This is a question mainly for Mark but others may have some information on the subject.
Over on the EMS Cross Stitch Board (www.cross-stitch-board.com), I have a thread that includes a table of a variety of (ahem) competitors to PCStitch but does include PCStitch. I am trying to educate the users as well as provide options for individual tastes.
A user posted about an M&R product but could find no details. The product is DMC Cross Stitch Pattern Designer (2001 version win 98-XP) by M&R Technologies, which also outputs *.pat. Is this an early or off-shoot of PCStitch? I've never heard of it but the user stated that most Google searches end up with mostly ebay listings.
Actually, this is an offshoot of PCStitch that was republished in the UK and branded by DMC. It is based on the PCStitch 7 software, and the .PAT files are compatible with the regular versions of PCStitch.