anyone know what happened to Abvent?

[rm]

Called Abvent US Tech support ( in Canada, go figure ) today........GONE, their phone message refers you to Objects Online.

Tried to get on the Artlantis Website.........NOTHING, can't get on it.

Question, did their total lack of customer support catch up with them and they went out of business? I hope this is not the case, and that they are only having internet problems.

Artlantis R, is a really good start, but buggy as I mentioned before. Still, nothing renders an AC model as fast, and realistically, with as easy of GUI in my opinion.

Any insight?!?!?!

[Karl Ottenstein]

Hi Robert,

I believe that Abvent is having internet server problems. I did a WHOIS on them, and see that their domains - abvent.com and artlantis.com - are owned by Soltaire SE of Luxembourg. It is Soltaire whose name servers point to the Abvent domains ... and the Soltaire web site itself is unavailable at the moment. So, I think it is their web service provider's fault.

Huh!

While I was typing this, and testing their French site (abvent.fr) - all of their sites have become "live" again. That was about a 9 hour outage.

They may have been doing some web site work, too, as I see that the forums have different views now depending on how you enter them. For example:
clicking through http://www.abvent.com/support/forum/
gives blue subjects and more lines for last message, while
clicking through http://www.artlantis.com/support/forum/
gives green subjects and a different detail format. Maybe it has been that way all along and I never noticed.
I prefer the 'blue' version ... no flash ad at the top of the screen!

Regards,
Karl

PS The OOL thing is something that should have had a more public announcement associated with it. I heard about the closing of the Canadian phone line through the grapevine, talking with other users.