License expired - what now?

Here is what is missing from the responses from Sophos.

Nowhere have I heard them announce that the problem is just temporary, offer any reassurance to their customers or that they plan to continue normal operations and give any kind of time frame.  It looks to me that management is doing a terrible PR job on this no matter what the problem is.

Instead they just give what now seems to clearly be a false excuse to stall for time.

Sounds like either financial trouble and pending bankruptcy or some kind of legal liability problem.

The fact that they won't just tell you what is going on in a credible and transparent way is ominous.

Even if they somehow survive this, the Sophos brand is crippled by these actions.

It's too bad.  Sandboxie is an outstanding program.  Apparently the management isn't nearly as good as the developers (or as good as the customer support referring to the person in this thread who has the unfortunate job to be stuck in the middle of this mess between management and the customers).

Hopefully, if Sophos goes belly up, they will sell off Sandboxie to someplace that has better management.

This Sophos reticence smells like lawyers. "Don't say anything, don't admit anything, don't confirm anything, just tell them we are working on a response. Wear them down. Eventually they will go away."

They are just another junkware company that has run into trouble. Have you seen their stock price? It has dropped like a rock. They obviously have bigger problems to deal with. And their incompetence doesn't inspire much confidence.

Sophos has heavily damaged, if not totally destroyed the good will Sandboxie had with thousands of users.  I doubt they could find a buyer for it now. 

I'm sorry for my lack of response.  While the issues previously outlined are temporary, they are not short term issues.  While I don't have any more information or an updated timeline to share with you I'm hoping to have some good news to share soon.  

For those of you who need new licenses unfortunately that is simply not an option now nor will it be in the short term.  I understand this is not the answer you want to hear, but hopefully it helps you if you are looking at alternate options.  

More BS from Sophos

Seth Geftic said:

I'm hoping to have some good news to share soon

I think all people want to know is do you intend to support S.B for the future long time or are you going to discontinue the product. It's a very simple question and could easily be answered. People respect honesty.Also if you have stopped selling licences what have you to lose by being upfront.

The lack clarity makes me believe you don't actually know the answer, kind regards

Seth Geftic said:

I'm sorry for my lack of response.  While the issues previously outlined are temporary, they are not short term issues.  While I don't have any more information or an updated timeline to share with you I'm hoping to have some good news to share soon.  

Don't apologize. We expected another Sophos non-response response anyway. The only good news you could give us would be that someone else is taking over Sandboxie.

Seth Geftic said:

I'm sorry for my lack of response.  While the issues previously outlined are temporary, they are not short term issues.  While I don't have any more information or an updated timeline to share with you I'm hoping to have some good news to share soon.  

For those of you who need new licenses unfortunately that is simply not an option now nor will it be in the short term.  I understand this is not the answer you want to hear, but hopefully it helps you if you are looking at alternate options.   

I'm glad to hear the issues outlined are at-least considered "temporary", which implies that perhaps there's some-remote-chance that Sandboxie will be sold again in the future.  At the same time it's quite disheartening that it seems Sophos has no (or limited) business interest in Sandboxie.  It's quite a unique product that you have, of which you have the ONLY of its kind on the market.  (literally, at least in the Windows space)

I tend to follow RKay's view on this (as a developer) in that the most important thing to any business is keeping products selling if they intend a future for them..  Perhaps I'm reading too far into your response, though yes, it does help us as far as an answer goes -- I will seek alternatives (moving away from Sandboxie) such as full-blown disposable VM's (e.g, Linux + remote X11) for mail, web, and everything else we've used Sandboxie for in the past.

I don't know who Seth Geftic is or what position he holds with Sandboxie but I do have to say that I found his response to be fully unsatisfying.  He may or may not be a nice person, but I recommend that he withhold comment unless he has something substantive to say.  I think non responsive comments such as the one he gave here only make the problem worse in the eyes of customers.  It feels like something is being covered up, and no one likes to feel that they are doing business with companies that are not upfront with their customers.

Is it just me or is anyone else sitting on the edge of their seats trying to figure out what is going on here?

Here is a wild theory.

Many years ago, I was using a program that was unique in its space similar to the way SB is unique in its space.  It was developed by a well known software company.

One year an even more well known software company called Microsoft, came out with a "competing" product in the same space.  I put competing in parenthesis because even though it wasn't nearly as good as the other company's product, it duplicated some of its functions.

After years of innovation and development, just months after being written up in the computer industry press as a superstar and the leader in its field, the first company suddenly announced it would no longer be developing the program and took it off the market.

I know what happened, but I won't go into that here.

Flash forward to today.

Microsoft introduced Windows 10 version 1903.  The first version of Windows with a SANDBOX.

Just when 1903 was being rolled out in production quantities, Sandboxie started having server problems.  How coincidental.

