IB SOLD

[Lycaon]

This is a train crash in the making ... best to jump off this train and blast off on the XF Battlestar spaceship.

Don't you mean Starship? XF is the Intrepid class of forum software.

Fast, quiet, powerful and bloody sexy.

 

[anotheralias]

I am really totally ignorant on material like this, but can somebody explain to me why something like this is such a bad news?

I'm really ignorant on this stuff too, but I know what happened to vBulletin when IB bought it, so I'm extrapolating: their biggest concern will be their profit margin, not customer satisfaction.

 

[Lycaon]

I'm really ignorant on this stuff too, but I know what happened to vBulletin when IB bought it, so I'm extrapolating: their biggest concern will be their profit margin, not customer satisfaction.

Maybe the new guys saw what IB done to vBulletin, god bless her, and want to save her. Unlikely though but more importantly, although it is sad what's happened/happening/going to happen to vBulletin, I don't much care myself, there's only one forum software for me now.

 

[Kier]

vBulletin is going to be a very very small part of a $640m deal.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

I know its not VB's fault... but I just feel completely disappointed that IB have done what they have done to that company from a customer viewpoint. I had made a decision to back VB getting back on its feet with quality products through the transitional product period, but this sale just came out of left field and completely changed my view of IB... not VB, but IB. Knowing what I know about running companies, it always flows downwards and impacts the customer with any type of corporate sale.

Now XF get more licenses from me than initially anticipated over the coming years.

 

[MilesDB]

I am really totally ignorant on material like this, but can somebody explain to me why something like this is such a bad news?

vBulletin has just climbed five notches higher in the ranking of the SOULLESS entities.

"Private equity firms, with their investors, will acquire a controlling or substantial minority position in a company and then look to maximize the value of that investment." (wiki)

It sounds pretty much like a "Buy, Break-Up, Sell" deal.

 

[Grover]

I remember it well.

It proves my ignorance on matters like this, doesn't it? . I hoped a bigger-resourced (people, money) company like IB could positively resurrect vBulletin at the time (Invision was playing catching-up for years), since speed of development became such an apparent problem. What did I know ... as a simple customer (knowing literally nothing about business stuff/management/development processes) it still amazes me that a company consisting of a 13-piece development team is apparently unable to provide what a 2-man developer team does deliver with XenForo. Really hard to understand from a simple customer's point of view.

 

[Chromaniac]

well they do need a solid change in mindset if they really want to fix the problems with vB.

i have no idea if you guys saw the recent mail from one of their management guys on the forum.

he outlined some of the features they plan to add in the upcoming releases. and he wanted folks to directly respond to his thread about the problems they face with vB.

 

[anotheralias]

I don't much care myself, there's only one forum software for me now.

Me too, but I'm stuck with vB 3.8 for awhile on one forum. Although, so long as I can still run it without paying another fee, I guess it doesn't matter what else vB does now.

 

[HannahP]

It sounds pretty much like a "Buy, Break-Up, Sell" deal.

Not necessarily. The largest web hosting company that you've never heard of (Endurance International Group - they own and operate 30 or so hosting companies, some of which you would know) is owned by a private equity firm, and they acquire hosts, they don't sell them.

That being said, "big fish eats small fish" never really works out in the consumer's favor. But then it isn't meant to.

 

[Dean]

A quote from the movie "Wall Street" 1987, Michael Douglas plays Gordon Gekko

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes?qt0393936

"The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit."

 

[Chromaniac]

hah. i loved that movie. waiting for the sequel. i hate Shia LaBeouf though.

 

[SneakyDave]

At least Madrona Park / Infopop / Groupee remained somewhat independent.

 

[MilesDB]

Not necessarily. The largest web hosting company that you've never heard of (Endurance International Group - they own and operate 30 or so hosting companies, some of which you would know) is owned by a private equity firm, and they acquire hosts, they don't sell them.

I don't know but vBulletins looks doomed to me. It would be wiser to sell vB and use whatever's left from vB's goodwill to maximize private equity firm's return and then invest into XenForo or alike. I might be wrong though.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

it still amazes me that a company consisting of a 13-piece development team is apparently unable to provide what a 2-man developer team does deliver with XenForo.

Corporate BS just gets in the way every single time. The bigger the corporation, the more downtime there is and the bigger the cost to the customer. Just look at global companies like Price, Waterhouse, Coopers... they exist only to support Government and other major corporations. Everyone else uses smaller business where they get better service with the same outcome at a lesser price.

 

[Jethro]

This is a train crash in the making ... best to jump off this train and blast off on the XF Battlestar spaceship.

Watching out for Cylon raiders along the way!

Oh dear feel sorry for vB owners, this can't be a good development. While all professional software companies making forum products are in it for the money, hey Xen no different, there is a gulf between companies that have the forum as their flagship product and those that have it as yet another niche market. What will be interesting in the next year or so is to see if Xen can position itself next to IPB in the market with vB becoming yesterday's product.

 

[Poltergeist]

Everyone is assuming that vB won't be sold off to someone else as it might not be considered part of the 'core' business or worth the trouble to continue owning. I could also see them just shutting down 5.x development also deciding that they don't want to spend the money and just stick with 4.x for a lot more years.

 

[FredC]

I could also see them just shutting down 5.x development also deciding that they don't want to spend the money and just stick with 4.x for a lot more years.

Under the current licensing structure that would be ok with me.. lol as long as they continue to develop the 4 series

 

[EQnoble]

Does this whole thing look really political to anyone else?
The whole privatization of the company years after its IPO and after the problems it has had seems to remind me of banker bailouts and the derivatives market. The big guys get bailed out...customers with monies invested in them like me get played.
Just a bunch of criminals selling paper that is backed by nothing. In the end people who didn't know better at time like me lose over 1000$ just for licenses for the software, that's not including how long it takes a noob like me to make a customization to that script. Account for that at a small hourly wage rate and it equivocates them stealing a years worth of wages from me in effort alone. The only reason I can understand as far as why this is happening with vB is to cover up a mess they made using a bunch of paperwork and let the responsibility change hands to yet another corporation who really doesn't give a flying one about me.
(this coming from a person who wanted top learn web-scripting because of vbulletin)
Thanks IB and your cronies for wasting over a year of my life which I already count the seconds of...don't send flowers thanks.

 

[AmericanForum.com]

Everyone is assuming that vB won't be sold off to someone else as it might not be considered part of the 'core' business or worth the trouble to continue owning. I could also see them just shutting down 5.x development also deciding that they don't want to spend the money and just stick with 4.x for a lot more years.

Anything is possible at this point.