well M3 has been around for ages and was blaise rosenthal's first brain child, somewhere along the lines it went sour, M3 was finished about the time you started seeing their stuff in zumiez, then came the NEW M4, clever name, with nima as frontman, and apprently it didn't work because everyone who was on the new M4 is now on artec. so... i think all the companies are rosenthal creations, but when one goes bad, just make a new one

m3 was bought some years back by a company that has nothing to do with snowboarding. about 2 years ago m4 was started up, but ran into legal trouble on account of the name. to avoid any legal disputes the name was changed to Artec, which is the name of the company that makes the boards. Artec is a branch of Elan, the ski company.