What direction is Xara going?

[StevenWWinters]

...I have seen that Xara has really kind of fallen behind in terms of features. At least, they seem to have taken another direction...

But being an illustrator, a trained technical illustrator to be more specific, I am always on the lookout for a vector illustration program that focus on improving the illustration experience rather than integrating photo editing and web design.

If you look at the last several versions, it's quite obvious that Xara is no longer focused on illustration, and no doubt people like yourself will find this understandably disappointing. The reason their direction has changed, is what I believe Steve (sledger) was attempting to convey. Xara was at the forefront of innovation for a brief while, but that didn't translate into financial success sufficient to compete effectively with Adobe and Corel in the illustrator market. Simply put (among other problems), not enough illustrators were plunking their hard cold cash down for Xara to keep development moving in that direction. So Xara did what any for-profit business must do lest they cease to exist completely, they changed direction, and the product evolved.

That being said, I expect that features important to illustrators will continue to be enhanced and added, but likely not at a pace sufficient to satisfy those who are only interested in Xara's illustration capabilities.

[gwpriester]

Yes there was a Mac version as well as a Linux version in development about the time that Xara was acquired by Magix.

My guess is that Magix's marketing and sales dept. felt that the focus should be on Xara's main market which is Windows. And I would be surprised if that changes.

Corel, a larger company, tried to infiltrate the Mac market about ten years ago, and after a few years of intense marketing, threw in the towel.

It is next to impossible to go against Adobe in the Mac market unless you are Microsoft or a company with that kind of cash and marketing clout.

[Michael]

... and Xara had an idea that an army of open-source developers (who seem to gravitate towards linux) might descend on the codebase and propel it forward..

But Xara wouldn't let the rendering engine go open. So, most of the developers left Xara behind because the rights were idiosyncratic to the Open Source community.
Xara LX worked, kind of, but lost it's momentum. Now Inkscape is the vector program for the *nix masses. Xara Designer Pro works with Wine, albeit most of the im-/export filters fail to load and subsequently only .xar files are useable as a mains of exchanging vector files.