Has IB turned the ship around?

Other than licensing, do you think vBulletin solutions has started to turn their ship around on vBulletin 4?

They've listened to feedback regarding the style and started to make small improvements. Granted small ones, but thats how things go usually, small little baby steps toward the grand finally.

They've put up a demo of the entire suite, before the presale ends.

The CMS at first look, looks nice. It hasn't underwent the microscope yet, but first apperence, it did a thousand times better than the initial forum launching.

So what do you think, do you feel they've started to listen to their customers, or do you think it still sucks. (All licensing issues asside)

 

I think they're only listening to their customers now because at this point, they don't have much of a choice. If they were to continue on their path of nothing-ness, they would have only shot themselves in the other foot.

They're making improvements, but I think it's for all the wrong reasons. They should have done these things from the beginning. Customers shouldn't be having to cry, complain, and file complaints through the BBB to get IB to do something.

 

^ I concur with Nick on this point. For the record, it is so difficult to tell if the actions are due to customer relations or not. (Just to be fair)

 

I agree with all comments.

They are starting to listen because they have to, but that's the only reason any business "listens" to start with - they do it because it will increase their profits, not because they feel it's the right thing to do.

I really don't think it's right to pretend that the "old" Jelsoft was all sweetness and light and Internet Brands is the monstrous ogre.

Frankly the new vb4 is mightily more impressive than anything vBulletin have put out since 3.5, which was the last truly innovative release.

 

On things other than the licensing, I'd say they turned it around. The vB 4 forums are improving quite a bit based on feedback, the CMS and blogs look excellent, and the news of a more public beta is exactly what people wanted, as are all the useful new blog posts and tutorials there now.

However, the pricing... sorry, this seems a bit ruined, and they still fail to realise a lot of people want to order things seperately, or get a discount for old add ons they bought.

 

Until they start showing dollars and sense (as in the ludicrous upgrade pricing and maintenance) nothing has changed regarding "the company." So a few suggestions are being taken regarding the style. This is an earth shattering change given the issues? These things generally don't change until management does.

 

That is still my exact feelings on this. Looking at the software though, i think they have done a great job. I have always felt that though, each upgrade they have done has always outdone the last....

 

The licensing is actually fine as a business model and generally "new" customers aren't going nto have an issue with it - it works like many professional software licenses, and given that this is where they will probably pitch the planned marketing, it makes perfect sense.

Where I think there have been issues is in the handling of the transition from old to new. I don't think it would have hurt them to have made a greater allowance for those who had bought the add ons, and particularly those who bought stuff in the past six months - imagine buying a $180 owned license and/or the blogs and project tools the day before it all changed.

I still don't think it's too late for them to do something in this area, but it has to be said it seems unlikely now.

Personally, I did ok out of it. But some did not, and I can see their perspective.

 

Yup there are slowly turning the ship in the right direction but they're clearly not anywhere where they need to be yet! Unfortunately, emotions leading to personal attacks and insults from both parties (vB/IB and vB customers) is adding fuel to the fire. A fire of which i can still predict to see burning well into the next 12 months.

From what I read on various forums from Wayne's and Steve's own posts, there is still quite a bit of the old vB/Jelsoft staff left are rallying for the vB customers (ones currently complaining) - Wayne, Steve, Zac, Freddie, George etc.

Alot of the before and after vB4 pre-sale announcement changes you're seeing to turn the ship in the right direction occurred as a result of those old staff's voicing there own personal concerns as well as conveying vB customers opinions to IB management.

These vB staff are probably stuck between what IB originally planned for vB 4 and what the vB 3 customers want afterall they are the front line medium who essentially only have the power to convey what vB customers want to IB management. The ultimate decision will always be in IB managements' hands as to the final changes and direction which will shape and direct how vB staff are meant to behave.

When I originally bought my first vB license in 2000 (yes original vB v1.x), the greatest strength for vB was in offering choices - flexibility. Power was in choice. But with springing the pre-sale deadline on folks, that essentially took away one of the strengths in choice - folks had a limited time to decide and/or limited time to come up with money for the upgrade. Until, more is done to address that fundamental issue, we'll still have this problem and fall out in the months to come.

Personally, I have no problems with forking out the US$130 for suite upgrade license - that's like $8-12/month spread over 12-18 months. Folks and me probably pay more than that for domain renewal and web hosting costs even if it's a hobby and not a commercial forum. If you can't afford that, then you should really re-think if your hobby/forum is really something you can afford to keep going for medium to long term and if you have over-stretched your financial means. Same applies to bulk licenses. But again the problem might not be the cost/price but lack of choice in spreading that cost over a longer period of time to meet with your financial situation.

