vBulletin is just such an awful looking product, the theme used is doing nothing to make it ever slightly resemble a professional product (and they either can’t see it, or just won’t accept it) because they know it will dramatically slow down development and lose them money sales in they change it now. I keep noticing they are making changes to the theme colours all the time to try and improve it, but they’re flogging a dead horse with that theme they use. They need to ditch it!

And then you look at the fact they released vBulletin 4 as Gold and we have over a 1,000 Bugs outstanding on it. It’s all just a bad joke really as customers expense.

[QUOTE]
Selective tendering – no more vB for the small forum-masters

I have been pondering for days about voicing my opinion and thoughts about the current situation, which became obvious last Wednesday. I’ve honestly speaking spent 4-5 hours just reading threads here, so I’m aware of the reaction there’s been from many others. Rather than bitching about how Internet Brands is unfair, I’ve chosen to sum up what I think is behind their latest move and what has been the trend ever since the company takeover. It pretty much also represents what I feel about things now.

Let’s for a moment think what Internet Brands is. It’s a NASDAQ listed public company, which has a plethora of investors backing it up with loans and share stakes. They are faceless entities with little real interest for how their end-users are treated, as long as the company performs as they expect and it’s giving dividends. It’s the #1 priority of IB to ensure that their investors are pleased. Now taken how they run a substantial number of community websites, it becomes in the company’s interest to minimize license expenses. Not to mention that buying up a software vendor makes it possible to fully absorb their know-how, intellectual property (hereafter IP), as well as making the decisions regarding how the product is developed.

A good comparison can be made to Microsoft. They have grown very much due to their numerous company takeovers, in which they have picked up existing smaller companies, with the IP they need. Rather than developing their own solutions, MS has repeatedly taken the easier path and bought existing development. That’s what we see happening here too. For IB it’s “good business” to takeover their primary software supplier, as that gives them total control of the product that is vital for their core business.

This is where we come to the keyphrase in my thread title – selective tendering. I know that Ray Morgan or some other head honcho will soon be here touting that I’m wrong and that IB is seriously keen to develop vB as a product for a larger audience. In fact it’s not something IB would have to do. They already have a large userbase of their own, even if they wouldn’t wish to market it to the broader general audience.

Now that the vBulletin business operations are no longer about making a product that sells as much possible (like it used to be with good ol’ Jelsoft), but rather maintaining the software platform used by their own large community network, they can do selective tendering. That is precisely what we are seeing here with the dramatic change of how the software is licensed. They don’t have to cater for the little forum-master anymore. As long as they have substantial in-house use for the product, they can choose to serve better paying customers. They no longer have to keep every single client, no matter how many years they’ve been using vBulletin and paid duely their 40 or 60$ a year. That’s also what the beancounters have been doing – calculating how many customers they can drop without making a too big losses.

Essentially vBulletin Solutions no longer needs or wants to serve the small forum-master, because just like the principles of selective tendering teach us, it’s often more profitable to focus on what is bringing you more profit per customer served. When I have been digging through all these threads, the attitude of Sitepoint’s webmaster represents precisely what I’m talking about. He has been basically touting “vBulletin only for the serious forum owners.” Yeah, vBulletin only for the ones that have a steady stream of cash from running their forums… On a sidenote: that’s just like IB. They have steady income from their own community network.

The key here is that sites that actually make a profit with their vBullletin based forums, can be milked for more licensing income, as they are in a better position to pay for price increases and changes of licensing scheme. Furthermore a forum with the modus operandi of a dead serious business, which should actually even give a living to someone, can more easily justify making investments. This is where I feel the strategy of IB is having its biggest shortcoming.

Selective tendering can be all nice and dandy, but it fails to pick up emerging communities, which still can’t use a lot of cash to software licenses, as probably most of the budget is going to hosting alone. Emerging communities are the best business potential for any forum software vendor, as they have potential and once they’ve made the breakthrough, it’s harder to switch from one platform to another. This is exactly what we have seen happening now. Even large forums consider making a switch to e.g. IPB, even if it would be a dreadful task due to custom coding and the sheer amount of data. These emerging communities feel being dumped by IB and look for other alternatives, as selective tendering is making it impossible for them to continue licensing vBulletin.

