“The Music Man” by Meredith Wilson is my favorite musical. It was Robert Preston’s signature role as the fast talking traveling band equipment salesman whose dreams and promises were greater than his ability to deliver. It’s so very American in that the salesman assumes he can sell anything – to any one at any time in any place. Americans have traditionally excelled at marketing.

With that as background, I have to express concern and dismay at the recent turn of events at Auran. I don’t pretend to know all the details or even all the essential facts of the situation. All I know is what I have read, and some of that has been a little blurry to me since I’m not a developer or a programmer or a marketer or a businessman and don’t fully understand what some of the statements mean.

Briefly, for those who haven’t yet heard, Auran has voluntarily filed a chapter eleven for its Fury developments segment of the organization. Trainz is a separate branch. However, the umbrella part of Auran employs all the personnel. As a first step, all personnel were fired last week. Some were hired back to continue work on the next delivery of Trainz Classics 3.

Along with the announcement came the insistence that Auran is determined to move ahead with Trainz, to meet its delivery commitments and to produce the best train simulator in existence. Sounds good – or does it? Two of the people not hired back are Lance Jago, marketing director, and Alan Yeoman, the gent who answered all our technical questions on the Trainz Forum. I know Lance personally and consider him a great friend. I only know Alan for his quick and personal attention to problems when raised.

Here is where I have a problem. First, the best product in the world is worthless without marketing. Second, the imperfect product (aka Trainz and every other product out there) is a turn-off when it doesn’t work and there’s no one around to help.

Reading between the lines, it appears to me that Auran is determined to complete current commitments on Trainz (notice I said commitments). Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess. Does Auran have a publisher lined up to publish and distribute Trainz, in effect meaning no more marketing is needed? Is Auran going to bail on Trainz after TC3, so what does it matter if there’s no one left to promote it or service it? Perhaps Auran is hoping to find a buyer for its Trainz intellectual property. Stay tuned. This story is a long way from being over.

All of this sounds gloomy, but I’m enough of a sports fan to have witnessed numerous impossible come-from-behind victories, so I’m certainly not giving up hope. Even the Music Man, who was found out in the end, married the girl and lived happily after. But I am getting concerned.

Let’s hope for some good news on this front and, above all, a successful re-employment somewhere for those unfortunates who are now faced with celebrating the holidays with an uncertain future.

Keep the faith and best wishes to all,

Al

Article and screen shots �2007 Alfred Barten. All rights reserved.

More Articles:
[Visit the VR Reading Room.]

If you want to be notified when a new article arrives, join the VR-News group at Yahoo. This group is purely for notification. Anyone can join; only the moderator can post.