then you are short sighted :rolleyes:

nope and I won't follow up my statement, I have lived life and seen the end of this movie. Say what you feel thats your opinion just like mine is mine. I stand by what I say, mark my words and the similar sentiments of others like me here.

I'm slightly concerned because there isn't much of a precedent for creative control staying in the hands of the little guy in these cases....but i'm also comforted by the fact that Jelsoft can't have been hurting TOO badly for money...so they probably have a better deal going for them then we know about from the outside looking in....

I'm cautiously optemistic...

I've participated in some acquisitions and mergers... let me tell you:
They can bring a whole new business strategy, but the PHILOSOPHY always stays with the Founders...

Reality Check ;)

Well time will tell, for now fingers crossed.

I'm going to be launching a couple new boards soon and was getting updated on where the bulletin board market was at these days. I have run a number of boards with VB and UBB in the past, but now, I have to say I'm not too thrilled about this announcement. One thing I like in a software vendor is stability. Acquisition is the exact opposite of that.

Publicly, there's no way for us to know what IB really wants with Jelsoft. No press releases will reveal that. If its Jelsoft's technology or "brains" then the future is bleak for this program. If they truly just want to start selling bulletin boards and related software (which I doubt) then there's nothing to worry about. But, being on an acquiring team before, I know that the answer is unlikely to be as simple as any of those options.


R

Congratulations to the Jelsoft team!

I have three words of advice from a hungry customer "Products, Products, Products".

I would be delighted to increase the product offering of our communities to our members (they would be very happy to, and that is what most). Social Networking & Blogging are at the top of my wish list but it is much much longer. If you ever need ideas for new products, just send me a PM!

Have you not heard of the new blogging and social networking tool soon to be released?

Not to far if they have it running on vbulletin.com

Yes, I saw that. I am very excited and ready to buy.Hopefully, each month that passes is time for our members to setup their blogs on other services, the sooner the better. As for social networking, I did not think that was released yet. That is another tool that will add a lot of value to our communities and allow the members to strengthen their friendships further. I hope social networking can come out as soon as possible also. It takes time for any of the tools to be adopted by members so even if we give them the basics to get started and roll out more features with upgrades, at least the connections are being made. Hopefully Internet Brands will help fuel this development so we can give our members what they want. This would be a great way for them to make a good impression on all their new customers!

Capitalism is what makes the world go around. One wanted to cash out, theother wanted a job with better benefits. Pretty simple thing that happens all the time.

Why buy vBulletin? Cheaper then writing software themselves is a usual answer in IT worlds

Since my last post IB has acquired a number of auto enthusiast communities. This is my market and is throwing up a huge caution flag for me personally.

After some research on the options I decided to go with IP.Board for my two new projects. It already has blogging, limited social networking, and a bunch of other things VB has been promising for years. (I've owned several VB Licenses).

I can't help but believe that eventuallly IB will trail the features in the commercial version versus what their own sites are running. It only makes sense. Can you imagine the boardroom conversations at IB if another site is out-performing an IB site using their own software?

If IB just acquired Jelsoft, that's one thing. They start acquiring properties in my space? Yes, that's a problem.

What have we been promising for years now?

Okay, fair point. There was no promise, per se. It was more my expectation that a progressive community developer like Jelsoft -- that came on the scene and totally "rewrote" the way forums worked (I used UBB prior to VB) -- would take so long to adopt something as basic as blogs and move beyond the age old forum paradigm into even basic social networking features that were proving to be the "next wave" for several years now. So, expectation, not promise. I agree that's wasn't fair of me to call it a promise.

Though not directly related, I did wait a long time for the official VB CMS that was announced and seemingly took forver to ship. I'm assuming it shipped... I stopped using VB before it was released. ;)

Since I have your attention, any thoughts on those other points I made? They were the main reason for my post.

There are no plans to restrict access to vBulletin for sites with topics that compete with other IB companies, or to add additional functionality to the IB communities that is not included in the product. It’s more likely that any custom code created by IB for their vBulletin communities can also be integrated into the product.

All of these tools IPB has can be gotten for vbulletin either free (gallery) or a soon to be release (blogging).

Just a note.
IP.Board does not come with blogging, or a gallery. It costs extra to add that. However, IPCommunity which is their bundled community software includes IP.Board, IP.Gallery, and IP.Blog all into one suite at an extra cost. There is nothing wrong with this, but someone might misunderstand and think that IP.Board comes with all that you said, when it doesn't.