The New EllisLab.com: You Want My Opinion?
One thing the #eecms tag on Twitter made clear is that everyone has an opinion about the changes EllisLab made to their site and their products this past weekend. We put together a quick round-up of the EllisLab changes on Sunday. It covers the basics but read through some recent stuff for more details. There is some misinformation out there about what did change, so get caught up on that first.
All set? Good. Let’s break this down.
New Support Plans
I was asked by EllisLab earlier this year what I thought about private, paid support. I encouraged them to do it. I had no influence beyond a single email exchange in January. In short: I am happy that EllisLab switched to paid, private support for ExpressionEngine.
No matter how it may look to the customer, support is never free. It is either built into the price of the product or charged for separately. Up until this weekend, EllisLab supported their CMS for almost nothing. $299 for a software license plus unlimited support doesn’t work as a business model with goals for growth. The new setup allows EllisLab to give better support to those that need and want it while allowing them to grow the support staff. The paid support support funds the staff. It’s pretty basic stuff.
In case you think new customers are left out: new ExpressionEngine license purchasers are supported for 3 months as part of their purchase. This time limited support should be enough to help them work through issues during the site build. Agencies don’t have to pay for support per site license. It’s one fee that covers as many sites as you work on.
The lack of private support has always been a problem for me. I work on client sites and sometimes I need to explain a problem in detail. On a public forum, where all official support took place up until now, I can’t always do that because part of a project might be confidential. In a private support thread, however, I can lay it all out without worry that someone will find it through a Google search.
If you’ve been following along, you know that this isn’t a surprise and was pretty well telegraphed by EllisLab (had to use a Google cached version because the post no longer appears on the blog). Over the past several months EllisLab has been testing out its private support feature with select customers in the forums.
What wasn’t hinted at were the price tiers for support. I mentioned on Twitter that I thought the prices were a little high for the support response time in the $299/month mid tier. I’ve pulled back a little in my initial criticism after reviewing the support options from the competition. However, one business day is the wrong waiting period. One calendar day should be the standard. The traditional business week doesn’t work anymore–especially with small business owners and freelancers–and isn’t as flexible across the world’s timezones.
Pro Network
Sunday morning, EllisLab sent out an email to all Pro Network members stating that effective immediately the Pro Net was suspended.
The reaction on Twitter made it clear that some people relied on the Pro Network as a way to back up their reputation and the recommendation of using ExpressionEngine to clients. Many also found it useful for project leads (others, however, did not. One person even described the types of leads that result from it as just a bunch of “tire kickers.”)
Right after launch the inbound Pro Network links redirected to the Enterprise Partners page, which understandably rubbed some people the wrong way. EllisLab quickly corrected that yesterday and old Pro Network links now redirect to an explanation page. This should be a satisfactory interim solution until EllisLab–with input from the community–decides the future of the Pro Network.
I don’t have any strong opinion about the Pro Network other than it wasn’t working for EllisLab and it’s their right to discontinue it. Some advanced notice (like they did with the affiliate program) beyond a Sunday morning email would’ve created a lot of goodwill and made it seem less like a last minute decision.
License Simplification
EllisLab has once again simplified the license options. There is now only one license option for $299. Freelance and non-profit licenses are no longer available. I understand that only having a $299 license is an adjustment. However, any web project today where EE is a good fit should be able to support that license fee.
To dig up some old skeletons and pick a bone: I am firmly in the camp that removing the EE Core version was a bad idea. It has likely decreased adoption of ExpressionEngine among users of other systems and prevented new people from tinkering. I don’t think it was a bad idea to simplify to just one license type but I still want Core (or something like it) back.
Website Redesign
This is the part of this piece where I’m struggling because I had such a strong negative reaction to the redesign. I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to figure out what I don’t like about it and how I can explain that without just rattling off a bullet list of negativity. I care about how ExpressionEngine is marketed and sold because its success directly affects me and my business. As it does others, too.
In all, the entire website feels like a flashback. And not in a good way. The logo is a step backward for a company that is taking a firm, bold step forward in its business through new product offerings.
As I browsed around the site it felt unfocused and wordy (like me when I’m over-caffeinated). An example is the introduction on the homepage. It’s a 31-word paragraph that could be summed in 5 words: “Solid software. World class support.” Cut everything else.
As I continued to browse, I wondered about the site’s identity. Is EllisLab.com a superhero-inspired quirky company site or a site where I can come learn about ExpressionEngine, other products and support? There’s also a science theme with the periodic table listing the staff members and their geographic locations (clever treatment; I like it). Can it be all of these? Right now it is and it’s not working very well for me. They could have benefited from some content strategy and unified design direction.
(I wish there was a Skip Intro on that support page animation. Do I have to watch that every time?)
On the homepage, the company history is a long, horizontal pencil drawing. There is no copy included so people brand new to EllisLab will have no idea what this means and it provides very little value to them. It’s fun and I like the idea. I just don’t know how it fits in with everything else or helps someone choose ExpressionEngine over another CMS.
The product pages, especially for ExpressionEngine, have no product images and do very little to sell me on ExpressionEngine. Don’t be so shy! Show me the goods and make me understand why this is the best choice.
As a site that sells EE as a product, this site, in its current form, is far behind where the old one was. It feels like there are a lot of inside jokes and motifs that I don’t get. It feels like it was designed for the enjoyment of EllisLab and not for the good of the customers.
