Jelsoft's future: acquisition news

Dear vBulletin customers,

We are pleased to announce that Jelsoft Enterprises Limited has been acquired by Internet Brands, Inc., a leading provider of automotive, travel and home-related sites and communities.

As part of a larger organisation, with more than 500 employees, Jelsoft has access to additional resources, support and business expertise which will ensure that we can continue to grow and flourish. Products will continue to be actively developed and fully supported, and as time goes on you will begin to see noticeable changes and improvements that are made possible by being part of a larger organisation.

Internet Brands’ intention is to focus on improving what we are doing at the moment, and that means significant investment in our software development, customer service and sales and marketing processes. Internet Brands is willing, able and ready to invest heavily in Jelsoft, not only to continue to offer the same great products to our existing market, but also to empower us to enter new markets and find new audiences for our products and services.

The day-to-day management of Jelsoft will continue largely unchanged. I will continue as Managing Director and CEO of Jelsoft, working alongside the executive team at Internet Brands. John Percival, co-founder of vBulletin, will be taking this opportunity to pursue other interests, and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him well and every success in the future.

I'm really excited about this news, and feel strongly that is was a great decision for the company and our customers. Jelsoft has achieved significant success over the last few years, and before we officially move into this new era, I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to all customers who have supported Jelsoft and vBulletin - It is your continuous support and loyalty that has enabled vBulletin to become a market leader in community solutions. Rest assured that, with the help and resources of Internet Brands, we will continue to work hard to produce products that are innovative, feature-rich and forward-looking.

Again, thank you.

All the best,

James Limm, and the Jelsoft team


More... (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235378&goto=newpost)

:eek: ooookk... now THAT is a bit of a shocker..

Take the money and run... he's made a £million no doubt, I guess they both have. Good luck to them.

Not sure what the staff will think of them though. Also, and perhaps more interestingly, there now presents an opportunity for clients to perhaps comment... shall we say... more strongly - on the sometimes offensive manner in which the likes of some of the staff reply to threads and posts.

I wonder if we will see a change in approach to responses...? Let's see...

hahaha I just thought of that.... perhaps some staff members - one in particular - will be knocked down a peg or two? (no pun intended)

This could be a bad thing and a good thing in many many ways. I remember when there were changes in a company I worked for...It was great for me, for others not so good.

Only time will tell, but til a shocker.

It shouldn't matter too much, well at least not for the immediate future. There's also another route open now for suggestions as to how they provide information on their product development path et al.

Remember the announcement all those months ago announcing a vB Blog... where did that go...? Then they release vBProject Tools touting it as a Project Management Tool. Hmmm... I have been in Project Management for longer than anyone at ex Jelsoft and vBProjectTools is not a Project Management tool. Good it may be, but it isn't as advertised and promoted... a Project Management tool.

Oh, I've never seen it called Project Management Tool - but then I probably just overlooked it. It's always been Project Tools to me.

I can just about guarantee that one of the results of this acquisition will be an increased price tag for a vB license.

Oh, I've never seen it called Project Management Tool - but then I probably just overlooked it. It's always been Project Tools to me.

I can just about guarantee that one of the results of this acquisition will be an increased price tag for a vB license.

C'mon now I was trying not to think about that already.

You already have your license, yes? I hope so!

IF they do increase the price tag, and I'm sure they will, hopefully it won't be for a while yet.

Hopefully...

What I would REALLY like to see them do is find a way to crack down on pirated vB forums.

Oh yeah I already have my license but still lol. I don't want to think about a price change.

PRICE RAISE!!! :rant:
Just what I need more bills I cant afford.


As for cutting down un "Nulled" vb's, there easy to find, easy to use two. Dont know how they would cut down. :idunno:

I haven't even opened, you don't want to know what my forum has set me back so far. Guess I really need to dig through CJ for some more fitting advertisements.

@ T2C - They are easy to find and use yes - but what about obtaining upgrades? hacks? support?
You'd be surprised at how many pm's I get here at vBFAQ asking for help because they don't have a valid license and can I get them this code or that download from vb.org.

