Good comment, Big Cheese KarmaGirl!

I think this is one smart and natural move for Stardock, and I am very pleased with the choice of skinners involved so far. I have already bought the Argos, Texas & Fortune suites and for quality work like that, I am more than willing to pay for skins like that in the future to support Stardock & the skinners.

While I admire Brad's entrepreneurial spirit. After checking the site, my stomach became a bit queezy. Initially it appeared you are/were targeting the commercial market but, it seems you are also targeting the consumer market as well? Could this be why some of the questions haven't been answered regarding desktopgadgets.com? I've been working on a Slot Machine gadget for sometime and have been considering desktopgadgets as the potential marketing avenue; so, when I saw the Texas Hold Em Suite for $8.95 you could imagine my concern. Obviously, who's going to pay $5 or $6 bucks for a gadget when they can get an entire suite for practically the same price? Also, after the significant wait for placement is an updated suite or new suite going to appear containing similar gadgets to those developed by independent developers? Is the inside team going to get newer development versions ahead of the market? Just a lot of questions, concerns, and worries. The reason I bought DesktopX Developer Edition was for the eventual creation of gadgets that could earn me a little cash.

The primary purpose of Stardock Design is to create content for corporate customers not consumers. It does create content for Stardock to sell to consumers (like premium suites) but 95% of its efforts are on corporate work.  The FSU suite is the first of many many such examples of companies, universities, sports teams, OEMs etc. that want to provide a custom-branded experience to their users.

Stardock Design is totally unrelated from WinCustomize.com. It's like Pixtudio or Skinplant and such but taken to the next level (in fact, Stardock Design involves the skinners from both).  As it grows, we'll tap more and more people from the community (RomanDA comes to mind on gadgets). 

Thanks for clarifying that Brad.

After reviewing some of the further response & thinking a little more. Obviously Stardock is not going to hurt a potential source of talent that continues to renew itself as more people become interested in skinning.

The trickle-down effect from corporate skinning definitely looks exceptional considering the number of people who will experience something never experienced before. Then look towards varying levels of customization for home use. Exciting Times.

WOW

I say about time this happened. This is what I hoped would happend a couple of years ago. I guess there is a time for everything. I hope it works out for the best. I think it will.

This is simply a logical progression for a company so heavily involved in the GUI mod 'game'.  Probably the only mildly surprising thing is that it's been so long in the coming, though I trust it's a contemporaneous decision with the imminent release of a quite new OS [Vista].

Every time a new commercial entity emerged from within the skinning community [in particular Pixtudio and The Skins Factory] there has been voices of trepidation "the sky is falling". etc. when infact this very commercialism gives validation and shows mainstream acceptance of what was/is a 'young' industry/artform.

The first 'official' skin TSF did for a film company....or the first WB theme Pixtudio did for Nintendo, etc....they simply demonstrated a 'coming of age' of the craft.

This is ALL GOOD, and should never be seen as a negative as it ultimately benefits all, skinners and users alike...

the future is looking brighter...nice move Stardock

Can I get A response???? I send e-mail to support and it is rejected, fes up with your corporate a**
what has happened to Sound Packager????? Can everyone see that there has been no response to this question for months!!!!!!!!!!!! I have tried all avenues of communications, I have purchased your products, can I have some response to my question???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Contrary to popular belief, Stardock is not an unlimited fountain of resources and people. They are a small company, and as a result, must direct resources to what they feel is most important. As stated on several occasions, the current focus is the re-vamp of WinCustomize for the coming year. I would suggest emailing support@stardock.com again with your question about SoundPackager, making an attempt to use proper grammar and punctuation. There is much less chance of getting filtered out as spam that way.

(By the way... the developer of SoundPackager is also the dev for SkinStudio, and I suspect he's pretty busy with the ongoing development of WindowBlinds Vista... patience! )

D.B.S. no promises were made to you for any app. Your interest in the app is noted, but unless you and a thousand of your friends start clamoring for sound packager Stardock will use it's own experience and judgment on deciding where to spend it's resources.

Posts like yours only make you look like a crackpot. We should all endeavor to avoid such situations.

Patience.

its a good good news that commercial skinning is gaining grounds...good luck to Stardock design!

I hope Stardock Design get as big as Dreamworks or maybe as big as Microsoft, because I have a feeling they will produce packages that us community users actually want or need. Stardock need a lot of praise for the work they have done over the past few years and this little off-shoot will keep them going even longer (we hope!).
P.S. Hurry up with WindowBlinds Vista because I'm missing Windowblinds terribly but not XP!

Kind of sad, IMHO, as I'm sure more and more creators will be lured to the profit side with less and less quality material available for free.

I dunno, I kinda feel these guys deserve it. I wonder what they get for donations?

I don't think the community has lost anything. We are gaining visability.

A LOT of visibility. You folks have done a darn awesome job, and I feel its about time you get more recognized. I'm certain many of you have had oppertunities offered from say, Microsoft to work in their GUI developement team. Well freaking done.

Call me "Mr. Glass half-empty", but it just doesn't seem to make much sense for a Texas Hold'em suite (poker theme) to have a BLACKJACK gadget.Maybe it's just me???

I'm with you on this one...its a "flop"

I was wondering about Stardock Design. Now I get it. As I understand, it's mostly to attract corporations looking to brand the consumer's desktop. It's good business for them (advertising, profits), good business for Stardock, and good for the consumer who will buy anything with their favorite brand on it. Makes enough sense to me. Great opportunity for the really talented developers/designers in the community.

No problems with this at all. In fact, it sounds exciting. Yeah, I'll pay a few bucks to get a Premium Suite . . . notice the word "Premium." That's what you get. We all want things for free but we don't realize how much it takes to get something running . . . manpower, time, etc. These guys deserve compensation in every way. And, IMO, their prices are pretty good. Keep up the good work, guys!

I was wondering about Stardock Design. Now I get it. As I understand, it's mostly to attract corporations looking to brand the consumer's desktop. It's good business for them (advertising, profits), good business for Stardock, and good for the consumer who will buy anything with their favorite brand on it. Makes enough sense to me. Great opportunity for the really talented developers/designers in the community.

Precisely. Regular skins can't (legally) do things like sports team skins, university skins, corporate branded skin.  I know, for instance, I'd love to have a Pepsi or Coke skin but it's murky on the legality of that thing without the company's blessing.

With Stardock Design, the company gets to get a branded desktop made and the consumer gets to customize their desktop with their favorite team, brand, etc.  I.e. it's win-win.