The State of vBulletin today

Well, if you're a vBulletin customer renewing your license after October 31...

...The offer is that you can pay full price for vBulletin 4.0 (which is unreleased at this point), and you have to pay full price, just for the priviledge of keeping your software secure and updated. And then with your renewal, you basically get no "support-ticket" support, you have no idea how long your license is good for, you have no idea how much the next version is going to cost you but you do know you'll have to purchase it, and then of course you also have to be careful about what you post on the support forums as you risk being banned etc. etc.

Or you have the option of buying IPB for less money, you can also get an integrated photo gallery along with a number of other additional items and get proper support for them and you know how long you can run the software for, you know how much it will cost you to get software upgrades etc. etc.....

So as a customer what would you do?

Obviously if you're a current vBulletin customer just upgrading then there is the issue and challenges involved in converting the database over to IPB. And there is also the challenges of dealing with the membership getting used to the new software and the challenges around that.

There are obviously more pros and cons depending on your point of view, but weighing all the pros and cons, what would appear to you as a more attractive offer?

Now what if it's a brand new board you're purchasing?

Imagine if you're doing this a year down the road and vBulletin 4.0 is getting close end of life? How are they going to address that? Charge people full price for a few months use?

To me at least, this entire "new approach" by IB is severely flawed currently.

The bottom line is that there is a real lack of clarity with vBulletin as you really don't know what you're getting.

So as a brand new customer, what offer would look more attractive to you?

I know what my answer would be, so to me, if IB fails to address these issues, I think they're heading for trouble. And if they fail to address things, then they'll simply lose customers to their competition. And the more customers that leave for competitors, the weaker vBulletin gets, and the stronger the competitors get. IPB has already strengthened themselves a great deal in the last few weeks.

Those are just my thoughts....

Time will tell where this all this goes I suppose...

 

These are the people they will seriously miss. After Nov 1 who in their right mind will shell out almost $300 for a suite or $200 for a forum they can't use for who knows how long. I know I wouldn't buy something I can't use. It's like shelling out $40k for a new Camero and then being told I gotta drive a Aveo till it comes in as a loaner, but we don't know how long this will take.

Gordie like you I'm usually the 'silent' one. More of a lurker really. My plans almost mirror yours. I will be upgrading one forum to the suite. But the license I had that expired just a few months ago I will be moving over. The other's are in their respective owners names and a few have also expressed there concerns to me. Also just like you I purchased the blog software. So I know exactly how you feel.

 

Well said gordie.......

 

It seems clear that IB cannot continue down the road they have chosen. They will either have to change their (new) ways or they will end up destroying the company. I don't think there's a third option.

They have created too much ill-will, and there's been too much publicity about that bad feeling. So new customers will not be eager to jump aboard the vB. bandwagon. Moreover, the new vB. is not looking all that obviously fantastic so as to overcome the bad odor arising out of the p.r. fiasco.

And all for what? So that Ray Morgan could have the satisfaction of knowing that he lied his way into a profit for a quarter or two?

It could all have been so different. How many people hate IB today who were either moderately favorable or entirely neutral just two months ago? Answer: LOTS.

 

Exactly.....

 

I was getting ready to buy a vB license until I read this thread. Idk which forum to go with now.

I don't think vB is even an option for me now. What one of you said was right. Why would I switch from MyBB to vB when MyBB is very much like vB.

I guess every software has their issues.

 

I don't think Ray Morgan gives a damn what you, me, or anyone else thinks. It's clear that they believe they are invulnerable, the Superman of Internet companies and that they can send whatever message they want to the street and new customers will eat it up.

I read a leaked memo stating that the presence of vBulletin forums at large sites convinces new customers to buy, which means decision making is relatively unaffected your incessant whining. Is that true? It remains to be seen. I wonder whether new customers will buy direct from the company or find a flood of discounted licenses in the open marketplace that will compete with sales.

I'm trying to sell my licenses as quickly as possible before Ray and his posse decide to change the terms of the license, making it nontransferable. I wouldn't put ANYTHING past these guys. If you've ever worked in a public company amongst people who have found success, you find they believe that the law and consumer dissatisfaction will never catch up to them during their guard.

