Invision Power Services
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Invision Power Services, Inc. (sometimes abbreviated IPS) is a software company established in February 2002, probably most well-known for Invision Power Board. Some other products include Invision Community Blog and Invision Gallery, both of which are implemented as plugins for Invision Power Board. IPS also provide Web and forum hosting.
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History
Invision Power Services was created after Matthew Mecham and Charles Warner disbanded from the company known then as Jarvis Entertainment Group (now Westlin Corporation) after allegations that JEG intended to charge for Ikonboard, of which Matt was the original author, rather than maintain its free status. A large number of supporters from Ikonboard followed Matt and Charles to the new company.
Initially Invision Power Board was free, including user-provided support, and the company maintained the product would remain free. The license has since been changed incrementally, so that the free version became an unlimited free trial. On September 27, 2004, IPS announced in a press release that the free trial download was to be withdrawn from the Invision Power Services site, and the product moved to a paid-only model with a 15 day hosted trial. This was followed by much controversy, since there had been numerous bug fixes and suggestions incorporated into Invision Power Board from its user base who thought that the product would always remain free. This move disenfranchised many users, who for one reason or another, refused to pay for an IPB license. Eventually, the 15 day encrypted file trial was discontinued and replaced with a shorter trial available on IPS servers.
On July 13, 2005 Invision Power Services announced that they would discontinue IP Top Site List and IP File Manager. [1]
On February 2, 2006 Invsion Power Services announced that the new customer support forum named IPSBeyond had completed its BETA phase and go on to fully open to all IPS customers. [2] With the opening of IPSBeyond, the Customer to Customer Support forums were locked. This was done to prevent some users who use illegal copies of IPS software from getting free support.
Current products
Invision Power Board
Main article: Invision Power Board
An Internet forum software package written in PHP, comparable to other such bulletin boards, such as phpBB and vBulletin. It is a commercial product, but there is a large modding community and most of these modifications are free. Many skins can also be downloaded for use.
Invision Community Blog
Invision Community Blog is blogging system that plugs straight into Invision Power Board.
Invision Power Gallery
Invision Power Gallery is a picture gallery system that also plugs into Invision Power Board.
Products in development
Invision Power Dynamic
Dynamic is a commercial content management system still in heavy development. Key features include member management, page permissions, subscriptions, page rollback, content blocks, content groups and file management tools.
Invision Power Vectura
Vectura is a webmail system designed to look and feel more like an actual desktop mail application.
Around the 25 February 2006, Invision Power Services seem to have removed the link to Vectura on its main site and the discussion for it on the community forum. Some users are speculating that it might go into public beta while others are thinking that they have so called "pulled the plug" on it.
A recent post by the developer assigned the Vectura project has mentioned that he has been assigned to other projects and that he will resume work once those projects are finished. The categories and links were removed only to make sure there was no confusion by visitors. There is no plan to "pull the plug".
Invision Power Nexus
Nexus is an online billing and support system for selling web-based products such as web hosting and software. Key features are client areas, a support system, a knowledge base, automated hosting tasks and customer management.
Invision Power Connect
Connect is a hosted one-on-one chat service offering businesses the ability to connect with customers for proactive sales and support. The software will feature a staff chat client which will run on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Invision Download Manager
Invision Download Manager is a download system built to integrate with Invision Power Board. This has not yet been officially announced, but a developer has mentioned it. It is currently in use at IPSBeyond and is only accessible by IPS customers. [3]
Invision Power Wiki
Codenamed as "ineo" or "IP.ams", which stands for Invision Power Article Management System is only at use at IPSBeyond, so therefore is only available to IPS customers. As the name implies, it is a wiki system for articles that integrates with Invision Power Board. No official announcement has been made yet, but IPS customers can watch its progress at IPSBeyond.
Discontinued products
Invision Power Services has, in the past, released products and services which have since been discontinued.
Invision Power File Manager
Previously named "Aquonics File Manager", this was a multi-user web-based file management system.
Invision Power Top Site List
A top site list featuring integration into Invision Power Board.
Invision Power Chat
A rebranded Java-based chat solution which was integrated into Invision Power Board.
Services
Invision Power Services has since diversified its offerings to include services such as web hosting and dedicated server hosting. Since all of Invision's customers must use web hosting in some capacity, this is probably a lucrative source of second income for the company.