8 replies to this topic

[P15-D24]

How about some info about the company? After the seeing what happened with VBulletin I would like some more info about IP the company. Who are you guys, public, private etc. Didn't see a company backgrounder anywhere so can you guys fill in some of the blanks?

[bfarber]

Invision Power Services, Inc. is a privately held company established in 2002.

What sort of information do you want to know?

[P15-D24]

Number of employees
If possible annual revenue
Location and contact info
History of the company

[ΑndyF]

The location / contact details are here although I do think some of your other questions are best put to Management in private rather than in this topic.

Certainly revenue / total employee's is not for public posting...

[Rikki]

We have approximately 20 employees. Annual revenue is not disclosed as we're a privately-held company. We're based in Forest, Virginia, and our contact information can be found at http://www.invisionpower.com/contact/

Wikipedia has a short summary of our history:

Matthew Mecham and Charles Warner established Invision Power Services when they resigned from Jarvis Entertainment Group (JEG), a company (now Westlin Corporation) that acquired Mecham's forum software IkonBoard.[2] Mecham promised his software would remain as freeware before and after the acquisition by JEG.[2] The company proposed commercializing his software rather than maintaining its freeware status, and placed Mecham and Warner under pressure with the workload of IkonBoard that lead to their resignation.[2] 85 percent of supporters from IkonBoard followed them to their new company and Ibforums (now Invision Power Board) came to be.

That was in 2002, and we've been building software ever since We celebrated our 10th birthday earlier this year.

[dr. Jekyll]

Number of employees
If possible annual revenue
Location and contact info
History of the company

...why not also shoes size?

Sorry, I couldn't resist! Did you see here?

[P15-D24]

That's good, thanks. After what happened with the vBulletin group just want to make sure there is some stability so I won't be looking at doing another forum change in the near future. I run VB3 currently but want to add more features like social, mobile and advertising. VBulletin V4 doesn't look like a very good long term solution at this point.

[Wolfie]

That's good, thanks. After what happened with the vBulletin group just want to make sure there is some stability so I won't be looking at doing another forum change in the near future. I run VB3 currently but want to add more features like social, mobile and advertising. VBulletin V4 doesn't look like a very good long term solution at this point.

A couple of years ago, after IB had taken over vB and vB4 was released, there was a large number of people switching over to IPB, with a lot of complaints about why they were making the change. Many of them were rather pleased with what they got and haven't looked back since. Of course, as with any product/service, there will be those who either relented and returned to their previous software or who decided to continue searching for yet another product.

Not that it's directly related, but some time ago (one to two years ago), vB had done an interview where vB said that their biggest competitor is WordPress. When I heard about that, I signed up on vB and asked about that. A few tried to say I was just trying to stir up problems, but others (vB clients) agreed with me, because that's like the Coca-Cola company claiming that Jimmy Dean is their biggest competitor, instead of naming Pepsi or even some other soda company. Just a little head-scratcher to think about.

I was one of those who had been using ikonBoard and when it seemed like there wasn't much going on in the sense of development or updates, as well as the fact that it ran slow on my host (cgi vs php), I decided to make a switch and came upon IP.Board (version 1.3.0 or 1.3.1, I forget which exactly). I didn't follow Matt/Charles over here as I wasn't really paying attention to what all was happening. I had specific features that I wanted to have available and when I found those features, that's when I made the change. It was only later on that I learned of the connection. I had picked ikonBoard because of it's feature set and likewise had picked IP.Board because of it's feature set.

I made that change roughly 8 years ago and haven't regretted it. I had actually gotten banned from this community (long story short, I was causing upset to other community members) and after a few years, I asked for that ban to be lifted (which it obviously was or I wouldn't be able to make this post). Even during that ban, I continued to use the product because of the quality work put into it. I didn't *need* to be able to access this community, only be able to submit tickets and get updates. I think it speaks volumes about a products quality when someone will continue to make use of their purchase as opposed to moving on when something like that happens (keeping in mind that being a client doesn't grant someone a right to cause issues). I will also tell you that from what I've seen (since coming back), IPS does its best to work with people when there are unusual issues that come about. I'm sure that there are many on this community who can personally vouch for that.

Maybe this makes me sound like a 'fanboy' but frankly I don't care. I prefer quality and that's what I've been getting. Yes, sometimes IPS makes booboos, but then what company doesn't? Difference here is that they try to learn from those mistakes and continue forward. So you want stability? You found it. Try the demo and I'm sure you'll agree.

[dr. Jekyll]

That's good, thanks. After what happened with the vBulletin group just want to make sure there is some stability so I won't be looking at doing another forum change in the near future. I run VB3 currently but want to add more features like social, mobile and advertising. VBulletin V4 doesn't look like a very good long term solution at this point.

Invision is a company in business for over 10 years and currently leads the software community.

Over the years they has always respected its agreements with customers. Their service has always worked very well, I always had "next day" support.

Between Invision Power Board, vBullettin and Xenforo I would have not doubt to choose Invision Power Board.

Obviously there is not a guarantee for the future and they may well a day do a product that will not respond to what the market need. After all, also Google, Apple, Microsoft did some mistakes.

For now, I can always say that IPS has always been very careful in launching a new version of IPB and every release has always been "bug free".