Current LawSuit

[Blakefire]

I know there is a current law suit going on, my question is, whats going on? I dont wanna spend my money on XenForo and find out in say 2 months they lose and XenForo has to suffer...

 

[Jake Bunce]

They do not care about loosing or winning. IB has enough money. They would not feel the difference of loosing or winning financially. IMHO it was never their real first-priority-goal to win the lawsuit. IB wants more likely to damage trust in xF, spread fear and win time with this lawsuit.

Let's face it: Even if IB would win this lawsuit, vb4 & vb5 will not become a better forum software. THIS is the real problem of IB

Hmm. I am assuming vB's customers care about the outcome of the lawsuit (just like XF's customers care). Maybe that is an incorrect assumption.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Hmm. I am assuming vB's customers care about the outcome of the lawsuit (just like XF's customers care). Maybe that is an incorrect assumption.

My thought on this: IB doesn't care about the money, as they are a huge company. They won't even miss it. They were once listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange until a holding company bought them out in 2010, and they rake in tens of millions of dollars in revenue generated by advertising displayed on their family of websites. vBulletin income likely is a drop in the bucket for them--a nice perk, but I highly doubt that was their sole motivation in buying them in the first place. (I'll explain below.)

Sure, the vBulletin fanboys will get upset about a negative verdict, yet the corporate side will likely lick its wounds and move on. The main challenge they will have is getting over the immediate negative publicity over losing the lawsuit. Yet over time, that will subside and for them the lawsuit will be a footnote in their history. I still believe they are bullying a small startup competitor primarily to exhaust their cash flow; even if the claims are baseless, they have at least introduced a delay in development.

As for vB the product? I also believe it will not become "better" software. The attitude with vB4.0 to 4.2 was to add more features. What is there to make me think vB5 will be any different? A flashy new skin perhaps, more new features (meaning, more data to be pulled from the database)...from a company I will never recommend purchasing a product from ever again. After how we all got screwed over with the new licensing arrangement, many of us soured on the company. I like how they made us buy the full 4.0 license before it was even released as a beta, then pulled the rug out from under us big board owners by declaring 3.x as "end of life" when they knew full well many large forums cannot just upgrade at the drop of a hat. (Or maybe they would not admit vB4 was an even worse resource hog.)

My thought on vB5 is that the directive from the corporate office is, "Monetize, monetize, monetize!" vB is hardly operating without bias here: IB knows they now control the forum software, so they can get their developers to write the forum software around their need to monetize every pixel they can on their own forum and Internet properties. And, make every tie-in to social media they can, in an effort to grow the subscriber bases at their properties. Don't think they are doing any of the work on vB5 for our benefit: they now control the software, and can have it developed to suit their needs...then sell the product as an "improvement" for the rest of the Internet forums that run their software. vB isn't competing against XF as much as they are competing against monetization solutions like Huddler (who, yes, have repeatedly spammed us to switch over to their bland forum software that reeks of monetization over community involvement). They may not want XF to become a major competitor, however, and seek to drain them of all resources so they give up at it.

Just my two cents. And you know what that will buy you these days.

 

[dutchbb]

They don't care about loss of money but believe me they care about the verdict . This is about a developer (edit: developers) who has a talent that can definitely be a threat to the future of vB. Although not in the short term, that is definitely the case in the longer term. There is a reason they paid Kier generously when he left the company and made that one year non-compete clause. Their mistake was to underestimate the time Kier and Mike needed to create and release a competitive product after that period.

If XenForo wins, vB will have to truly compete. XenForo would become a real threat.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I don't quite see it that way. The only people that XF has to be accountable for are XF license holders. With vB, their parent company (IB) has a vested interest in fully monetizing every site under their umbrella, and all of it powered by vB products. IB basically bought their own software development department in purchasing Jelsoft, in other words. XF could be a threat to vB licensing sales, but compared to the millions they rake in from their sites across the Internet, vB's income is almost an afterthought.

I'd see it like an automobile manufacturer buying up a company that made engines, so they had more complete control over the engines they put in their vehicles.

 

[MichaelDance]

I don't quite see it that way. The only people that XF has to be accountable for are XF license holders. With vB, their parent company (IB) has a vested interest in fully monetizing every site under their umbrella, and all of it powered by vB products. IB basically bought their own software development department in purchasing Jelsoft, in other words. XF could be a threat to vB licensing sales, but compared to the millions they rake in from their sites across the Internet, vB's income is almost an afterthought.

