Effective immediately Kolor, a leader in virtual reality and spherical media solutions that was acquired by GoPro in 2015, is closing.
The announcement was made earlier today on the Kolor website followed by a Facebook post by Alexandre Jenny, former Kolor CEO / CTO, on his personal page. Kolor employees are moving on from GoPro and will cease operations at their headquarters in Savoie, France. Furthermore, all Kolor software will be sunsetted.
Kolor’s solutions enabled users to create 360 media and produce high-resolution panoramic or spherical content that could be enjoyed on mobile devices, the web or in a virtual reality environment. Sadly, now that GoPro has integrated their products and launched its Fusion camera, Kolor clearly isn’t a priority for the company anymore.
Unsurprisingly, Kolor's users aren’t impressed, but GoPro is a troubled company that is dealing with both declining revenues as well as narrowing gross margins. It is also ruthless about shutting down quality services to survive. Sadly, Kolor has become the latest victim of this approach and the impact also affects third party developers that created specialty plugins for Panotour Pro.
A sincere, heartfelt thanks from all at IVRPA to Alexandre Jenny and the Kolor team. The 360 VR video industry would not be where it is today without Kolor's pioneering software.
What does this mean?
• As of September 14, 2018, Kolor products will no longer be for sale from Kolor.com.
• For existing Kolor users, you will be able to use your account login to retrieve your license keys and activate your software. The download links are still available for now.
• Existing Kolor products will no longer be updated.
• For support on Kolor products, the documentation and the Kolor support forum will remain open in read-only mode for the time being.
• If you need assistance with your license key, please try to access via your account. Otherwise, contact customer support.
• Fusion-related plugins and VR player are available with the Fusion Studio bundle.
• ForgeJS will continue to be managed-by-community in open-source format.
Essentially, yes. I have both PTGui and AutoPano Giga. I liked them both but for different reasons.
Does that only leave PtGUI Pro as the only standalone professional stitching software?