Poker Community Reacts to Hold'em Manager, PokerTracker Merger

It has been almost one month since PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager announced they have joined forces under a new company, Max Value Software.
 
So far, we haven't seen many changes in either program, at least none that wasn't planned pre-merger.  As expected, we have seen upgrades for both programs as well as upgrades for some of the associated third-party tools, such as NoteCaddy being upgraded to Version 2.5.
 
What has reaction been to this epic merger of the two poker tracking software giants?  Mike "Gags30" Gagliano saw some positives and negatives, telling PokerSoftware, "It's an interesting merger. On one hand, I'm excited because hopefully both teams will work together now and share some of their secrets to make for two better overall products."
 
He continued, telling PokerSoftware, "On the other hand, they now completely have a monopoly of the market.  So, I'm a little hesitant that updates and patches will be slower to roll out because there won't be the [same level of] competition there was in the past."
 
Ivey Poker pro Rupert Elder took to the TwoPlusTwo forums to express his opinion.  Elder explained, "According to my armchair economics, this seems largely bad for us, the consumer, and a fantastic thing for the two companies involved.  Firstly, it's fantastic that they can pool their resources and likely substantially cut costs.  The problem lies in the now non-existent price competition."

He added, "As things were, they existed somewhere between a duopoly and perfect competition. There isn't a ton to differentiate the products. There was still an element of price competition. This is particularly important to the uNL and SSNL grinder who is more price-sensitive and who I presume are a large part of their captive market."

PokerTracker's Steve McLoughlin understands why players might think this way and mentioned to PokerStrategy, "We understand that competition is a good thing. It is good for the customers and it helps us provide better software. It is also better for us as a company, as better software keeps other competitors at bay.  That is why we specifically made the decision to keep our development teams separate to promote competition.  We hope that this friendly competition between the PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager development teams will continue to push both brands forward into the future."
 
Many poker players are concerned about potential price increases now that the market is temporarily cornered by the new merged company.  McLoughlin addressed these concerns in an interview with PokerStrategy.
 
He said to that end, "We feel that our interests are aligned with the players with respect to the price of our products.  We have always priced our products in a way that is affordable to every online poker player, while providing us with enough revenue to continue building and improving our products. We are aware of customers' sensitivity to price and we do not plan on making changes that will open up room for any competitors to potentially take advantage of that opportunity. "
 
People are equally concerned about PokerTracker and/or Hold'em Manager switching to a subscription-based model, following companies like Table Ninja when they upgraded from Version 1 to Version 2.

McLoughlin eased the concerns of these poker players, saying, "You can rest assured that history has shown that our management team has selected the pricing model that benefits the vast majority of our users; neither PokerTracker 4 nor Hold'em Manager 2 will be moving to a subscription-based only model.  However, it is far too early for us to speculate on or commit to pricing for any other future products we have in the pipeline."

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