It's just a wild observation I can't resist mentioning.  The parallel is too interesting.  You decide.

BTW: Well known software company #1 is no longer in business, the program was quietly released to the public years after it went out of business, and it now has a thriving cult following which is still using it today 22 years after it has been out of development.  It still to this day has no equal (and still runs on Windows 10!).

You are reading way too much into this. Sophos acquired Sandboxie when they bought Invincea. They have never been interested in supporting or continuing Sandboxie. They have had a handful of bug fix releases in the last 2 years. They don't care about Microsoft's sandbox. They don't care how incompetent they look. They don't care about Sandboxie customers either. The real mystery is, instead of just ending the product, they want to let it rot and decay slowly. They want to drive all the Sandboxie customers away. It is a very strange business approach.

You are reading way too much into this. Sophos acquired Sandboxie when they bought Invincea. They have never been interested in supporting or continuing Sandboxie. They have had a handful of bug fix releases in the last 2 years. They don't care about Microsoft's sandbox. They don't care how incompetent they look. They don't care about Sandboxie customers either. The real mystery is, instead of just ending the product, they want to let it rot and decay slowly. They want to drive all the Sandboxie customers away. It is a very strange business approach.

That was precisely the scenario that was taking place in the event that took place in my previous post.  Well known company #1 acquired the program from another company, never put many resources into it, and didn't pay any attention to its customers for that program.  They basically held the program hostage and let it rot while its followers expressed their outrage.  I remember fans of the program saying what you just said almost verbatim.

One reason that may happen is that the acquirer feels the program doesn't fit into it's product lineup or plan and is trying to find a buyer.  So it just sits there while they try to find a way to monetize their investment in it.  And sometimes those deals fall through and the process can take a long time.  Meantime, the product loses customers (and value).

Next thing we knew, in the case I described, Microsoft developed a product that did something similar and Well known company #1 took their product off the market giving no explanation.  Wasn't until years later we found out that it indeed was related to the Microsoft product.

Don't underestimate the possibility that the fact that MS just introduced a sandbox has something to do with this.  There are several ways that it might.  It's just a wild guess, but there are some compelling coincidences and parallels.

So maybe this is a well established business model after all. Surprised my university left it out of business school. Giving your customers the finger and BSing them to death doesn't sound like a very good model though. 

Sophos has pissed off most of their customer base. So I doubt anyone would be willing to spend much for Sandboxie at this point. It likely can't be given away now.

No one in any of the forums has much good to say about the MS sandbox. But, Sophos didn't care about Sandboxie a long time before that ever came out.

I had been going to switch to Sophos AV when my current license expires, but NO WAY will they ever get my business. Not that they will care.

I know you are all frustrated but I am hoping we can share our Sandboxie plans with you very soon. It has been frustrating for us as well.  While we haven't been as transparent as we like it is not because we don't care about the Sandboxie community.  

Per the comments above I can assure you Microsoft has no impact in any shape or form on Sandboxie and Sandboxie's future.  

Then give a time scale to be more transparent.

If this wasn’t so pathetic it would be amusing to see such incompetence in action.

I was hoping to make the announcement this week, so probably next week at this point.

Seth I sympathize with you.  Whatever the cause, I'm sure it's not an easy situation for anyone involved at Sandboxie central.  And I look forward to your clearing up some of the mystery as I am sure others do as well.

But I see another problem.

How will the "server problem" explanation pan out.

If it was a server problem, either Sophos has the most incompetent IT operations in the computer industry and after all this time has STILL been unable to resolve an issue that resulted in the complete cessation of revenue from Sandboxie or they have been not only lacking transparency about what the problem is but actually telling their customers a lie about what was happening and giving them false information.

Neither one of these possibilities sounds very appetizing to a customer nor instills a sense of trust in the relationship.

And, if we now are going to be told that it was NOT a server problem, but in fact something else, that wouldn't help with the trust issue much either would it.

At this point my best guess is that Sophos will announce someone else bought Sandboxie.  But we shall see.

From a customer's perspective I think the important thing is to have Sandboxie in the hands of a reliable, honest, trustworthy and competent developer.  Let's hope that is the final result.  This is an outstanding and unique program.  It deserves that kind of home.

"At this point my best guess is that Sophos will announce someone else bought Sandboxie."

Or that they are spinning it off.

My fantasy:  Ronen Tzur saves the day by acquiring Sandboxie once again.

 He poured his brains, energy, and sweat into creating and maintaining this once-great program.  He was always involved in the forums.  He was always responsive to problems.  He was always upfront and honest.  A straight shooter.  What a class act.

 For those of us who have been long-time users of Sandboxie, it's sad to compare and contrast the Ronen Tzur days with what we're experiencing now.

Let’s hope that Sophos do sell it, but not to some clown outfit that only wants to milk the user base until it dies through lack of development.