vBulletin Maker Purchased by Internet Brands
In a rather shocking turn of events (at least for me), I found out today that Jelsoft Enterprises Limited, the makers of the famous vBulletin forum software, has been acquired by Internet Brands. In a word - whoah.
This acquisition begs many questions, chief among them is whether the software will continue to develop as it has. Jelsoft’s founder say that it will, however it is true that with new management often comes new direction. vBulletin is very highly regarded in the forum world. I myself own and use it. The fact that this announcement caused angst in the internet world is testament to the popularity of the software. In response to the concerns, the managing director of Jelsoft said:
As a technical note about the structure of the deal – Jelsoft will continue to exist as a stand-alone company. All Jelsoft staff, including management, will remain the same, and the headquarters will continue to be in the UK. The ongoing development of products will continue as planned.
There have been a couple of points raised about the possible conflict of interest between IB’s existing communities and sites that may be run by our customers. I can assure you that 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. Doing either of these would be anti-competitive, and is certainly not in keeping with the culture of Jelsoft or IB. In fact, it is more likely that custom code created by IB for their communities will also be included in vBulletin!
Onto the subject of product pricing. Since the first release of vBulletin 1.0 in 2000, we have never raised the price of vBulletin licenses. The key strategy moving forward is not to shift prices markedly upwards and make buying vBulletin an unattractive proposition, but rather to offer a broader range of products and services to better cater for all audiences. We are in business to serve our customers, and we will continue to do just that in order to remain competitive.
I am not so quick to be concerned about this. If they promise not to abandon their loyal base and not change too much (which would be idiotic in their situation), then it can actually be good. And from their perspective, this kind of thing is the logical next step to a company formed around a single script. If I were in their shoes, I think I’d be quite pleased.
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