Dear Ira Thank you for all you have done in developing and maintaining an excellent program. Thank you, too, for your willing support to the user community. Having tossed in my old day job and started my own company a year back I can empathise with your need to put the hobby to one side. Best wishes for your changes. David Voss New Zealand On 12 Aug 2005 at 18:05, Ira J Lund wrote: > Dear CFT Users, > > As many of you long time users realize I have done a lot less work on CFT > the past 18 months than I used to do. There was a time when I worked on the > program regularly and issued updates every 2-3 months. I started Cumberland > Family Software in 1991 so it has been 14 years since I have been in > business. However, as some of you may know shareware is usually not the > same as a regular business. For me it has been more of a hobby as the small > company has never generated enough income to be a real business, basically > only giving me some extra spending money. When PAF came became FREE several > years ago, my business dropped off quite a bit and has never recovered. Most > genealogy shareware programs last only a few years as most programmers who > enter the market soon get disappointed at the meager returns. I have stayed > on because I use CFT myself (just under 60,000 names in my database) and > have had a very high interest in my own genealogy and CFT. If I was in it > for the money, I think I would have quit years ago. > > Recently I have accepted a new job and moved to Pennsylvania I was in > Tennessee and with the move and new job, it seems there is even less time > for CFT. I have decided not to entirely shut my business down, but simply to > drop the price (from $45 to $25) one price for all (new and upgrades) and > cut back my web site (it is now a single page). > > George Durman, who operated this mailing list tells me that Rootsweb really > never shuts down Mailing Lists so this List could still be monitored but > emails (for both orders and questions) have dropped off quite a bit anyway. > And as many of you know there is not much traffic on this mailing list > anyway. So you are free to still post messages to the List for now. > > I will still retain my website and current email address. But I really have > no intentions to work on or improve CFT. If business were to really drop off > then perhaps one day I may eventually remove the program entirely from sale. > But I dont really expect to do that for many years until the program > becomes so outdated by newer offerings on the market that no one really > cares for CFT any more. It is not difficult for me to simply fill orders by > emailing the user code to purchasers. So I will continue to do that and to > respond to technical support questions as usual. > > I know there are many CFT users who will be disappointed. And I do feel some > responsibility to continue to answer questions as best I can for all users. > I do appreciate all the compliments and help I have received from many of > you over the years. > > Thanks, Ira > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > Mr. Ira J. Lund > Cumberland Family Software > www.cf-software.com > > > > > > ==== CFT-WIN Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from CFT-WIN, send an e-mail message to: > CFT-WIN-L-request@rootsweb.com (for individual messages) > CFT-WIN-D-request@rootsweb.com (for Digest mode) > Subject: unsubscribe > In the body include only one word: unsubscribe > (Turn OFF your signature file when sending this command) >