vBulletin 4.0 presales offer ; CMS live demo? CMS as community wiki?

[boatdesign]

Is there a demo of the vBulletin 4 CMS to view?

Any information on using vBulletin 4's CMS to replace mediawiki or nuwiki as a basic community wiki where multiple authors can work on a cms page with a revision history?

[pdatoon]

Is there a demo of the vBulletin 4 CMS to view?

Any information on using vBulletin 4's CMS to replace mediawiki or nuwiki as a basic community wiki where multiple authors can work on a cms page with a revision history?

yes i would love to test drive the CMS feature to see if i can replace my current CMS.

[Trevor Hannant]

Given that all the 4.x series software is still in Alpha testing, there's no possibility of seeing it at the moment.

[feldon23]

And yet folks must pay up by October 31st for virtual software or pay a LOT more afterwards.

[Baba Wawa]

And yet folks must pay up by October 31st for virtual software or pay a LOT more afterwards.

That's not much of a choice.

[kyrgyz]

And yet folks must pay up by October 31st for virtual software or pay a LOT more afterwards.

That's why it's called PRE-sale offer.

[user02934123123]

I have to say, I'm about as big a fan of vB as they come; but even I have to admit it's beyond a little rich to offer a discount on a product with no release date, no demo, no possibility to test any features or even see extensive screenshots. So users are faced with the potential of either paying twice as much as they're being offered the product for by waiting, or committing themselves now to a product they've not been able to see, test, or get a firm delivery date on.

I'm afraid that the review of the company (vBulletin Solutions) coming out here in the UK press tomorrow rather slams it (phenomenally) for this kind of bad business practice.

[feldon23]

What do you call from Nov 1 until the product comes out? Post-Pre-Order?

[feldon23]

I'm afraid that the review of the company (vBulletin Solutions) coming out here in the UK press tomorrow rather slams it (phenomenally) for this kind of bad business practice.

Please reprint it or e-mail it. feldon at feldoncentral.com.

[Baba Wawa]

I have to say, I'm about as big a fan of vB as they come; but even I have to admit it's beyond a little rich to offer a discount on a product with no release date, no demo, no possibility to test any features or even see extensive screenshots. So users are faced with the potential of either paying twice as much as they're being offered the product for by waiting, or committing themselves now to a product they've not been able to see, test, or get a firm delivery date on.* * *

Thank you for summing it up so well.

Especially without a firm release date, you will essentially be "lending" IB money for an indefinite period of time. "A little rich" is a good way to put it.

[boatdesign]

Given that all the 4.x series software is still in Alpha testing, there's no possibility of seeing it at the moment.

OK, weird.

I got two emails today from [email protected] that state:

We hope your community is enjoying the flexibility and power of vBulletin™. As always, our goal is to offer a great product at a great price, and we are dedicated to helping you build and grow successful online communities.

Over the last 12 months, we have been building vBulletin 4.0 to be the most powerful forum and social publishing software. Today, we are proud to introduce the new vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite product that includes the power of the vBulletin 4.0 Forums with a seamlessly integrated content management system (CMS) and blogging platform.

As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price). This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009.

Learn more about vBulletin Publishing Suite features and pricing on our new website: http://www.vbulletin.com/

...

I haven't been following the 4.0 development closely, but when I got the emails from vbulletin today and read that today was the day they were excited to introduce it... I got excited.

I'll sit back and wait a while longer then I guess.

Will look forward to seeing it soon.

[boatdesign]

Thank you for summing it up so well.

Especially without a firm release date, you will essentially be "lending" IB money for an indefinite period of time. "A little rich" is a good way to put it.

I'm not totally against the idea of investing in a future product since vBulletin has a long history of great software, but I'd like to see something that gives me an idea of the suite. With the old licensing model of investing in the owned license, I would be thrilled with this email opportunity to invest now for a savings later. But with the new licensing model where you have to buy each major release, I don't know how to approach investing in a suite which I have no idea how it will function in practice. I have high hopes the suite and CMS will make my life easier, but the feature list is too general to really know at this point. Hope we find out more soon.

[Sophocles]

I have to confess that the list of features for vB 4.0 sounds interesting but like the rest I would prefer to see a Demo before making a leap. Without some kind of Demo it's like taking a chance to lose now or taking a chance to lose later. That's an equal choice which demands the attention of neither over the other.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

[tpearl5]

Come on - show us the product!

[Darkimmortal]

The leaked chinese alpha version looked incredible, pity the CMS was disabled.

Anyone with doubts over shelling out £85, go for it.