 

The pricing problem has nothing to do with the $130 fee on price alone - it is every other license where it starts to get brutal. Second is the absurd manner IB conducted a surprise 2 week presale with a high pressure sell. As someone else said here, it sure feels like used car salesmen trying to push us into buying something prematurely. In addition, everyone wonders about version 5 - when it will come prematurely to raise cash and it will likely be another forced sale upon customers somehow. Nothing has changed except that the worst cash grab they were going to make is over. And now they expect many of you to forget over time what shennanigans were pulled it's funny because with a good number it will all go as planned, short memories and all.

 

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I agree - what has changed? I can't see much other than a bit of time has passed by and some people's frustration has subsided a little. For me, my memory isn't that short and the underlying issues and problems are still there for me.

For one, the new pricing model, makes no sense to me at all, and until it does, I'm not forking over a dime.

Here's the problem for me...

In effect, what you're doing is buying a license to use vBulletin 4.0 for the life of the product and in doing so, you have no idea how long that use will be for. It could be a week, a month, a year or ten years.

Imagine under the old pricing model, if the offer was that you could lease a license, but instead of knowing you had a year of use, you were told you could use it until the the next version was released. Would you have purchased it? And to me, that is essentially what we have now.

Now I realize the naysayers would say, you'll probably get 18 months or two years or whatever. The problem is that we don't that's the timeline involved and there are no guarantees by IB as to the minimum amount of time you'll get.

And given that many of us already feel that we've just been burned by IB and their recent license changes, why would I trust them now? Well, I'm sorry, but I don't trust them.

And think about this, going forward, say a year from now. Let's say you're thinking about buying a new license. What will your 280 something bucks get you then? A few months use? A year? This entire pricing model makes no sense at all. So as time goes on in the life-cycle of vBulletin 4.0, really what you have is the law of diminishing returns.

So what will IB do say, a few months from the end of vB 4.0's life cycle? Not tell people and screw them over? Offer them a huge discount to use it for a few months?

Sorry, it just makes no sense and it's totally dysfunctional.

 

I totally agree gordie......

 

Gordie,

This is another excellent point. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it! But, it certainly shows just how screwed up their new pricing is!

 

While the management of vbulletin did a lot right, they also did a whole, WHOLE lot wrong.

While free software like wordpress has been offering search engine friendly urls for 2 - 3 years (that I know of), vbulletin has yet to offer an SEF solution.

While users were begging the management of jelsoft for a content management system solution that is fully integrated vbulletin - the people in management turned a deaf ear to the pleas.

While google, yahoo and bing webmaster tools has a sitemap submission tool, vbulletin has yet to offer a built in sitemap generator.

While social networking has gotten more popular, all vbulletin users get is customized profiles and build in picture gallery. Where are the features like what facebook offers?

Where is the youtube - vbulletin integration? Like what youtube has done with facebook and twitter?

And now, the management of internet solutions / vbulletin says they are going to listen to their customers, only to ban members from the vbulletin.com and .org for speaking out?

I do not see anything really "turning around" - changing direction, yes, turning around, no.

 

I'm still banned.

The company will not talk to me.

No, they haven't changed.

 

Hey, i am still banned too........damn ship is broken.

 

I absolutely agree here.

Absolutely agreed. I did absolutely nothing wrong (worthy of a ban), yet, surprisingly enough, banned on all fronts, and support is basically refused. Why? Because Mr. Morgan doesn't like me. Waaaah, waaaah, waaah. We all have our crosses to bear here, and it is really immature to just "ban" someone because you don't like what they say.

 

See that is just wrong, i can't believe vbulletin.com is being so unprofessional. Banning those of us that don't appreciate the things that have transpired, isn't going to make things right. Mr. Morgan needs to man up and tell people he made a mistake and want's to move forward. Allot of the problems that have appeared since the leaked infromation, could have been fixed had he stated the changes at that time. Atleast we would have had a bit of dialogue instead of ignoring the problem hoping it would go away. When that didn't work and his helpers went on a banning spree.

 

Dude, it's done, you are banned...It's pretty darn obvious that vB solutions has made up their mind about you. There comes a time when one has to fold and realize that what you want is not going to happen. Some of you need to "man up" as you state and realize that your time with vB is finished. You paid your money but they want nothing to do with you. Keep up the BBB route, look for other avenues but dag nap it...stop crying.

 

ah, i see. You become a moderator here (which was well deserved), now you are going to go around and bash us? Sorry you disagree with what we have to say, even if it is day after day, but for some of us, this is still a sore spot.

I can see where this is going............NICK, hit the ban key please so i am not tempted to view this site anymore.