I'd see it like an automobile manufacturer buying up a company that made engines, so they had more complete control over the engines they put in their vehicles.

I agree, as I said, without kier, Mike and Ashley there wouldn't be a VBulletin for them to buy. Jelsoft cared for it's customers, IB just damaged all the hard work the Jelsoft team did to make them the top competitior.

VBulletin only care about making money as you said but by making everyone Owned licence for the duration of the product. VB5. comes along, You have to buy another license or upgrade it to get that software.

Where as xenForo cares about it's customers you only pay for yearly support, where you can get support from us the community.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I'm still miffed about having to pay for that full vB4 license to keep my vB 3.7 big board forum running...only to see them declare 3.x as "end of life" a bit prematurely (IMHO), considering many of us with big boards having so many modifications (to cure the performance bottlenecks) that we can't just download a file and install instant happiness labeled as vB4. So basically, despite the license, we are more or less screwed.

 

[MichaelDance]

I'm still miffed about having to pay for that full vB4 license to keep my vB 3.7 big board forum running...only to see them declare 3.x as "end of life" a bit prematurely (IMHO), considering many of us with big boards having so many modifications (to cure the performance bottlenecks) that we can't just download a file and install instant happiness labeled as vB4. So basically, despite the license, we are more or less screwed.

well I wonder if 4.2.0 will be the last of VB4 as they are moving on fast.

 

[Russ]

They don't care about loss of money but believe me they care about the verdict . This is about developerS who has a talent that can definitely be a threat to the future of vB. Although not in the short term, that is definitely the case in the longer term. There is a reason they paid Kier generously when he left the company and made that one year non-compete clause. Their mistake was to underestimate the time Kier and Mike needed to create and release a competitive product after that period.

If XenForo wins, vB will have to truly compete. XenForo would become a real threat.

Fixed for you

Mike is too far under-appreciated even if he's missing LOL


Also wasn't the "generous pay" like a $50 amazon gift card.

 

[snoopy5]

Hmm. I am assuming vB's customers care about the outcome of the lawsuit (just like XF's customers care). Maybe that is an incorrect assumption.

It depends who you define as the vb customers. I think there are 2 different customer bases of vb.

The first one, are those who are activily screening the market and who always try to improve the functionality of their forum software. In most cases, they try to earn money with their forum. This is typically the same customer group as i.e. xF or IPB. But this is a smaller share of the cake. They know vb as all others out there and they appreciated at least vb3.8x as a good produvt, but not vb4 anymore. Thy care about the lawsuit, because they want the best forum product to win, because they do not want to use an inferior product.

The second group are customers, who just buy the vbulletin software, use it out of the box and fullstop. Most likely they bought into vb because they are unhappy with open source forum software and might not have the coding knowledge to adapt it better to their needs and/or bugs. They just saw everywhere vb as the dominating forum software on the internet and so they just decided for it. This is IMHO the significant bigger part of the cake. This is IMHO the part vb is targeting on.

And this bigger part of the cake probably even does not know that vb tries to kill xF. They do not care, because it is for them irrelevant. They would never switch, becuse of technical fear of importing scripts, too much work, you name it...

They are the ones, who still think that vb4 and probably also vb5 is a good forum product.

The only challenge for IB is to throw a spanner in the works to xF, so that they do not get too much known too fast. Otherwise this second and larger vb-customer base is at risk. I think they underestimated at the beginning how fast xF was developed. Probably IB even did not know before the take over, that the main motor for vb developent were the guys who will leave

The seller of vbulletin will surely not have told IB before closing the deal, that the success of vb depends significantly on a few shoulders. This would have dropped the price

 

[TheBigK]

I've very high regards for Mike. He's been totally awesome everywhere and I can say that because he went out of the way to help me with the issues I faced while migrating from vB4 -> XF. I just hope the trio is together and will continue to be together for the exciting times ahead ( at least, I'd like to think that way ).

I think IB knows / knew that their product can't compete with KAM's. The lawsuit was the logical step for them to make the small company run out of money and get into issues. I've seen how relationships get 'stretched' during cash-crunch times. I also hope that XF wins 100% and get all the money back and XF development starts in full swing.

PS: Off topic - but how long are we going to wait for the answers from Ashley?

