License expired - what now?

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.

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.