Haptek is still alive. If you look around here, you'll see that there's an upcoming Haptek easter egg of some sort which Robert intends for inclusion in the next version (or possibly the update) of Hal, and people here have been in touch with them about dev tools and licensing. A recent manifestation of their current activities seems to be
Robot-Hosting. The problem with them seems to be that unlike MS Agents, which you can create entirely using freeware, their tools mostly average a couple thou' apiece, pricing them right out of range of 90% of their prospective customer base. Custom-made agents from them run in that same price range. Even the People Putty program is a $50 download. Apparently they prefer to make a lot of money from a few customers and remain relatively obscure, rather than make a little money from a lot of people and become a new industry standard.