I don't think it's disingenuous, at all. I used to run large software programs (into 9 digits) for Defense customers (air traffic control, airfare and naval communications, and an AI system for the Army) and I still write apps for MacOS in spare time. I've seen what Claude AI can do - and it's quite frankly shocking to the point I would say anything thinking of writing code for a living is probably facing a very short career.
ZWO have had 8 years to sort this, and it's still garbage. AA is written in a mishmash of C, Python and other languages - all of which Clause AI can handle quite well.
The guts of AA+ rely on a pile of FOSS and the ZWO API's. And I don't think ZWO changed very much - if anything - in the FOSS. The key part is to design the UI, and stitch it together. My guess is a couple of competent professional programmers who understand the use-case scenarios well, combined with proper systems engineering and software architecture could knock out a clone in a week, max. Possibly as little as 2 days to something workable and within a week better quality than what ZWO have.
UMa (Skywatcher) came out of nowhere within the past 12 months - getting the hardware into serious volume production was probably the critical path. The company was created in 2025, in Suzhou.
Right now if I was ZWO's CEO I would be taking a very cold hard look at their developers, with a view to firing the lot. If AA was reliable ZWO could have been sitting pretty as the Apple of astroimaging - a closed ecosystem, with the lowest-cost product on the market. But they have squandered their lead, and produced garbage software. IMHO they should all have been fired 18 months ago.
Synta was asleep for years, but the dragon has awoken and realized ZWO is eating its lunch. And I'd bet they have a much, much deeper pocket to drive off a competitor.
But if you want to survive long-term, you have to be better, not necessarily cheapest. Out of the gate with their first release and 1 update, it's already obvious Synlink is better. A LOT better. And the really stupid thing on ZWO's part is this forum - effectively allowing a competitor to see what users have been crying out for, for years, while ZWO paid no attention whatsoever.
We have watched Synta run a price war that ultimately drove Meade, Sunny Ningbo and Orion into oblivion. This time all Synta have to do is produce a better product, and users will desert ZWO in droves. Another $200 is peanuts when you consider what we spend on our imaging rigs. That doesn't even buy a decent filter. And if someone engages Claude AI to do better, faster, I'm all for it.
Be first,
Be better, or
Cheat.
And woe-betide the dominant player who ignores their customers.
Business 101.
