Unless things have changed, IB isn't the root of the problem. IB is part of a larger conglomerate held by the Hellman & Friedman group.
But, when I went to the IB website I found that vBulletin isn't even listed in their list of brands they own. So in my opinion, that is a pretty good sign of where vB stands in IB's opinion of it's own division.
Anyway so far as someone purchasing vBulletin, I don't see that happening for several reasons.
Is vBulletin even for sale? If not, that squashes it right there.
If vB is for sale, what are it's profit margins? Personally I don't see vB operating with a profit. If that's the case, the purchase would have to be done with venture capital. And anyone providing such capital would want to know when they would get their money back. At this point, depending on purchase price I would have to say 3 to 5 years. I don't think any venture capitalist would wait that long.
Finally, if vB were to be sold, there would have to be a major shakeup at the company. In the short term, that could have disastrous results if the fallout within the company isn't controlled. If the company were to survive a major shakeup, then there's the development time for something that's usable. And we're back to my last comment about return on investment. You would be looking at a year or more before a usable product could be developed.
vB4 started the company on a slippery downward slope. It started to recover but then released vB5 which took away any foothold it still had and continued the downward slide of the company.
Unless someone with come common sense steps in and actually reads what the alpha/beta testers were saying before the release of vB5, and makes some major changes, I fear vB5 is the death spiral for vBulletin.
05-21-2014, 10:50 AM
Hybrid Mode
