Announcing the Presale Event for vBulletin 4.0 Suite and Important License Changes

[SloppyGoat]

Is there anything anywhere that said my lifetime license would expire at a certain version if I didn't keep paying the support fee, even when I don't need support? I don't recall seeing that part anywhere.

[solidlink]

Originally Posted by Belder

Over the past 2 to 3 years there have been tremendous advances in open source forum software, whereas vBulletin have pretty much sat on their corporate backsides and provided very few improvements. Most of the hacks/modifications and board styles that make vB look good are provided by third party developers who often give their work away for free here.

Just where is vBulletin going to be if they price these people out of the market? I for one have absolutely no intention of paying vBulletin/Jelsoft ever again, and I'll use what's left of my existing owned licence to port my work to open source . . . phpBB, MyBB etc.



Precisely.

i have to agree... the draw to vbulletin was never because of blog and other stuff in this vbulletin suite.

most people like vbulletin because of the third party mods, large forum owner community for exchange of ideas... and of course Vbulletin's support & updates (somewhat)

besides, the offer doesnt seem enticing enough for existing users to re-subscribe and they are forcing us to take up the offer in 2 weeks.

granted, the new vbulletin suite looks promising and a 1 time payment to ensure security updates for the entire 4.0 suite. however, how can vbulletin license holders be sure that the new software is really so good that third party modifications cannot rival? we already have vbadvanced which is quite a simple free-add on to use and article forums as a free third party mod. the keyword here is "free" if you havent noticed. this huge upgrade fee is something serious to ponder over.

prefer the old pricing and hope vbulletin will reconsider all that we've mentioned...

[Blaine0002]

Originally Posted by robdawg

Wow. You people never cease to amaze me. The BEST forum solution out their and you are surprised the company is going to make a buck???

The way I look at it, it is a ONE TIME fee of $195 for the life cycle of 4.0! (all upgrades uptill 5.0 are included) Now they say the 5.0 upgrade is going to come 12 to 18 months so lets break that down on a month pricing structure from high to low. Let's say they upgrade to 5.0 in 12 months that mean the software will cost $16.25/month but if it takes 18 months the software will cost about $10.80/month. It could take them longer to get to 5.0 which means the month break down is going to be even cheaper!

If those fee CRIPPLE you financially, then yes, maybe it is time to move to phpbb.com or ipb.com or whatever floats your boat. The 4.0 upgrade is going to be a better code base and actually save me some $$$ on the plugins that I have to purchase for 3.X (vbseo for example)

Calling 4.0 the next coming of Vista is just retarded. The only thing I am going to call foul on is vBulletin asking for money before we see a finished product. The discount should be extended at least a week or 2 after they convert the vbulletin.com forums to 4.0

yet in the end you will be paying MUCH more we normally pay.
Its not the fact that its a completely different way to pay for vbulletin thats pushing people away, its the fact that its probably going to double the cost of maintaining a license.

[ZapFlash]

Originally Posted by SloppyGoat

Is there anything anywhere that said my lifetime license would expire at a certain version if I didn't keep paying the support fee, even when I don't need support? I don't recall seeing that part anywhere.

exactly!!!

btw, i was checking in the site, yeah my OWNED board license is expired BUT, my vbulletin blog license is active

[barcena]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Not true Im afraid. The template syntax has changed in 4.0, so it will generally take much more than a few minor tweaks for styles to work on vb4.

Nice, and I just bought a new skin for my 3.8. site.

:erm:

I'm going to remain calm and wait and see whats happen but it doesnt smells good here. Oh and btw ..I'm with vbulletin because of the mod's that people release here for free.

In times were even the biggest companies are lowering down their prices Jelfson and vBulletin does exactly the opposite, mmmm, flash news: in case you haven't noticed the economy (globaly) is going down the drain, how dare you be so greedy?.

[Magnumutz]

Ok, looks like i'll be switching to IPB or even phpBB.
I'm not going to let them rip me off like that!

[XManuX]

I've always appreciated the professionalism of this company, but the way they are marketing vB 4.0 is just a shame.

[peterpigman]

I am guessing that they are in financial trouble, to basically blackmail people into buying something that is not complete and has no release date (not even a guess) suggests a rush to bring in capital. I would be careful paying the upgrade tbh as what will you get if they go bust in the next few months? There are several other platforms which you can convert your VB forum. I think it will show very soon whether this is a dash for capital or just plain greed as once they realize a very large portion of people can't afford such a massive hike in fees they will need to change something or pretty soon there will be a domain holding page where vb.com was.
People saying it is not much of an increase should look at the maths. I have an owned license paid something like $180 for the software and $45 a year or whatever to keep updates means on the old structure for 4 years you would have paid $315 or $6.00 a month (decreasing the longer you own it). On the new structure That would be $285 and most likely $235 a year updates which is $990 or $20.65 a month in other words they have more than TREBLED the monthly fees. Nice work if you can find it.

[game.over]

Project tools as an open source project on vbulletin.org very well i'm lost $50 thank you vbulletin

Welcome ipb

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by MarceloS

8 page topic so far and no response from vB?

And you won't get a response from vb here. You will only get a response from them on their official website - vbulletin.com

I'll repeat what I've said in a couple of other threads about vBulletin pricing/licensing - "Questions regarding pricing and licensing should be asked over on vbulletin.com. vbulletin.org has nothing to do with the business side of vbulletin."