NO - we don't help anyone here who doesn't have a valid license. However, I do promise to try to make you feel bad enough to purchase one :D



@ Julia - Don't worry about it hun. If you already have your license, the renewal cose (as of now) is $30 yearly. I can't see that going up too awfully much. At least I hope not. I have 2 of them :rolleyes:

Oh..for now I'm not worried about it, only if I decide to buy another license. The advertising comment was more or less a sad reminder to myself of how much money I need to make back to break even...which may never happen lol.

I could find any mod and any skin for vb( paid skins) for free, sad, but its the truth. :(

You couldn't find my skin available anywhere til it was done, totally custom and unique.

Other skins and mods I'm not surprised you can find them. Sad but true.

There is no "official" discussion thread for this announcement, but the unofficial thread is in Chit Chat - http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235379
And the discussion thread on .org - http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=151342


This is the company that acquired Jelsoft - http://www.internetbrands.com/ib/

LOL I have it up I've been refreshing it all morning.

Can anyone see how Jelsoft fits their present portfolio? I suppose we'll learn soon enough, but for now I think I have a lot more questions than answers.

Can anyone see how Jelsoft fits their present portfolio? I suppose we'll learn soon enough, but for now I think I have a lot more questions than answers.
exactly.....

My first guess - a price increase of some sort will happen. It might be a simple price change or a change in their pricing structure. Thought could mean the end of leased licenses, or the introduction of a lifetime license. Something to produce a large influx of cash quickly.

Why do I say this? Many companies do this upon aquisition to pay for the cost of the aquisition.

I would also predict that we will see more official vB add ons. A photo gallery for example. This would be another way to raise money quickly.

I think raising the price is just going to increase the use of nulled boards. Its allreadt $85 for a leased and $160 for the other. I my opinion thats still two much.:throw:

Ah, but it could be something you ahvent considered. Like maybe they get rid of owned licenses. Forcing new owned customers to lease every year.

And actually, I dont think its too much. Those who pirate usually are not sucessful with their site anyway because they have zero ethics and zero business sense. If they manage to achieve some success, they buy a license because they dont want to risk that success.

There's always smf,phpbb2,fireboard etc lol;) nothing wrong with open source i say

I would also predict that we will see more official vB add ons. A photo gallery for example. This would be another way to raise money quickly.
Look how long people have been clamoring for a CMPS and a photo gallery. Considering that, I find it amazing we've yet to see them.

I believe you are correct, there will be some sort of push to jump-start some additional revenue.

It would really be great if they incorporated a photo gallery, I am using photopost and their support forum is probably one of the most surly and least helpful around, it would of course need an import script from photopost. :)

I'm not as concerned about price increases as I am about the product becoming overly corporate. Not to be paranoid, but I've seen other products go down the path similar to those swallowed up by Microsoft, thus closing the opensource door. I would hate to see that door closed on all those who have contributed to vB in the form of mods, hacks, and add-on products.

JMHO, but I am always skeptical when it comes to such acquisitions.

I'd expect Internet Brands to acquire Photopost before they developed their own gallery solution for vbulletin.

My gosh, I have seen and read some crass comments in my time, but some of the comments I read today on vB dot com are simply cringeworthy...!

I don't blame James or John for selling out - it's what those people who are successful businessmen and women actully do... good luck to them in their future [and wealthier] lives. I wish them the very best - they have built a good company, with good annual figures (these figures are publicly available if people wish to find them), and they deserve every success in the future.

However, back to some of the comments I read on dot com and dot org. Do people really think they [James and John] sold out to IB so they can reinvest more money into vB... come on people... what are you on. None of the money that exchanged hands will go back into vB, none of it at all. This is IB's business problem now, they have to figure out how they recoup their investment. James isn't going to sell the company, lose ownership of it, and then reinvest the money he attained from the deal back into the company... phah, that's total nonsense whoever suggested that.

Notice that despite some comments we see in those threads that would have normally resulted in a staff member putting someone in their place, there is little or no comment from the staff on this matter at all. Again though, this is commonplace during the time following an acquisition, and I would suggest the staff have been instructed not to comment at all on any aspects of the acquisition. The only people [staff] who have responded were either in response to an... "I love you so much Kier, I hope you stay" backside licker post, or showing how wonderfully clever another is/was by correcting someones incorrect definition of what 'open source' actually meant. Awwww. how sweet, but then again, it does show the new owners how wonderful he is doesn't it, when I suspect normally he'd have already told someone off for some of the comments I've seen in there.