The latest press release should make every person who upgraded to vBulletin 4 hate the company. It rubs what they did in the faces of customers. Now you're understanding why, unfortunately, I've been one of the spoilers here. It's waking up to reality and unfortunately trying to accept earlier rather than later to salvage what I have left.

 

Holy crap, that is well said banger. Ray doesn't care about customers, just the companies bottom line (money). If anyone want's, i can share the link to the actual leaked announcement, not just pieces and parts. You can read what the bean counters say about the unhappy customers and how we will go away.

 

Well I just bought an IPS Suite package.

So what I'm going to do is, rework one of my smaller sites and get used to setting up, importing into and configuring Invision.

Then once the renewal on my other sites come up around mid 2010, I figure I'll be in a pretty good position to make the right decision for my communities.

To me, this has never really been an issue about money. If it was, I wouldn't have just spent more to buy an Invision Suite package, instead I would have sucked it up and paid for vBulletin 4.0.

To me, all along this has been about Internet Brands treating me and other customers like crap and being pretty arrogant while they do it.

For that reason, barring dramatic change by IB, I suspect they're about to lose all my business. They'll probably lose a few others too, as I assist some other colleagues by hosting them and assisting them on the technical side of things.

At the end of the day, money talks, so I'm going to let my money do the talking.

 

Gordie, you are my hero. I wish i had the money to purchase Invision Suite Package, however with the state of the economy. Well you know. Anyways, look forward to reading about your testing of Invision and how the transformation feels.

doug

 

Note: I never suggested that Ray Morgan cared about the customers. On the contrary. Of course, to notice that you would have to read what I actually said instead of projecting your own imaginings onto my words.

 

Glad you like that move.

Don't forget you can keep running 3.8 for some time without paying a dime. So you've got some time to make your escape if that's ultimately what you decide to do.

I'll let you guys know how I make out with Invision. I'll most likely set it up in a test environment for a bit and figure it all out. I really like the option that Invision have with IP.Converge which allows users to use one log in system for multiple boards and also for some other applications. I'm not sure how it works exactly, or whether I'll ultimately use it, but if it does allow me to integrate my various boards so that a user can use one log in, that will be a really neat advantage.

 

I just made the announcement at my site that i will no longer be performing upgrades. Since the cost's have gotten out of control and with the fact that the company is trying to sell me software i don't need, i will stay with 3.8 for now.
I would however like to know how things go with invision. I have been looking at their software and i am curious to see someone use it to build a site that was previously a vbulletin forum based site. I have so much stuff on my site, i am not sure how much of it would be lost with a move to a different software brand. So if yours goes well, i would love to know.

Doug

 

Gordie, I think you will be the deerstalker (trailblazer?) for a whole lot of us. Good luck to you, first of all because you deserve it. And second, because a big bunch of us will be waiting to hear how your experiment goes. The sooner we are shut of IB, the better.

 

Why not take a look at free forum software? SMF 2 is just as powerfull as the paid software.
Besides 24 hour paid support, I really don't see what you get by paying for VB or any other paid forum software.

 

I don't know why this sort of thing keeps getting suggested. SMF is not even a tenth as good as even vB3.8. It suits some sites, but generally most sites that have used vB or Invision would be near destroyed by switching down to a few solution.

Even MyBB, which I *really* like, is a massive downstep from vB and Invision.

Unless you've suddenly run out of cash, don't even think of trading down.

For professional forums that want to be taken seriously, the choices are vB or Invision, there's nothing else.

 

So why wouldn't a free forum software as SMF 2 do the job?

 

If things go well with gordie, i will probably move to invision. Sadly there are a few pieces of software that i use that are written specifically around vbulletin forum software and will be a huge loss to me and my members. (vbportals cms, cndgarage, and photoplog).

 

There will probably be similar mods available for other forum software. At least vbportals cms and photoplog. I'm not sure what cndgarage is.

 

cndgarage is a photo upload program that is based completely around automotive websites. It allows my users to build their own garage and share a bunch of different information about their rides.

I really doubt that anyone has a cms as nice as vbportal.com's. The program is very deep and offers true content management, not just bit's and pieces of forums links. It has built in shoutbox, classifieds, reviews, news articles, links, journals, polls, statistics, recommend site, etc. I have personally looked at a bunch of different software related to content management, and vbportal is by far the most advanced. But it is only built to run with vbulletin forum software.