A. This depends entirely on what there is effectively for sale. In my opinion, if there's only a trademark (a brand name, a franchise) to be sold behind PowerBASIC Inc., then the face value of such a deal should be close to nil. Granted, Mrs Zale's opinion may differ because she would naturally regard such a transaction from the perspective of her husband's heritage, the cause he'd dedicated the larger part of his life to, etc etc etc. Yet the expedience of the deal should account for how difficult/cost effective it would be to
1. maintain the scope of company's obligations to the creditors and current user base;
2. invest in R&D to re-create and/or upgrade the compiler's existing code base; and
3. further promote the renovated product to ensure a compos return on investment time frame.
There were rumours that
1. PB compiler sources might have been forfeited together with the deceased Mr Zale, which would explain why the PB Inc. deal has de facto been at a dead stall for several years now: there's effectively nothing else to sell but a heavily indebted operation;
2. PB compiler is in fact a 16-bit assembly cross-compiler capable of generating 32-bit executables and as such, is too cryptic or not promising enough for further development by potential buyers who would withdraw from the transaction as soon as they are allowed to get acquainted with what in fact they are supposed to pay for.
In either case, I'd estimate a feasible time frame to re-create the existing 32-bit PBCC/PBWin functionality from scratch in a suitable development environment (C would be candidate #1) under "clean-room" conditions by a dedicated and well-paid dev team of four or five persons proficient in compiler development, to be on the order of 2.5 to 3 years before the new product reaches its beta testing stage.
Judging by the number of PB users registered on the PB Peer Support Forums and the average per-package prices alone, PB Inc. could have earned $1.5 to $2 mln or so in a couple dozen years of its existence.
If the sources (regardless of bitness) are available, and taking the above estimates into account, I'm inclined to think that PB Inc. is being quoted -- to carefully selected potential buyers -- at up to some $200,000. If not, and/or the quotation is larger than that, then it will be sorta trading donut holes and waistcoat sleeves because these days, getting a return on investment in any BASIC would be mere wishful thinking.