Why are people asking for the financial amount of the deal to be publicly disclosed...? this is none of their business. Curiosity of course will attempt to get the better of most of us, and most people would want to know, but this has nothing to do with anyone but those who bought and sold.

I like NexiaLys very 1st posts on the org too...brilliant stuff that - he makes some extremely valid points there - but those comments are unfairly countered by Jon [smacklan - who, by the way, is in my opinion, one of the gentlemen of the internet]. I have to say though Smack, that Nexia hasn't made a small fortune off any mods or add-ons that he has either coded himself, or assisted in coding; whereas you sell your extremely good design work - for good money. Many of us are aware of the asking price for your site when it was recently touted your were considering selling it. So, though I am not surprised that you do counter his comments, I am not sure you can totally disagree with what Nexialys states - you and he are not in the same space. You are both excellent at what you do... but you do totally different things with absolutely different outcomes. vB has made money off his work, you have made money off yours.

Some people are asking if there is going to be any changes made... well of course there are. When these will happen and what they will be is anyones guess though, but I don't see anything imminently on the horizon - not just yet anyway. There will be a price change, there may be a license change, there will I am sure also be a support option change. There may even be the much hyped and touted vB Blog add-on... who knows...? We may see technical additions appear that over the years have been requested by credible and experienced users [feldon, for example], but that have been totally ignored.

I guess there may also be some staff changes afoot. Businesses don't buy other businesses and then leave the management or operational staff to carry on 'as was' - do they? There will undoubtedly be some staff changes, so, as I mentioned in an earlier post, now may be your chance to have your say to IB about who you feel is a good customer support person, or who you don't feel is a good customer support person. I know one thing, I will be contacting them for sure with my thoughts and opinions on who and what I - as a customer [B]AND as a professional Project Management Consultant, feel they need to consider. IB will have obtained the information about staff and their performance - but this will be [I]skewered and somewhat biased views from the existing management about who and what is good and works, and who and what doesn't - businesses who 'acquire' always look for additional, external, credible opinions - so now's the chance for everyone to have their say. Go for it... :)

It's my guess some folk will be regretting posting in some of the tone and manner they have. On the other hand, I will be recommending Mr Machol stays on.

Change... yeah.... I love change... it's good for the system, it's good for the product, and it's good for the compeition... and.... don't forget.... if you always do what you did, you'll always get what you got... :)

Stew on that little lot then...:)

Wow I must have missed something in the past few hours I've been offline. I better catch up. When I left at 1pm EST, things were rather slow, and tame, on both sites.

*gets the popcorn and margarita, and heads for .com and .org*

It shouldn't matter too much, well at least not for the immediate future. There's also another route open now for suggestions as to how they provide information on their product development path et al.

Remember the announcement all those months ago announcing a vB Blog... where did that go...? Then they release vBProject Tools touting it as a Project Management Tool. Hmmm... I have been in Project Management for longer than anyone at ex Jelsoft and vBProjectTools is not a Project Management tool. Good it may be, but it isn't as advertised and promoted... a Project Management tool.

Oh it wasnt just me who thought that about the 'Project Tool' - looks like bugzilla to me.

Wouldnt help me in my project management..unless it can create a gannt chart for me :D But hey ho.

I thought it was actually an odd piece of funtionality to put out there for a first release of their tools. I was expecting the blog/enhanced profile thing to appear first.


I think this could be a good thing, my only concern is a price increase and a shift in focus to other products.

I would also like to see more joined up thinking with vb.org. Getting sent off to go there by VB staff only to find you don't get any response there at all.

On top of that it gets very confuseing for your average punter. My users are crying out for enhanced profile pages for example, then get told to go to VB.org where I am then in the land of total confusion.

So they need to catch up with the changes in social software, which are indeed shifting at a massive rate.

