Kier designing his own forum software?

@KierDarby Congrats man, Not a new forum as speculated but a new bundle of joy.

 

At least as far as Tuesday was concerned.

 

Funny you should say that, because after Kier left vBulletin I was half expecting IPB might have employed him themselves. So they could get another good developer onboard, and also stick two fingers up at Internet Brands in the process. After all he was the leading vBulletin developer, so it was something I thought might have been on the cards (maybe).

 

As much as I like Matt and admire what he's achieved with IPB, working on someone else's project isn't really my thing.

 

Kier, you're right on the money. Matt has done a fantastic job on IPB, but IF you were going to get back into the "game", then you'd have to work on something in 'your way'.

As you can tell by this forum thread, there would be great support for you and your efforts IF you chose to work on a forum-based software.

 

Yeah, history would be repeating itself like it did with vBulletin being made after the fiasco that was UBB.

 

Alright, back to the rumors....

 

Congratulations! If he was born on Tuesday, then it's late Wednesday now, and he should be all set up with his own laptop and internet access.


It will be awhile to catch up on this thread but I've made it about half way ...

After an over 20 year career in corporate America (and darn tired of it) I can say that all events I'm aware of to date re the acquisition of vB were normal corporate stuff. The new company emotionally & mentally disconnected from what they saw as the overseas staff (even though prior to the sale it was the other way around,) consolidated power in their own location, tromped into the middle of a huge project in critical stages and approaching the completion process, and pushed it into market without knowing it all that well (even if they still had old development staff that did.) Oh, and they lost key people at key points but figured they could hire more smart people and paddle along. They released what they had, then pushed through a bunch of fixes and will continue to do so. Where they have been most off the rails has been customer communications, which has been *fail* and a large part of their problem, over and above the product.

Very probably what was released was substantially the pre-vb-sale product, with the later stages of development cut off and an ending point found so they could get it into release. As far as how that was going to work for the customers, they pushed that onto their support staff who are now overwhelmed.

The new company power structure is now relying on the professionalism of all the staff to carry the company along, both support & development, with both the current and future releases. Which is just what the staff will do. There are a lot of American companies that are being carried by the dedication of the workforce over and above any executive decisions. The staff tends to be very supportive of the product (and hopefully the customers) regardless of how they feel about the executive management. That's what they see themselves working for and they apply all their skill, talent and above-and-beyond time and that's how things roll along.

All the above is pure speculation, but that's what is going on in the crystal ball I keep. No idea what it has to do with the thread title.

As for the future endeavors of former staff members ... whether they can develop a competing product depends on the appetite of vB for infringement lawsuits and the like. But whatever they make the former staff can't use things that are substantially like the old product without a good deal of personal legal risk.

On the other hand, if we assume the former staff is starting something brand new and not joining an existing product ... they are no longer tied to the limitations of the old code base and product design. They are free to take a blue-sky approach and use today's best-practice from the ground up. Although there is a core of former-staff-fans who are an excellent potential customer base, in the end whatever former staff does will have to stand up in the marketplace against all other similar products in the eyes of unbiased, objective potential customers.

For all vendors quite likely the trend in internet forums is to forum owner/operators who aren't wired into the techie community, but into their subject community. To thrive any software vendor will need a lot of customers who never heard of the companies and individual stars that are well-known to the technically-connected. The past isn't that much of a help. It isn't that much of a hindrance, either.

My guess is that vB will be evolving a re-constituted customer base. Old customers will still be on board, but vb's best path right now is a growing customer base that increasingly does not have the memory of the past. vB is not going back to the way things were before. The future vB will be based on new staff and new perspectives. Just speaking as a long-time career corporate analyst, I think those customers expressing serious issues with vB will long-term find themselves with another product. vB is not going to fix their issues and won't cry to see them go. It's a tough experience, but that's life.

My last observation is that on the vB community forum I've read flaming complaints about vB since I joined it in 2006. There have been major staff transitions before. The last few months have sounded to me like "same song, second verse, a little bit louder and a little bit worse." Unfolding events may be all dramatic but really nothing new is going on, they've been round this transition/transformation block before and doubtless will go round it again. I'll speculate that within 12-18 months there will be a new round of departures and new staff brought in to "clean up/turn around," and that cycle will run yet again within 2-5 years of that event.

