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. 

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.

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.