BTW, some interesting information from Bleem! Park I just stumbled across (although I already knew this was happening a while back, it's nice to hear sort of official confirmation): "Hello all bleemers and bleem! fans. I'm sure if you would surely know about the news that bleem are closing their doors. I've emailed the vice-president, Will, to asked about the current situation. He replied that the main reason is that Sony have been sueing them and their legal debts have killed them. So they are trying to correct their financial situation now."
I'm sorry, but that's pretty much complete BS. Will's a great guy, but he's I guess even after the company is gone, he's trying to keep them from looking bad as much as possible.
First, if bleem! would have been updated regularly, to get to the point that both the users, and at one time, Randy, wanted it to be, it would have sold quite a bit better. Plus, the owners of the company outright lying to the public (And getting caught doing so) doesn't exactly boost sales. Yes, of course, the lawsuit was a HUGE drain on resources. And, it's entirely possible that the company couldn't have made it no matter what. However, if the company would have been run decently, they could have at least lasted longer than they did.
In addition, I'm really curious what happened with the lawsuit. IIRC, it was originally scheduled for Fall of 1999, then got pushed back to February of 2000. Now, that's not all that uncommon, and when it got pushed back to the Summer (I think June) of 2000, I know there was a good reason. However, more than a year later, it still hadn't gone to trial, with no explanations that I ever saw for the postponements. Anyway, remember that part of the lawsuit was bleem, inc. counter-suing Sony for anti-competitive practices, which it seemed that had a decent case for, and likely would have helped their money problems quite a bit if proven.
Obviously, none of this proves that bleem, inc. was responsible for any of it, but common sense makes me wonder if there was some reason that they were no longer sure of Sony not winning the lawsuit, so tried to delay it... If anyone knows someone in the California Northern District Courts in San Francisco, see if you can press them for information.
