Basically the idea behind Hyperdesk is that The Skins Factory is going to release suites (which they're calling "Hypersuites") as a pre-packaged thing that is managed by their theme manager called Hyperdesk.

The idea is sound in general except that it uses a patched uxtheme.dll as its way to apply the GUI "skin" part. I.e. it uses XP msstyles. That's where things, IMO, fall apart.  The problem with the XP uxtheme.dll is 1) it's ancient and 2) it's not supported and 3) patches for uxtheme.dll break.

Now, Jeff Schader, the owner, proprieter of The Skins Factory says they got it working on Windows XP SP3. And good for them. But as we learned from the adventures of TGT Soft, uxtheme patches always get broken. It's not a matter of if, it's when. Microsoft releases updates and they will change files on the system.  That's the problem when you're patching system files. They have no agreement with Microsoft or the rights to use uxtheme.dll. They're literally just patching out the digital signing protection to get their .msstyles to work with it which is a big problem for them in the long run.

Another problem I see is that it's not running on Vista. Now, he says it's going to work on Vista "soon" but I also know he's running around right now trying to find someone to crack the Vista system files necessary to get Vista msstyles to work. And it's much much harder to do this sort of thing on Vista than it was on XP (in XP, you just cracked uxtheme.dll, on Vista, it's several files).  Moreover, the .msstyles format on Vista is much more limited than it was on XP where it was literally documented and has an editor available to make themes.

And yet another problem has to do with what he's skinning. The 8-year old msstyles issue is significant on its own. But what about the media players that he shows teaser shots of? Media Player? Winamp? What? Now adays, skinned media players are just not a big deal. People use iTunes or maybe Media Player in normal mode. I was a Winamp fanboy back in the day but these days it's iTunes.

And the biggest problem I see with Hyperdesks is the market. Who is he going to sell this to?  If he's selling what is essentially a .msstyles file bundled with a Winamp or Media Player skin and a few icons how many people are going to be willing to pay for that? 

In other words, the existing skinning community is not likely to line up to buy XP-only msstyles based skins built on 8 year old technology. Therefore, he needs to target the mass market. 

But he has a bigger problem getting to the mass market -- because he's patching Windows system files to do this, he's not going to get preloaded.   Nobody is going to touch him.  You won't see this on Dell or Gateway or HP, or Alienware or any other reputable vendor any time soon.  Another option would be USB memory stick distribution but he runs into the same problem there too. Nobody wants to distribute stuff that hacks system files whether it memory or on disk.  He should have just hired a team to write a skinning engine.

Which is a shame because The Skins Factory makes great art. Sure, most of their skinners now work at Stardock Design these days (the icons in that Sony Ericson skin he's been showing off were made by someone who works at Stardock Design). He still has William Bart, one of the best skinners in the world and Kol who is totally awesome too.  And Jesh is a talented art director. He gets his guys to do great work and I have no doubt that his new stuff will be awesome. I just don't think he's thought through his business model.

So in short, good concept, great art, doomed product imo.  Only time will tell and I wish him luck but that's how I see it.

BTW, William Bart is one of the top skin designers of all time.

That said, I think Treetog, Voo, Alexandrie, MikeB, and others might disagree with the "junior" role. They made many if not most of the skins and icon packages that have come out of The Skins Factory over the years.  I'm really surprised you, as an artist, would characterize the well known talents of Voo, Treetog, Mormegil, etc. as being "junior" in terms of the creation of the content that has come out of The Skins Factory.  

Having seen screenshots of the Ericson theme and a couple of the Disney "hypersuites" I certainly suspect (unless they change dramatically between now and official launch) that most users will notice a significant change from past endeavors. I don't think it's coincidence that the "teasers" that have been released focus on the one strong aspect - the media player skins. 

None of that changes the fact that William Bart is at the 99.9th percentile of skinners out there (his work with BBX, Media Player skins, etc. speak for themselves). 

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Now for a couple of comments:

The Skins Factory isn't blocked from being involved on our forums. Jeff Schader is blocked from participating on our forums and he knows why and it has nothing to do with "competition".  We didn't exile Thomas Dimitry from TGT Soft from our sites, for instance.  If I believed Jeff could behave himself and act like a reasonable adult, I would allow him back on in a second.

I'd be interested in hearing the artists perspective of why they left. 

I'm also not sure what the point of your post was.  You say that TSF is not a technology company.  OK.  So, why the long flame about everything?  We have never talked about TSF having bad artists, the only discussion we have had was about the technology.

Stardock is a technology and content company.  I think it's reasonable that we will talk about technology when brought up on our site. I'm sure very similar discussion would happen on a SF site if there was one that allowed interaction. However, we never talked about TSF factory having inferior artists or ever bashed on any art.  Art is subjective- technology is not, however.

I hope that was as in a "double post" not as in doubling ion weight.  lol

It won't.  It's just open debate right now.  I know that Stardock has nothing negative to say about TSF artists.  We're pretty confident with our technology and what's been released for MyColors.We also have a really cool bunch of themes in the works right now, so it should be a good time in skinning, especially seeing TSF starting to produce some work again.

TSF's WMP skins are arguably the best WMP skins on the planet.  Anyone who has skinned or been around skinning for any length of time cannot be other than awe-struck by them.

I can't say I've been wildly impressed with anything else TSF-related, however, skinning-related or not...