I'll answer some specific concerns, in my own words as I see the situation:

Q. Whats the future of the car player?
A. This is one of the key reasons for the acquisition - the car player will continue to be sold and developed. For the time being the branding will continue as "empeg" but at some point it is logical that the product will be integrated into the hugely successful Rio brand.

Q. Will the faces or roles at empeg change?
A. All of our staff are highly valued, and will continue within the company - this deal brings well deserved security to a group of people that have staked their own career on the success of a startup company. We have been recruiting developers recently - two new programmers start this week (Andrew and James) with several additional roles expected to be filled by the end of the year.

The staff at empeg are expected to continue in their current role, although Hugo and Steve will now have many additional responsibilities. Mike will continue to lead the (somewhat larger) UK development team, and I will continue as Operations Manager for the UK operation.

Q. How will the acquisition affect empeg culture?
A. We have been working closely with S3 for many months, which is one of the reasons that we are enthusiastic and confident about this acquisition. S3 understand how empeg works, and they have no intentions or wishes to change a winning formula. This announcement is really just the formalisation of an arrangement that has effectively been in place for some time already. We have found S3 to be a very compatible company in terms of culture, and I have yet to see an S3 executive in a suit (which I consider a good thing!).

Q. Will empeg employees continue to post to the BBS?
A. The BBS has always been an unofficial forum which employees are free to post to, or not, as they wish. This will not change. As always, messages posted here by empeg/S3 employees should be considered the personal opinion of that person and not necessarily company line.

Q. Will empeg support become less personal?
A. For the time being support will continue in the same way as always, with the exception that we now have access to a servicing facility (in Germany) which will handle most hardware repairs. The level of service will be as high, or higher, than currently. Your contact points will be the same as now - primarily David, Daniel or myself. The alpha group, and public beta releases, are expected to continue as before.


Feel free to raise other concerns you may have. I'm about to fly back to the UK so I'll be out of touch for about a day, but don't think I'm ignoring you. I'll catch up on the messages tomorrow.

Rob