[Accujack]

This is (at present) a standard progression in the life cycle of a corporation in the US. There are vanishingly few corporations left who practice a business model designed to span more than about 30 years.

Most businesses today are founded, then the founders are bought out/merged, getting cash in the process.

Then the new owners change things to effectively profit on the business at the expense of longevity, which causes discontent in users and starts the slow downhill slide to the product's death. Then as the product becomes less relevant and loses market share cuts are made to preserve profitability and lower ongoing costs.

Once the business has extracted all the value from the product, they then drop the product entirely but retain the IP for it, preventing anyone else from resurrecting it, thus suppressing competition.

[jdofaz]

>they then drop the product entirely

Or sell it to Micro Focus