About 24 hours ago, Internet Brands (IB), the owner of the popular forum software vBulletin, created a post on their company’s forum announcing that they are commencing a lawsuit against Xenforo, a new forum software company, and its founders. Internet Brands says,
The suit is simple: we claim that Kier, Mike, and Ashley have infringed and violated contracts they signed with us to gain unfair business advantage. As such, Xenforo’s software unfairly stands on the shoulders of more than a decade of development by Jelsoft. Internet Brands owns this intellectual property.
What are you really afraid of IB? Are you afraid of the success of the Kier, Mike and Ashley? Are you afraid that they will build a product superior to yours?
Are you afraid that you will lose customers to Xenforo? Well, you should be. This action is childish. You’re running to tell on them, saying that they aren’t playing nice. Yes, I know. That’s what we have courts for. So you do have the right to do so.
But what’s going to be the fallout of this? You are already being seen as the ‘big bad bully’, attempting to keep the new guy from playing with your friends (customers). Are you that scared of the competition?
It wasn’t more than a few years ago that vBulletin was known as the company to go to if you want a solid performing forum. Heck, I even bought four licenses from them. This site (chimpie.com) used to run on vBulletin. But about two years ago everything went down hill. Updates were few and far between and customer service, well, that went right out the window. Getting a root canal was less painful that dealing with their customer service department.
Of all that was said in IB’s post, this part blew me away:
Kier’s and Mike’s work as Jelsoft employees was the exclusive property of their employer, and the former owners of Jelsoft not only paid Kier and Mike well during their employment, Kier was paid a handsome bonus when Internet Brands bought the business, although no such payment was required.
Really? You’re bringing up money? Are you saying that because you were so generous that Kier and the gang should have rolled over and died? C’mon now.
Matt Mecham, a lead developer for IP.B said it best, via a tweet,
IB suing XenForo – … this is exactly how to alienate the shattered remains of your customer base. What farce.
You said it Matt. And others agree with you. In fact, in the past 24 hours several hundred people have joined Xenforo’s community, testing out its features and functionality. You can read through their forums to see their comments for yourself.
We consider Kier and Mike to be talented developers, but ones who potentially fail to grasp the implications of their actions.
No, Internet Brands. You failed to grasp the implications of your actions. You have given Xenforo free advertising. You have shown your true colors. You have driven your die hard supports away. Including this one.
Over the past two weeks I have given Xenforo a pretty through test from an end user’s point of view. There is one word that I keep saying over and over about my experiences with it… Smooth. This has to be the smoothest running forum software I’ve ever used. No hiccups. No hangs. Just read, type, submit and then I’m moving on to the next topic.
If anyone is in the market for a solid performing forum software, I strongly recommend that you give Xenforo a try.