guarantee crackers have already infiltrated the activation so in the end the guy paying the $10 feels like, um..........

Hopefully, Stardock's work in the GUI business will not be in vain, leading to a buyout or takeover by Microsoft being that your GUI enhancement's have influenced Vista greatly. In the end Stardock could take over the GUI development portion of the next Windows OS after Vista, which would buy Stardock more time in the game. Some may say it's crazy, but look at the Winternals acquisition. Winternals showed Microsoft how to use System Restore and make it work. They also introduced Microsoft as well as BartPE, UBCD and Reatogo to the bootable Windows environment, which changed the face of Vista as alot of Winternals ERCD's features are integrated into Vista's install DVD. Business constantly changes and evolves, eventually Stardock's position in the market will change drastically, hopefully for the better!!