Ragnar
A Master From Germany
Past week or so vBulletin customers have been in an uproar since the new pricing structure was produced. Without a demo of 4 even being available, people were expected to send masses of money to vBulletin for future upgrades.
It seems that Internet Brands/Jelsoft has cash-flow problems or wishes to drive hobbyist sites away in order to concentrate on corporate appeal. If that is difficult for the owner of 1-3 licences, it must be unspeakable for those with 10+.
We are currently up-to-date on an owned 3.8.4 patch 1. People with lesser versions cannot even download the present version until they pay for 4.
VBulletin has always offered four options: Owned licence ( which entitles one to run one's site forever ) and yearly Leased licence, both divided into those who paid about $40 a year to remain active and receive updates or those who had inactive licences.
To best explain the new system, there is an unofficial FAQ --- since Jelsoft can scarcely explain it themselves --- most of their main people seem to have left, and the torrent of threads at vbulletin.com, now cleared by thread closures, bannings of dissidents and complete removal of threads, protesting, were marked by their sloth and indifference to answering questions.
Note that Styles [ Themes ] and Hacks present here on 3.8.x will not work with 4's template structure.
FAQ
vBulletin Forum 4.0
$195 for a new license
Run v4.x forever.
Includes all 4.x upgrades (e.g. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3). DOES NOT INCLUDE v5
Includes forum support
Includes 30 days of ticket support
Ticket support is $80 per year
vBulletin Suite 4.0
$285 for a new license ($235 in pre-sale until October 30)
Run v4.x forever.
Includes all 4.x upgrades (e.g. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3). DOES NOT INCLUDE v5
Includes forum support
Includes ticket support for life of v4
Includes Forums, Blogs and CMS modules
The old vBulletin owned licenses included forum support, helpdesk and updates for 1 year. If you want helpdesk support, the vBulletin Suite is the best buy - vB Forum is $195 + $80 per year for helpdesk support ($275) vs $285 for vB Suite which includes this for the life of v4.
--------------
vB Owned License - Active (Current Support) OR current vB Leased License
If you purchased your license less than 12 months ago, OR, renewed your support/license less than 12 months ago, you qualify for all V4 Forum releases until the expiry date of your license. You will not get access to the vB Suite features.
If your license is set to expire, for example, in March 2010, assuming V4 is released before then you will have access to support and the V4 releases up until March 2010. Once March 2010 hits, you will not have access to support or new releases. To continue receiving V4 updates after that point, you would need to upgrade to one of the new licenses - either forum (costing $175 to upgrade) or Suite (costing $250).
At the moment, you qualify for an upgrade to vBulletin v4 Suite for $130. This represents the best deal, as long as you are prepared to purchase a product "unseen" and with no firm release date.
If you do nothing now, you will pay more later - your access to V4 releases under your current license terms will only defer the V4 license upgrade costs, and you will pay more as the pre-sale discounts are not available.
Basically: they are trying to push the new Suite onto everyone by making it cheaper than the forum package alone; although most forums do not need CMS or Blogs ( note that those who purchased the earlier blog add-on, as those who purchased the official plug-ins package, are offered nothing in return for items that are now useless, even if they only bought them two weeks ago ).
We can:
a/ run 3.8.4 forever.
b/ purchase the suite for $130 until 30th October --- Jelsoft dropped this 2 weeks ahead of that date. Or $285 after then.
c/ convert forums alone to 4 for free, now, giving up all rights to use the 3.x.x licence; BUT have to pay $175 to receive updates when our active period ends in July; then not pay any upgrade active fees until 5 comes out, possibly within 18 months to 2 years.
Then when 5 appears all rights, except the ability to run 4 forever, go, and the same thing happens all deja vue.
The best solution seems to be to continue to run 3.8.4 for the next few years even if no further upgrades are issued, especially since the forum black style would go, and all the hacks gone. During that period or after it may be possible to convert to other forum software such as Invision, who are taking advantage of this mess, but it seems doubtful.
It seems that Internet Brands/Jelsoft has cash-flow problems or wishes to drive hobbyist sites away in order to concentrate on corporate appeal. If that is difficult for the owner of 1-3 licences, it must be unspeakable for those with 10+.
We are currently up-to-date on an owned 3.8.4 patch 1. People with lesser versions cannot even download the present version until they pay for 4.
VBulletin has always offered four options: Owned licence ( which entitles one to run one's site forever ) and yearly Leased licence, both divided into those who paid about $40 a year to remain active and receive updates or those who had inactive licences.
To best explain the new system, there is an unofficial FAQ --- since Jelsoft can scarcely explain it themselves --- most of their main people seem to have left, and the torrent of threads at vbulletin.com, now cleared by thread closures, bannings of dissidents and complete removal of threads, protesting, were marked by their sloth and indifference to answering questions.
Note that Styles [ Themes ] and Hacks present here on 3.8.x will not work with 4's template structure.
FAQ
vBulletin Forum 4.0
$195 for a new license
Run v4.x forever.
Includes all 4.x upgrades (e.g. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3). DOES NOT INCLUDE v5
Includes forum support
Includes 30 days of ticket support
Ticket support is $80 per year
vBulletin Suite 4.0
$285 for a new license ($235 in pre-sale until October 30)
Run v4.x forever.
Includes all 4.x upgrades (e.g. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3). DOES NOT INCLUDE v5
Includes forum support
Includes ticket support for life of v4
Includes Forums, Blogs and CMS modules
The old vBulletin owned licenses included forum support, helpdesk and updates for 1 year. If you want helpdesk support, the vBulletin Suite is the best buy - vB Forum is $195 + $80 per year for helpdesk support ($275) vs $285 for vB Suite which includes this for the life of v4.
--------------
vB Owned License - Active (Current Support) OR current vB Leased License
If you purchased your license less than 12 months ago, OR, renewed your support/license less than 12 months ago, you qualify for all V4 Forum releases until the expiry date of your license. You will not get access to the vB Suite features.
If your license is set to expire, for example, in March 2010, assuming V4 is released before then you will have access to support and the V4 releases up until March 2010. Once March 2010 hits, you will not have access to support or new releases. To continue receiving V4 updates after that point, you would need to upgrade to one of the new licenses - either forum (costing $175 to upgrade) or Suite (costing $250).
At the moment, you qualify for an upgrade to vBulletin v4 Suite for $130. This represents the best deal, as long as you are prepared to purchase a product "unseen" and with no firm release date.
If you do nothing now, you will pay more later - your access to V4 releases under your current license terms will only defer the V4 license upgrade costs, and you will pay more as the pre-sale discounts are not available.
Basically: they are trying to push the new Suite onto everyone by making it cheaper than the forum package alone; although most forums do not need CMS or Blogs ( note that those who purchased the earlier blog add-on, as those who purchased the official plug-ins package, are offered nothing in return for items that are now useless, even if they only bought them two weeks ago ).
We can:
a/ run 3.8.4 forever.
b/ purchase the suite for $130 until 30th October --- Jelsoft dropped this 2 weeks ahead of that date. Or $285 after then.
c/ convert forums alone to 4 for free, now, giving up all rights to use the 3.x.x licence; BUT have to pay $175 to receive updates when our active period ends in July; then not pay any upgrade active fees until 5 comes out, possibly within 18 months to 2 years.
Then when 5 appears all rights, except the ability to run 4 forever, go, and the same thing happens all deja vue.
The best solution seems to be to continue to run 3.8.4 for the next few years even if no further upgrades are issued, especially since the forum black style would go, and all the hacks gone. During that period or after it may be possible to convert to other forum software such as Invision, who are taking advantage of this mess, but it seems doubtful.