 

[MikeMpls]

My thought on this: IB doesn't care about the money, as they are a huge company. They won't even miss it. They were once listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange until a holding company bought them out in 2010, and they rake in tens of millions of dollars in revenue generated by advertising displayed on their family of websites. vBulletin income likely is a drop in the bucket for them--a nice perk, but I highly doubt that was their sole motivation in buying them in the first place. (I'll explain below.)

My recollection is that IB overextended themselves purchasing websites and were looking at Chapter 11 until that holding company stepped in & took them private. They've shown themselves to be really good at throwing out money, making promises & buying websites, much less proficient at managing their acquisitions.

 

[MikeMpls]

Probably IB even did not know before the take over, that the main motor for vb developent were the guys who will leave

I'm not sure that that matters. From what I've seen of the depositions and other documents, IB had zero knowledge of software development practices and pitfalls, e.g. you don't get twice the development by throwing twice as many coders at a project. Software management principles that have been known to me for decades were lost on them. They got into trouble with an extremely poor top-down management style that alienated key people. The issue really is how they dealt with their acquisition, not whether they knew what key elements of their acquisition would or wouldn't do.

The seller of vbulletin will surely not have told IB before closing the deal, that the success of vb depends significantly on a few shoulders. This would have dropped the price.

Any software system has a small number of key people who are truly responsible for its design and who fully understand how all or most of the pieces work. vBulletin's problem derives from how they chose to manage these people.

 

[bhuwan]

I wonder why Brogan left.

 

[steven s]

Hmm. I am assuming vB's customers care about the outcome of the lawsuit (just like XF's customers care). Maybe that is an incorrect assumption.

I'm a customer of both. I'd like to see both do well. Competitive products are good for the market.

Isn't there already a thread discussing the case?
Or is this just another IB bashing thread?
Just wondering.

 

[Digital Doctor]

then pulled the rug out from under us big board owners by declaring 3.x as "end of life" when they knew full well many large forums cannot just upgrade at the drop of a hat. (Or maybe they would not admit vB4 was an even worse resource hog.)

Actions speak louder than words.
http://www.internetbrands.com/ib/autonetwork/
IB can't get their own forums off vB3
They dont want to upgrade for vB3 to vB4 ... because vB4 is horrid.

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/sho...esn-t-Internet-Brand-s-forums-use-vBulletin-4
https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/sho...Internet-Brand-s-forums-use-vBulletin-4-(pt2)

 

[steven s]

They dont want to upgrade for vB3 to vB4 ... because vB4 is horrid.

Since the thread has gone on a tangent. . .
I actually like the current version of vB4.
Heavily modified sites generally don't upgrade.
Why upgrade for the sake of upgrading? If it works [vb3], don't fix it.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Why upgrade for the sake of upgrading? If it works [vb3], don't fix it.

Actually many people do upgrade for the sake of it. I have upgraded many forums where after the upgrade they ask me, "so what's new in this version?" Those are the people who can be sold a piece of software by its version number instead of by what that number represents.

 

[jadmperry]

Yeah, I had a great vB 3.8 site...met all my needs, was fairly well customized and likely would have worked great for years to come. The problem is that vB pitched 4.x as a revolutionary software with must have features. So, I bought in the presale and had nothing but problems that I had to pay a lot to try to fix (templates/styles, loss of function in mods, etc.). Now, I definitely don't fall in the camp of being able to code or fix these types of issues. The real problem with pitching an upgrade in that matter is that if the core features don't perform well, and the new version breaks a lot of the features, then it is a horrible deal. (The stock answer, I understand, would be, well, why not revert...but, having bought into the vision that things would get better in the future, and having spent so much to make the style/templates work in 4.x, it was a sunk cost...and then a lot of modders abandoned their 3.x products...so, after a year of waiting, to me, going back wasn't a viable option- hence my exit to what I feel is a better product- XF!). Plus, after more than a year of no real fixes to the problems, I lost all confidence in the product.

Didn't mean to go off on a tangent, but since the whole versioning issue came up, I thought I would share my experiences.

 

[Mert]

Many will not agree with me though vB3 is a superior product compared to vbulletin 4 and Xenforo. We offered beta versions to our big board users and many disliked Xenforo more then vBulletin 4.

I can only say one thing clearly , currently we are following couple scripts for our future move and Xenforo is not one of them anymore after latest announcements.

 

[TheBigK]

@Mert: Time to upgrade your users .