We have definitely considered automating the database updates. In fact, I set out to do it for this release and then realized that it wasn’t time yet. I can’t say too much more about this due to competitive reasons, but expect the database updates to become automated with an upcoming release.

In the next version I hope to see the new templates!

Keep it up. Best,
Oliver

whm/cpanel , direct admin, plesk, skloxo, webmin, others?

Thanks for your post and thoughts! I can appreciate your request for some re-assurances.

I guess first and foremost, as illustrated by some of the previous comments here, we’ve had quite a few requests for hosting and domains from our existing customer base. Indeed, one of the very reasons we started from scratch with SPBAS many years ago (leading to the first release in July 2009) was our desire to expand our offerings to include hosting and domains support. The most important thing here to note is we’ve spent 2.5 years building out our licensing features – and all the other parts of SPBAS – first! We wanted to wait until the core features of SPBAS – which benefit everyone, regardless of what they use SPBAS to sell – were in the right place.

Secondly, and related to that, architecturally we haven’t had to hack, shoe-horn, cut or otherwise mangle SPBAS to build out our hosting and domains features. The hosting and domains features build on the tried-and-tested systems in SPBAS (such as products, packages, assets etc.). This means that every improvement we build into the core of SPBAS is available for those who use SPBAS for hosting, domains, licensing, or anything else (and we have a lot of people using SPBAS for different things!). And we have a lot of these improvements planned (building on the buy now buttons, auto-pay, helpdesk improvements and everything else non-hosting that was part of v3).

Thirdly, expanding into hosting and domains opens a much bigger market for us – and this means more customers and hopefully more income for us. We can use this to make the product better, improve support and development times. And as I noted above, our architecture means that every improvement we make to the customer area, the order form, the helpdesk, the knowledgebase, the products, billing, invoices and every other part of SPBAS – which are just as important to someone buying and selling hosting as they are to someone using SPBAS for licensing – will benefit you as well! Plus, we’ve got several great new licensing features in the pipeline as well.

Finally, many may not realise that for a long time many years ago, Andy and myself actually worked on hosting and domain management systems in the past – PHPAudit (one of our products before SPBAS) was actually originally born to license one of those hosting and domain systems! In many ways, we’ve now gone full circle, and so we fully appreciate the scale of the task ahead of us.

Hopefully this will help, and we look forward to you joining us on this exciting new journey, and benefiting from all the new features we’re going to be bringing to the customer area, the order form, the helpdesk, the knowledgebase, the products, price sheets, invoices, billing, payment, payment processors – and yes, hosting, domains and licensing too!

SPBAS will be a nice new alternative for them

Myself and many others just like me, sell a product, not hosting or domains. I’m wondering if this focus shift is going to cause any issues for the customers who use SPBAS to license and deliver a Program. The main function of SPBAS up into this point (for me) is to sell a product, capture funds, deliver a product. Then renew plans as they age.

I have worries about the original functions of SPBAS getting left behind, while you guys focus on making SPBAS compatible with registrars and hosting environments. (Which I know is a TON of work).

Make me feel better about this Andy!! =]