Though IQS anticipated a serious boon in sales upon SAWStudio's release, after the initial influx of orders, the excitement turned to apprehension as the general public began to question the validity of a product that was making such wild claims as SAWStudio. It also became apparent that the sophistication of the SAWStudio engine, coupled with the growing complexity of the Windows environment, was raising mounting concern over its ability to meld into the market of generic store-bought PCs.

Another serious obstacle came when the expected upgrade sales from existing SAW users fell far short of the predicted number, again negatively affecting the bottom line. Upon further speculation and discussion with those users who had made the decision not to move up to SAWStudio, the realization was made that basically they were "happy where they were," and didn't feel the need to jump into this new technology.  It became increasingly obvious that IQS and its current user base was not willing to take this big of a leap at this time.