I myself spent this weekend converting one of my forums from vBulletin to SMF, simply because it would no more be viable to license vB for that project. And I still don’t feel it was a forum not worthy enough for using vB, rather the expense was becoming too paramount. I do see why users like Sitepoint’s webmaster like the whole idea of getting rid of “less serious” (if his analogy was that only “serious” forums are worthy enough). It’s just not smart in the long run, because the step to license a copy of vBulletin becomes very high and thus gives competing products the edge.

I’m currently amused (or maybe more like bemused, if I’d be IB?) that I have several expired owned licenses, which are 5-6 years old, but I can’t currently even get them active again and license just the standalone vBulletin Forum. I was actually about to reactivate one of them, but realised that the shopping cart only gives me the choice to pay 210$, even if I just want to download 3.8.4 PL1. That was enough for me. Spent then the weekend doing that troublesome SMF conversion, as my business was apparently not in IB’s interest.

All in all, looking back at how the team roster has been reshuffled during the past year (Kier, Ashley, Floris…) and how the tone of communication from the head honchos to the community has changed, it becomes obvious that IB has set a new course, which doesn’t anymore involve us, the little forum-masters. I’m not going to speculate why the team has been reshuffled. I do however point out that it’s in IB’s interest to have men of their own in control, to make sure the product is developed as they wish.

Just like I promised, I haven’t ranted or used arbitary language. I just felt that I have to speak out how I see the reasons which lead to this and what I feel about it. Sure, nothing of course changes, because selective tendering rules out any clients like me, but at least I hope someone else will also give a second thought about giving one more dime to IB.
[/QUOTE]

above attributed to Rasbelin

http://www.nexusoneforum.net

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vBulletin 4 – Disappointed!

Okay, so why did I have to pay 160 USD + 175 USD for vBulletin 4.0 Forum?

I decided to upgrade to vBulletin 4.0 Forum and I thought, yeah, just another 70 dollars.

When I looked and thought only a 15 dollar discount, I was shocked. I immediately believed in all the Indigo and 2012 phenomoen, it was that shocking.

So let me get this straight:
I had to pay 160 USD + 175 USD for vBulletin 4.0.
and new customers only have to pay 195 USD.

Can I please talk to the person who is in charge of mathematics? I’m sorry, I think I missed something, if anything it should be like this:

vBulletin Existing Customer (which costs 160 dollars) -> 15 dollars to get vBulletin 4.0
*complains about this on my popular blog*

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response:

STEVE MACHOL

Posts arguing about company policies are not allowed. You can fill out a support ticket if you have issue with company policies.

I can see your point of view. I apologize if my use of language appears sensationalized; it’s one of the biggest flaws of the internet and it’s the inability to hear the voice of the speaker. My intentions were to put the unedited truth out there, and yes while harsh at points, it’s what I would put as an auditor for any company I audit. I’ll present the findings regardless of how wonderful or how flawed the results are to all levels, including upper management (though I’ll probably politely sugar-coat it not to embarrass management)

But lastly, our choice of language is to help all parties understand this situation. Our site is not intended to cater to just enterprise users. It’s meant to be read by all stakeholders. It’s intended to be read by vBulletin license holders (personal and corporate), by upper management, by internal auditors, external auditors, INET Shareholders, INET Investors, and future vBulletin customers.

It’s an extremely broad audience and we’re trying to help everyone understand our plight.

That said, I raised this as a contrast to the actual value of having a place like vBTruth is. There needs to be a place where dissenting views can be exchanged and discussed freely, especially following Internet Brands’ decision to silence customer views on their forums. vBTruth does this very well, and if it only lays off the hyperbole and angst-drama, it can be a bit less ranty and a bit more professional.

I was thinking the same about IPB but i analyzed it a lot recently and i can say it that ipb3.x wouldnt not be a downgrade. But, i’d like to add that if Kier create another forum software i would buy it without thinking any second. Kier? Do you have any plans?