Last month, the two leading poker tracking programs, PokerTrackerand Hold’em Manager, announced they would be joining forces to create a new company called Max Value Software. The news of the merger led to much speculation in the poker community about the future of the popular applications and whether the alliance would create a monopoly that was detrimental to consumers.

—

PocketFives’ news coverage is brought to you by Betsafe, one of the leading suppliers of online gaming products worldwide and a major sponsor of Gumball 3000. Sign up now for great bonuses, €3,000,000 guaranteed monthly, and plenty of live events!

—

According to the company’s press release, the decision was made in order to pool resources and reduce redundancies in technology and customer service. Due to the similarities between the products, owners believe that by teaming up, the two companies will become more efficient and will be able to spend more time working on innovations like a cloud-based hand tracking solution.

But with the two applications being the most popular on the market, some users fear that the providers will now be in a position to gouge customers. “The company as a whole has a monopoly,” said Rupert on 2+2. “It’s probably smart to keep the two products, but they can basically price however they want to… There is no choice or competition.”

Others believe that with such a stranglehold on the industry, the merged company will migrate its pricing to a far more lucrative monthly subscription model. “Subscription-based products have long been in the pipeline. It’s been clear that sources of income have been drying up, so to take a proportion of customer’s earnings each month rather than a lump sum makes perfect business sense,” explained user Miffed. “Yes of course that’s not favorable for the player, but it is a fairly straightforward business plan. Anyone who thinks otherwise is utterly naive.”

PokerTracker representative Steve McLoughlinaddressed that concern in an interview with PokerStrategy, assuring that neither Hold’em Manager 2 nor PokerTracker 4 would be moving to such a 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,” he added.

As poster RaisedAgainst pointed out, the two products were mentioned specifically by version number, meaning future iterations like HM 3 and PT5 could have varying payment models.

User Hood was unconcerned with the alliance, explaining there was little stopping other companies from entering the market if the quality of PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager declined. “If the new PT/HM were to raise prices substantially, I don’t see why the market won’t respond quickly with alternatives,” he said. “There is already a fully working tracker with excellent parser support, working HUD etc… which can be used as the basis for commercial software.”

Chabra agreed and reasoned that the company’s current competitors could always catch up: “There already are other decent poker tracking programs out there (Poker Office to name one) that haven’t quite caught on, but have the chance to improve and take over the market should HM/PT slip up.”

It’s yet to be seen if innovation will be stifled by the two software providers teaming up, but McLoughlin believes that by continuing to offer the products separately, development will continue as usual.

“[We] have competed against one another while being friendly for a long time. Our business merger is not intended to change the way the brands will compete. Both brands will continue down their own unique paths with some behind-the-scenes unifying technology,” he said.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.