(To paraphrase Herb[:)]
My private opinion as the Project Leader of our MIR-developement [;)] :
In Phase 1, the MIR will be available as a highly specialized "Front End", working in close conjunction with our Library. Quite obviously, our main interest is to give _our_ customers a competetive advantage first. It's not decided yet if native CPU's will be powerfull enough for the task, or if there has to be dedicated hardware. - We hope to hit the market in 2004, but I don't dare to predict that it will be ready when the Symphonic Cube is shipping.
In Phase 2, we will most certainly consider to release our engine as a stand-alone version, be it as a (possibly) cut-down native plugin, or relying on dedicated, hardware-based DSP.
For Phase 3, we have still more plans for higher integration of all our products, but it's much too early to talk about.
... hope this answers some of your questions.
/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library