vBulletin 4.2.2 Alpha has been released

People like Bob do not care if they learn something from mistakes made, they only care if they can make a dollar more next qaurter. Bob will only learn when they lose proffit and by action taken in the vBulletin division that is happening. Corperations first try to return proffit by making budgets cuts if that does not work rush stuff out. The final step is laying off staff and at that pint where now. To raise proffit again there going to cut qaulity or there going to sell vBulletin division.

 

Just curious, what's with Bob and the airplane?
Is it mean to show that Bob travels using airplane?
Or that IB own an airways?

I mean, we're talking about Bob Brisco here, not Bob the builder.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words. And if that's not enough you can make up a few more LOL
I think his pictures says it all. He's standing on the ground all alone while everyone else is in flight way above his head.

 

My thoughts exactly after reading much of his blog. IMHO Here's a guy with lots of money buying up businesses he has not built or worked hard to create. He sees something he wants, buys it, but puts little or anything into it. He sits back waits for it to make him a profit. And because of this he has no love or passion for what he has, it's just a commodity to be shuffled in a shell game. He can either use his looses with vB as a tax shelter for the other productive items he owns or he may sell it off. Is he a black hole for consumer products with deep pockets? There's a bridge in Brooklyn for sale........
So the end game for him is agility. Being able to dodge the bullet as they say. Being cagy, manipulative. He's a smart man making lots of money off the backs of consumers he doesn't know or care about.

 

That's the typical image of an US Company for me

 

It does not seem to have been approved. What a surprise!

 

I am pretty sure the plane in the blog is just a bit of a representation, because their office building sits right smack next to LAX. Edit- but Autopilot's interpretation isn't so bad either.



Scott

 

You are right. IB's M&A culture is often a norm for companies wanting to grow faster. They think "buy before building" is a quicker way to achieve growth. It can be and most of the time it is correct to do so. But, I believe to acquire businesses successfully, you first have to have a very healthy business culture within your own company AND very strong core values about what you are trying to offer your customers in the end. Otherwise, you end up being shallow, because you've only spread yourself thin, instead of getting deeper and stronger.

And generally, too many owners or leaders of larger businesses tend to forget that making money or profit isn't any goal at all. Making money in a business is only the final positive result of everyone's hard work and management success. The real goals come in many other tangible and intangible forms, the most important being customer satisfaction. To that point, if a company wants real positive results (as in making really good money), then they need customer enthusiasm and ardor and that can only be achieved through quality first. vBulletin used to have this. Now it is gone and unfortunately, IB is still moving vBulletin away from ever seeing it again.

I still say, IB needs to pull vB5 back to beta status. They must get alignment back into vBulletin, if they want to save it, if it is still at all possible. Also, if IB's management keep their mindset, the same one they've had the last 5 years, then there won't be any rescue and we_are_borg will probably be right. IB will sell off vBulletin. I am just wondering, who in their right mind would even buy it now?

Scott

 

What i am seeing is classic corperated operations. When a company or one of its divisions is not making enough money the following is usually going to happen. The first what will happen is that qaulity of the product will go down, in a why that there rushing out stuff that is not 100%. After that they regreat it and try to fix the issuesbut it takes to many resources so after a while they stop working on the product and develop a new one. When the tide does not alter they rush out the next product with even less qaulity then before (smart companies dont get to this stage and there are a few of does that did not). When this comes apparent by customers even the most loyal customer will go to another brand. After some time when a few qaurtely figures are presented they know there losing money (not red figures) the income dropped, to composite they are laying off people because salary is one of the biggest cost.

From the last point a few things can happen the first they get the groth they want to see because they laid off people. Second it only slows down the proccess and they continue on the same path. Third is that company gets its act together and quality is the same as before. The fourth is that the division is soled off for the fraction of the cost they bought it, the reason is that there better off and done correct its a write off.

There is one other thing, firing is one part but there is one more namely internal moving of people going from the bad division to more profitable divisions, but thats only for the people that can make money on that position.

 

Scott, your delusion is now verifiable.
If only everyone else is as delusional as you are, this world would be a better place.

 

Funny you call it delusional. I call it common business sense. It is those leaders who are delusional, who think they can stare at the bottom line all the time and also think their businesses will be great by them doing it too.

Scott

 

Again I want to bring us something that was swept quickly under the rug... maybe some folks missed it.

The new 4.2.2 does not have the CKeditor fix in it for proper IE 10 support, when asked why Zackary replied as follows...

They are not doing it because it would take the programmer 10 hours to fix it.

Yes folks 10 hours.

What have they been doing for the last year? IE 11 is due out soon... will we have proper IE 10 support by the time 11 comes out? Somehow I doubt it.

 

I think they key in that response is actually the second part of the sentence; how long it would take for it to pass QA. With the current vB staff organization under the control of IB it is not a case where the developers can just make a change and get it released to the customers (like some competing forum software makers can these days), instead it would need to be formally submitted to their QA team with a set of regression testing and scheduled for testing accordingly.

The classic mistake of throwing more bodies at a project is in action.

 

I'm not upgrading until this one goes live. First its alpha, then beta right? Hopefully they implement some new features. I'd love to see the tagging/notifications system brought to the light. I currently use a plugin for tagging. Also, a plugin for likes/dislikes on a post that adds to a user reputation.

 

Beta then Alpha then RC then Gold

Well.. that was how it was done, not sure about these days.

 

Ah, but remember there is no more "Gold" releases, just "non-beta" versions.




(Ah, dang it, I've been trying to resist posting in vB related conversations. )

 

The last time I looked they used the term "FULL" for the latest "Gold" release of vB4.2.1.

Scott

 

Full of what