For months, Moderngigabyte announced the release of its latest Modernbill's release, namely "v5".
Every entrepreneur involved in the web hosting business has already heard about this product.
Modernbill, in its v4 version, is/was certainly one of the best (if not the best) ready-to-use application to automate the process of creating/managing/suspending and billing web hosting accounts.
Few weeks ago, Moderngigabyte officially released v5 in its "stable" version and they are selling it as a finished product (also when they are claiming, on their discussion forums, that it is still in development).
Since then, peoples are talking about this "late-to-come" version of Modernbill and most of them are complaining about bugs or lack of integrated modules.

I would like to play the devil's advocate here.
We all know that for only one satisfied customer's testimonial, it is usual to get hundreds of complaints. Every customer have this feeling that for each dollar invested in a product, he must get in return a finished-bug free-working product with a personalized 24/7 support and a complete team of coders dedicated to his own custom needs.
This is not a customer's right; this is a seller's obligation to provide the best service/product available/possible. But come on guys, I hope nowadays nobody lives anymore in an utopic world.
**** happens and often it happens where it was not awaited.

From my humble point of view, Moderbgygabite did only one mistake: they tried to satisfy their customers.

"Too early!"
I mean, they first announced "v5" in the late 2004 when development begun efficiently in the early 2006.
Peoples became excited by this promising new release and each day passed was a day less until it became available. Most of them renewed their 6 months support period because they were expecting this release shortly.
At the end, nothing came and customers were getting frustrated.
In a hurry, Michael and his team worked 48 hours a day (yes, you read it well) to regain on the lost time. They chose the best policy to calm down everyone: Transparency & Fanatic communication.
Through their discussion forums, Michael answered as much as possible to all queries and expectations. An intensive feedback was given through helpdesk and forums. They also installed a live cam where each visitor/customer is able to see the development team working. I am inviting everyone one to visit this website. You'll see by yourself that these guys really deserve each cent they earn.
In the meantime, v5 was released to calm down the growing pressure that impatient customers were placing on Michael's shoulders.
Again, too early!
Moderngigabyte engaged in the v5's development all its coding resources at the cost of the v4’s support. It was a strategic mistake though. Now, customers are complaining on both side. But, who never make a mistake should throw the first stone.

Anyway, who should be blamed?
Those who complained during months to get updates/improvements/new features (which are also those who are complaining today concerning bugs and modules integration) or those who tried to calm down the pressure and provide solutions/answers as fast as possible?

"Rome wasn't built in one day !"
This is what I would like to answer to Modernbill's detractors.
Modernbill remains a fantastic product.
It save us a lot of time and money in our everyday works. And through the time saved, we can offer better support service to our customers.
The new v5 sounds really promising and it will propose a bunch of features that no other competitors are proposing.
The new code framework will allow a better integration/evolutivity of the whole product. Through modules, its capability will be almost endless.
Of course, it is not the cheapest ever but, regardless of the present situation, it will worth the money.

"You'll get what you are paying for."
When I look backward into the past, I can see what Michael has done.
He provided 4 years long a stable product which remains unique in its market segmentation. He took care of each his customers needs and adapted its product regarding each of them (you'll only have to check how many payment gateways Modernbill is supporting !).
I guess he prooved already how qualified he is, and is team as well, to give us a wonderfull product. This is only a question of time.

I am confident and I would like to say: Keep up the good work guys, you are on the right way!!!

It isn't easy to try and satisfy a huge, existing customer base when you're essentially rebuilding your product from the ground up. I believe the developers, that this step will save them hours and hours of hassle and allow the product to be more flexible. I have my license, and am noodling around with a test version of MB5.

That said, I'm a bit annoyed with the announcement procedures for the new licensing schema. There's a lot of information out there, it's not collected or organized, it isn't as clear as I would like it (for one, the developers' licenses haven't been decided upon yet; yet to run any third-party app or extension one apparently is required to have this developers' license), and it's a tiny bit panic-making.

That comes with the territory, I suppose; and I am looking forward to playing with the new API. If I'm understanding it correctly, this will nicely solve some of my branding issues while cutting down on the number of different passwords my clients will have to track.

In fact we all hope to see the situation resolved as soon as possible.
Regardless to all the announcements and/or rumors, this present situation is really uncomfortable for many businesses.
v4 isn't really anymore supported/updated and v5 is not ready to use.

But I am pretty sure, soon this v5 release will be mature to be used in a production environment and, then, will be the best product around. This is only a question of time. But we are all aware, unfortunatly, time is money.

yay! v5 is out thats good to hear

You'll have to be a little more patient though
v5 isn't really ready to be use in a production environment.
I would rather say "...at your own risk..."

I was disappointed with the release of stable v5, missing too many features. They could've worked on all the features before releasing the stable version, and also it's not that great at migrating from old v4 to v5.

You may write "stable" v5. We all agree that v5 (even the latest 5.0.4) is everything but absolutly not stable. I would also suggest you to avoid using it in a production environment.

There is actually no migration/updating script available. You can migrate to v5 but you'll loose all the actual billing/invoices history of your customers (or you'll have to import them all manually). On that point, I understand why they don't release an import/upgrade script yet: This is mainly because v5 is still beta . Modifications happen everyday on its code/kernel/database structures. It would be a titans works to update the import script on each new release.

And what is not stable about the version? I have installed the demo and it seems to be pretty good. I did not have any problem with the installation process. It took me around 6 minutes to install it.

I have only installed my license in a non-production capacity, but I've had problems running the event queue - which is needed to generate invoices, run payments, suspend/unsuspend accounts... Others have had problems with their own issues. Some of them are things that MB is actually saying, "Yes, we know, that doesn't work yet." (They've finally released a roadmap of when certain features, like this payment gateway, that registrar integration, and the other control panel software automation would be available. Very little of it is before version 5.1, I believe.)

Even MB is currently saying "Don't use this in a production environment yet." I'd almost be interested in asking them how they can release this product as a "stable release" and yet say "don't run it in a production environment"...but I just know that somewhere an entire team of legal folks (probably somewhere around Redmond) would be able to produce shiny new definitions of "stable", "release", and "stable release" that would hold up in a court of law if not the court of common sense.

I'm not using MB in a production environment, and I'm not recommending to anyone else that they do so either, without a LOT of testing to make sure that the features *you* need are both present and working.

Beyond the bugs, what is more embarrassing in the present version is the lack of payment modules

So the suggestion is to use v4.4.x?

Definitivly

they shouldve released v5 when its out of "beta" or when all the bugs are fixed.......

We already all agreed with this statement George

ah whatever.. I couldve said "I agree" but this works too..