The software is very reliable and they put out new builds at least a couple of times a week. http://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=doc/Whats_New.php Support is excellent and are very timely. They are always getting complimented on how fast they respond compared to other boards. They are starting to get more and more traders who are fed up with ninja who seem to be impressed with sierra's capabilities. I think they are based out of Colorado. I have been using them for 4+ years. They are horrible at marketing, but what do you expect out of engineers. It can't hurt to take the free trial.
I expect QT will survive in some form. I opened an account at TDAmeritrade solely so I could get QT without a license fee. I wouldn't have any problems transferring my account if I lose this benefit and I'm sure others would as well.
Ultimately the decision by QT's owner will be market based. When/if it becomes a money loser for them they will dump it. I can't see how it can lose money for them from now on because they are putting minimal resources into it. I'm sure there are lots of happy people using it. But if it's making money I question why they have stopped developing it?
Just got word from the company QT is toast as of end of 2011. "Unfortunately, QT will be drawn down by the end of 2011 as TD AMERITRADE looks to consolidate its resources towards other platforms and projects." It's gonna die.
Just add my vote for Sierra Chart as your replacement. On a 12 month contract the basic IB compatible package is $20.28 per month. For that you can run multiple copies of Sierra Chart. It's a good package for line based trading and also for standard or custom indicators (they do a lot of development, hence there is a new subrelease every few months) and people like me also do free indicators etc for others. My pride and joy is "TrueLive" which combines IB's live data (that misses the odd high and low and is a bit off on volume readings sometimes) with IB's 5 second data to create a chart that responds "instantly" with live data but uses the 5 second data to self-correct for any missing high or low ticks. I also use it for chart trading (although it has a dom I dont find doms helpful) and now do semi-automatic chart trading. The programming and automation is an option for those who want to do it - there is no shortage of standard indicators etc and you can use a workbook function to do much of the stuff you can do with "serious" programming. One other positive is that SC were approached by a broker to acquire the program and refused outright. They don't want to go the way that QT did.
TD Ameritrade should let Jerry buy QT back for $1 dollar and let him do whatever he wants with it detached from TD Ameritrade again!!!