First vB moved to a paid add-ons business plan. Which in short means vBulletin itself isn't going to get much more core functionality in future versions. Think about it what's the useful thing we've seen since 3.5.4? Multi-quoting and a pop-up calendar that I cannot even find :rolleyes:. Future upgrades will include the usual security patches and more and more plug & play functionality for additional paid addons, which aren't going to come cheap. You watch down the road, vBulletin is just going to be an "operating system" for a website. You will be able to run all sorts of plugins off the vBulletin core for extra money. Almost like you can run Photoshop and Office under Windows, I'm sure you get my drift. :)

Now they've sold out to another company which most definitely means prices will go up. Companies don't buy up other companies for fun, they do so to make money. All in all, I personally think $160 is a little cheap for such a powerful package but I cannot see them squeezing much more money out of the average vBulletin admin for *just* a forum. I do think making everything an upsell (which will happen) is going to really piss people off, myself included.

What happens to all those coders who've made a nice penny from creating and selling add on products for vB? People like SirAdrian (vBlogetin), Noppid (vBPicGallery), PhotoPost, vBSEO, and vBAdvanced. They're SOL, sooner or later vB is going to step on their toes and offer something similar with "official support", which the average admin will fall hook, line, and sinker for. Now you're putting regular Joe's out of business. People who've added much value to your base product and are a part of the reason for all your success. Personally, I would've never bought vBulletin if the community (coders, designers, and other admins) surrounding it wasn't so helpful and awesome.

I'm actually happy for the owners of Jelsoft, you build a business to make a living then one day someone offers you a good price for it and you sell out from under it. That's the way life works BUT someone always looses out in the deal and as they say s**t rolls down hill, it's usually the little guy who looses. :o I kind of feel a little betrayed, it's obvious now, even more so in hindsight that this has been in talks for a long while, thus the move over to the paid add-ons and very little in the way of new functionality in recent updates. Yet no announcements or word that something is in the works, they've just continued with the business as usual routine meanwhile the company has changed and will continue to change very much in the coming year.

I think you are right Deejay Dan.
It becomes clear to me that vBulletin have been spouting vBlog for months and we have not seen anything of it, just words. Could it have been a red herring (sorry, English for something to throw you off the scent) just to make vBulletin a viable aquisition, does it really exsist. ???

judging from the screenshots posted a couple of days ago, it does really exist.

I just got back from reading the threads at .com and .org. Holy HELL those people can get nasty... :rolleyes:

What'd they pay for it?

Dunno.. none of my business anyway :p

Remember the announcement all those months ago announcing a vB Blog... where did that go...?Did you perhaps miss this ?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1376408

I believe a beta release is due soon.

and I can hardly wait!

I like NexiaLys very 1st posts on the org too...brilliant stuff that - he makes some extremely valid points there - but those comments are unfairly countered by Jon [smacklan - who, by the way, is in my opinion, one of the gentlemen of the internet]. I have to say though Smack, that Nexia hasn't made a small fortune off any mods or add-ons that he has either coded himself, or assisted in coding; whereas you sell your extremely good design work - for good money. Many of us are aware of the asking price for your site when it was recently touted your were considering selling it. So, though I am not surprised that you do counter his comments, I am not sure you can totally disagree with what Nexialys states - you and he are not in the same space. You are both excellent at what you do... but you do totally different things with absolutely different outcomes. vB has made money off his work, you have made money off yours.
Thanks for the kind words John...I've always felt the same of you as well! In regards to my reply to nexialys, I don't think I was unfair...if any of the contributors at the org expected compensation or recognition when they released their work, they were being naive IMHO. I haven't been on the vb scene as long as many of you here, but they (Jelsoft) have never seemed like the kind of company to "share in the wealth" so to speak. I think people like nexialys feel the way they do because they haven't been smart enough to capitalize on what vbulletin has to offer (if that was their intent)...either that or they have an unrealistic ego. I think the org could be a much better site than it is and I also think Jelsoft has benefited tremendously from that site and could (but probably never will) give some back in some form or fashion. At the end of the day, however, it is about the money and they never forced anyone over there to release a thing, so I really have little sympathy for them as they display their bruised ego's :p If you share something with someone and then turn around and feel like you are owed something in return, you weren't really sharing to begin with, right? Just an FYI, I started my site as a hobby with no grandiose plans and have been very blessed...I give all the credit to God and His blessings and hard, honest work. It's a formula I think could work for anyone who is willing to turn it over to the Lord and follow Him ;)

:eek: ooookk... now THAT is a bit of a shocker..