Actually if there is no terrible bad blood personally among the players, and if Kier, Mike and who knows who else of the European former staff were willing to relocate to CA, possibly they could be brought back on at vB in major roles. I speculate that being in CA is still a deal-breaker for vB, they care more about where than who. That's not a prediction but it's the kind of thing a company might do for interesting positive corporate news and to shore up the old customers, assuming they want to keep them. Oh and to develop the software, too. :p

My $0.00.

 

I highly doubt - in fact I can almost guarantee - that Kier wouldn't go back to IB/vB.
I doubt Mike would either.

 

That wouldn't happen for the reasons you yourself specified in the same post, 3Phase:

When staff, no matter how valued/able, leave a company like IB on a less than amicable note, they are seldom welcomed back. Welcome to the corporate game.

 

Thsi keeps getting brought up, and I think it needs to be clarified as some people seem to be misunderstanding the situation.

It isn't that the former staff are "not tied" to the old code. They *cannot* use *any part* of the old code. There seems to be some misconception that the vB3 code somehow belongs to Kier, it doesn't. He coded it for Jelsoft which now belongs to Internet Brands. Every scrap of that code belongs to them, and there is no way anybody can take any part of that and use it in any competing product.

 

Correct, and that's good too. That way Kier is free of any backwards compatibility / legacy crap.

 

I agree. Otherwise you'd have people complaining that any new software he might write didn't have an upgrade path from vB2.0 or something.

 

Yep, and you can call me sour-Kraut!

This whole thread rushed into my vbulletin-depression like a soothing morning-sun!

 

Well spoken for a Kraut!

I'm allowed to say that, I'm a Kraut too. It's like the N-word.

 

Gee that was a long read.

I'm sure I'll be one checking it out. Now to the big question. Do old vb users get a discount

I wonder how long it will take internet brands to change vbulletin's name to something completely different?

 

vFail 5.0
Now with even more bugs at Gold!

 

What does this mean? Have you had a chance to work with vb5?


Lots of companies have a kind of normal "newbie" cycle, after a major new product or an acquisition, and in this case both. Major face-plants right off the bat. [er - a skiing term - in the snow] But they get better, and the "new" period is a one-time low. Sometimes the lower the low, the harder the company will work to reverse that image.

So to date I've been ready to give vb a break generally, although annoyed. Write off what I've encountered in vb4 as the one-time newbie low, stumbles by a new acquiring company that will learn and improve, greatly.

But after 3 days of major time with vb4 I'm starting to grow very concerned less by the product than by the attitude I'm detecting. I am not sure what the company's principals are around customer satisfaction - that is, license owners, aside from their other business. And that's not good ... I should be getting vibes of 'we're really trying, we're embarrassed about the complaints, we're making changes to be sure things go much more smoothly in the future.' I'm not at all sure that's the message. I'm unclear if they are trying to educate customers that 'this is how we roll.' Just really can't tell - especially in the context that their inept customer communications to date is probably their biggest source of headaches on both sides.

I intend to start pressing that question with vB ... what are the company values re customer satisfaction? And let them speak for themselves - hopefully they will not be so foolish as to let the grumpiest users speak for them. (Although in their case they might be that foolish.) Regardless of what happy talk they use, what they really believe will filter through their statements.

If anyone is developing a whole new forum package software ... right now there is a good chance I may be ready to explore new products, if the functionality and use-ability are there ... and the attitude toward license holders is what it should be. But I don't think I'm ready to loose anything that vb4 offers now just to switch, including cms/articles, blog & gallery/album (album that functions as it should, which 3.8 did not.) As of now, I'd put up with vb4 before loosing their new & improved functions. But I would absolutely entertain a switch to equivalent functionality and a company dedicated to their license-owner customers - who shows that dedication in their actions and attitude, not just words.

 

As far as I'm aware there is no vB5 yet and I don't think they've started work on it. They haven't even finished vB4.0 yet. Although... That would make sense to Bob Brisco's amazing new way of making software!

As for giving them the benefit of the doubt and of being "new" at this:

- They have been working with vBulletin for years.
- Their main business is communication. They have failed completely at communication on almost ALL levels.

 

So I am really, really giving them a chance at a second chance. Working hard at extending a point in their favor, as it were. The new (to vb) senior execs are new at overseeing the development and making release decisions about vb software. Now they need to show a definite learning curve. Although I think B.B. may have blog-posted that they have dispensed with learning as too slow to market.