Re-vitalizing VB/IB.

What do the members think would save VB/IB from further decline now.

Would hiring new competent staff make any difference at this late stage?

 

If YOU START WITH UPPER MANAGEMENT, ABSOLUTELY

 

You'll need a new manager that has full power at vBulletin and he or she needs to have the power to do what is needed with a good budget behind it.

 

What do you think are the chances of them appointing a new competent manager.

 

Less then zero.

 

Thing is.... I cant figure out why. The performance of the business has been terrible and is declining. H&F has to see this, yet they allow current management to continue.

 

What you forget is that vBulletin is not the core business of Internet Brands that is selling database with car information and selling ads. Also look that a lot of people where transferred from vBulletin to Internet Brands internally or that they where fired. When you look at the bigger picture vBulletin is maybe a few percent of income they have at Internet Brands.

Like Digitalpoint said it not likely that a manager of vBulletin is going to Brisco and say that he has failed or not have a clue to run a forum division. By letting people go and making sure you cut overhead vBulletin might be interesting on paper H&F only look at income and expenditure if its positive why should they care their an investment firm. Do you really think Internet Brands, vBulletin and H&F gives a rats ass what we say, think or do, the only thing their interested in is money income the more positive the better. That a few people can't use or will use their software what do they care.

The only thing that can save vBulletin is if Internet Brands care about its small customers (not going to happen real time soon), H&F see that income can be far more then now if under different management but they do not care about 100k if they need to invest more then that to make it. The last option is that vBulletin is sold but even that is unlikely the vBulletin is to expensive to get and the investment you'll need to do will be high or do you want staff that they have now. Then you'll need to repair the software either continue with vBulletin 3, 4 or 5 and what ever you choose you'll need to invest time and probably payback people that are on vBulletin 5 if you continue with vBulletin 4. But even that script need major repairs and improvements to be back inline with current features that is being used on the world wide web.

A new manager is a possibility but he or she has a months work only to clean the house and get new people in and get other people out of vBulletin. Then you'll need developers that understand the customer so that you'll build good functional software that is carried by many customers. But even this is going to cost lots of resources and time and money, but with out the sales figures and so on its basically impossible to say anything where to start.

 

Im not talking about what we say --

I'm talking about the numbers. The guys at H&F are numbers people. When numbers decrease, they come through on the reports in nice RED numbers as a loss/decrease. Easy to notice.

They have to be seeing the decrease in license sales and revenue. Someone also must have asked "why are IB sites not converting to vb 4 or 5?

I don't expect McGanty to announce to his bosses he has failed over and over. I expect H&F to ask why numbers are down and challenge his assertions, and eventually replace him.

I highly doubt vb will be sold, although its possible. The reason is I don't think they could get the price they might want. vBulletin CAN be saved, in my opinion, but its an uphill battle that will take time and investment.

 

H&F are likely to only be looking at the overall figures of the IB business, I doubt they are drilling down into those too much, so failure in the vB division is unlikely to surface on their radar.

 

H&F is only interested if Internet Brands makes a profit nothing more nothing less there not going to look at sales level if everything they do is in the black. If Internet Brands where to show red figures all of them then H&F will ask what is happening for the rest read carefully what i have written in post 8 there you read why and how they can steer H&F away from investigating.

 

lol -- ok. You must be right.

 

H&F is so big there not going to look at sales level in the books, its real easy if its in the black its good enough from them, there is one exception if its in the black but less then last year maybe then they will look. But because of the crisis you expect this all ready. Don't forget that people gt transferred out of vBulletin and people got fired that will give more breathing room they might artificially increasing profit. I know that a few people wrote to H&F but never got an answer and nothing changed at vBulletin.

Investment firms look how fast they can make the cash back and reinvest it again and again. Most investment companies do not care about customers there are exceptions on this and they take less profit but the brand is stronger.

 

What you can try to do is make an petition to get vBulletin away from Internet Brands then let news sites know and hope the petition is a success.

 

The more I check out admin type websites the more complaints I see about the absolute disaster VB/IB has become.

I now see a MASSIVE number of posts, all condemning the actions of IB management and VB support staff.

Surely the owners MUST be seeing the same thing. Their inaction indicates a very serious problem within the group.

The VB support staff, especially the trio of fail, need to be replaced with competent people who can help VB regain some of the trust it used to have. Will we see this? Only time will tell.

 

Some kudo's for a VB.org staff member who did the right thing by the customer. kh99 Deleted a post by mistake, when he realized, he had the courage to restore it and apologized to the the customer. WELL DONE KH99.

 

Or an open letter to the Hellman and Friedman Board of Directors ought to do it. It would be the equivalent of a shot across their bow.

 

That was all ready done by some one and i think 4 others wrote to the board independent from one and other as far as i know no single response came. The problem is that Internet Brands is a good working company on selling and buying stuff that is their major income, vBulletin is maybe 5% of the whole so when they show black figures no one will question them. As for H&F the same their an investment firm they don't really care about small customers or 100 to 1000 people that complain on their scale its just a drupe on a hot plate.

Maybe a petition would get there attention but you'll need publicity ad that is hard Facebook, Twitter and news websites can help with that.

 

H&F has advisors and directors. I think Andrew Ballard is the guy responsible for IB.
http://hf.com/team/Team.aspx?membercode=aBallard
Contacting him may be helpful if you can get him to listen...