I know you all don't know me but I strongly echo Peggy's sentiment. My first reaction when I read the news was.. "Awwww Crud... There goes another great piece of software down the tubes..." I hope I'm wrong.

Jim
Temporal Order
a Warcraft Guild Site
http://www.temporalorder.com/

Hi jim, welcome to vBFAQ :wave:

Looks like I am going to have to roll those leased licenses over to owned ones, I have one owned and two leased, that is the one thing I would be afraid of a price increase.

I don't believe that the price increase is going to happen real soon, but I still think you would be smart to do just that.

Holy hell! :eek: The "unofficial" discussion thread at vb.com, in the Chit Chat forum, about this acquisition is getting quite nasty!

OY! It sure is, sigh...

I just hope the vBulletin support remains the same OR gets better.

Time will tell...

In the face of all the gossip/fearmongers and naysayers, two staff members stepped up today

Please note that there really is not anything more we can add to what James already posted in his announcement. However I have quite a long business history (no age jokes please ) and in fact my College Thesis was on 'Merger's and Takeovers'. In addition I have direct experience with a number of such acquisitions on both ends. My personal comments are as follows:

1. Not all acquisitions are bad for the acquired company. Conversely not all of them are good either. I only state this obvious point because some people have already jumped to the conclusion that this one is going to be 'bad' in spite of any evidence to support this.

2. The key factors in such acquisitions are: (a) whether or not the acquired company is in the same business as the acquiring company, and (b) what resources the parent company can bring to the acquired company.

For option 'a', my experience and research shows that the most dramatic changes (for better or worst, but mostly worst) have come when the parent company acquires a company they are in competition with. As should be clear by now, such a situation does not exist with the IB acquisition of Jelsoft.

For option 'b', the relevant factors are what the new parent company can provide the acquired company. If they can provide financial, marketing and other resources in excess of what the acquired company can produce on it's own, then the results are almost always a net plus for both companies and for customers. Again this is not merely conjecture on my part. I have quite a lot of experience in this area.

3. There are no guarantees in life. This would be true if Jelsoft was acquired or not. However the mere fact of an acquisition is not enough for people to automatically assume the worse. In fact, based on my experience I would say the odds are substantially in favor of things improving for both Jelsoft and it's customers.

Given all this one obvious question that has popped up several times is how the staff feel about this. I can state unequivocally that not only am I excited about this and am confident that this will be a net plus for our customers, but in rather extensive discussions with the rest of the staff the feelings are very positive about this and the potential it holds.

One final thought. All of this is just words and too often words are used to confused and obfuscate. Some will assume that my words are simply a smoke screen to hide some underlying massive conspiracy to delude our costumers or that I, in fact, may be delusion. The first is definitely not the case, but some people will believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts. There is nothing I can do about people who choose to believe the worst. As for the latter, if I am delusional, then I would be the last one to know. However I assure you that my wife would let me know.

The bottom line is that I truly believe this is not only a positive step for Jelsoft and the staff, but more importantly I believe this is going to be a very positive move for our customers too. But those are just 'words' too. The proof will be in our product and support and in the end our customers will make the final judgment. :)


We are still in control, James has been appointed as CEO and continues to run the company exactly as before. IB provides some extra resources if we need them (today for example I spoke to a DBA they have on staff about some MySQL issues), you can sit and read what you want into this but the exact same staff are doing the exact same thing as before. If you are going to hear information then it will still continue to come from Jelsoft.

From the staff perspective nothing has changed, so I don't see why anything would have changed for customers.

You are however welcome to wait and see, maybe things will change but if they do I'm positive it will be for the better.

Good stuff.

whether or not the acquired company is in the same business as the acquiring company,

I personally think this is the one single factor that means this change will be good for vbulletin. They didn't buy the company to get a larger share for their own product, they bought the company because it is successful. I'm working for a company now that "acquired" my former company 5 years ago, and while there have been lots of changes, both good and bad, we have done more for our customers with the new company than we could have ever done before. I think this is a good thing.

I do too. The more I see the vB staff, especially James and Kier, stepping out and posting, the easier I feel.