The good news is that the web is a living, moving, and changing medium. Nothing is permanent. Launching a fully fleshed out site with all new copy is very hard to do. I know EllisLab will refine and tweak their new site as the days, weeks, and months go on.
Closing Arguments
The sum of the changes EllisLab made will be good for them. Now that the site is launched they can refocus their time on refining their messaging, improving ExpressionEngine, and showing that their new support platform is a good deal.
I know not everyone is happy with the changes but nothing EllisLab did yesterday changes why I use the software or why I recommend it.
Posted on Nov 27, 2012 by Ryan Irelan
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Alan — 15:28 on 11.27.2012
Agreed on the website… Sometimes I would visit the old site or send clients there so they could see what the product did - now there is no valuable information on that website. Bummer.
Spamschlucker — 18:13 on 11.27.2012
Ryan,
thanks for pointing out your opinion. I think the most important is this:
“$299 for a software license plus unlimited support doesn
jon — 21:34 on 11.27.2012
I agree on most everything said especially regarding the site. The design makes ElisLabs look some what amateurish, in my opinion, which they certainly are not. With all the talent out there that uses and promotes their products, couldn’t they come up with a better design?
Calan — 21:38 on 11.27.2012
I find the new website, in conjunction with the support plans to be very contradictory.
The new support plans take the company towards the enterprise market. The new website however, is easily the worst of any CMS product on the market. EllisLab must be thinking an agency can do all the selling without any need for them to put some effort in themselves.
Unfortunately, when we need to sell EE to a client, that client often has another product in mind, and their in-house IT guys will be required to compare the products. Well good luck trying to compare EE when its own website has no information about the product, no imagery, no feature-list. It’s diabolical.
I too think the Pro Network added credibility to our company as EE specialists, and to pull it without notice and really for no particularly good reason is a slap in the face.
Overall, I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth, and I cannot understand why they’d ditch a reasonable product website (even the previous one was light on info/imagery) for this Mickey Mouse charade of a site.
Calan — 21:50 on 11.27.2012
Think about this - when my next enterprise client is comparing the websites of ExpressionEngine to Sitecore, which product do you think their management team will opt for?
I’m really annoyed by the website change. I cannot, for one second, get my head around this.
EllisLab, help us sell your product damnit.
Che Tamahori — 02:42 on 11.28.2012
If anyone’s comparing EE to SiteCore, it should be a pretty simple decision. They are wholly disimilar.
For all of the talk of “going Enterprise”, EE costs 1% of a Sitecore License. ONE PERCENT. Sitecore is a genuine Enterprise grade CMS. Sophisticated deployment mechanisms. Advanced workflows. Out of box Sharepoint integration. Internationalisation. Personalisation. Mobilisation. All the “ations”.
Whereas EE is an awesome alternative to Wordpress, Drupal, et al, at a very reasonable price. It also shares many of the weaknesses of those systems; you don’t get any of those Enterprise-ready “-ations” out of the box.
I think EllisLab is trying to keep EE affordable, while ensuring they have a viable business model. EE is not developed by a volunteer community. For all of our sakes, it needs to pay EllisLab a living wage.
As for the site - yeah, it’s awful at explaining the product. They need to rethink the ExpressionEngine section really quickly.
J — 03:36 on 11.28.2012
Hey Ryan,
Thanks for laying that out.
Out of all the things you mention, the lack of a thorough presentation of ExpressionEngine, its features, advantages and philosophy, illustrated with screenshots or a video is what I find the most jarring.
Ultimately, my clients care about the product first, not the company behind it. If the new motto is “all hands on deck” focusing on the product, then I feel the site could be more in line with it.
Like you do, I think that the presence of a free feature-limited core version would help immensely in helping people getting acquainted with the system and discovering its capabilities. Contacting EllisLab via email for trials is all well and good but that’s a serious barrier ton entry for a lot of people. Having a free core version also help alleviate the removal of freelancer and non-profit licences. Now that the support is not free, I wonder what’s keeping them from trying that out (maintaining two code bases) ?
Calan — 04:29 on 11.28.2012
@Che - My comparison, while not apples for apples is entirely relevant in that EE is not only used by small companies, it’s used by companies serious enough to research the product you’re proposing.
Also, on the issue of Sitecore, I know of a number of companies who will happily pay those license fees and certainly don’t need a product of that level.
My point was that at first glance the Sitecore website looks professional, and has enough content to gain a clear understanding of their product. The EE site by comparison is a joke, and there is no possible reason that EE couldn’t have better information at this stage in the game. It’s bad enough every decent agency has had to create their own EE brochure/manual to show clients as no such documentation exists from EE themselves.
For a product that is so well supported, the site is a complete joke and will undoubtedly make the task of selling EE to a new client that much more difficult.
Neil Bradley — 07:32 on 11.28.2012
I’m glad that I am not the only person who is not a fan of the new ellislab.com site, but I also was struggling to quantify what I don’t like about it - other than the old site seemed to be much more useful.
However, there is one thing that both sites have in common in that they didn’t showcase the actual product. Whenever I needed to show clients what ExpressionEngine looked like, I had to dig around the User Guide or a Google Image search result to find some good quality product screenshots.
I’m also struggling to find a showcase of sites using ExpressionEngine and the Wiki seems to have disappeared.
I think a major problem now is that the homepage of ellislab.com offers a minimal amount of detail about products, as an example - the Wii giveaway takes up more such a large portion of the homepage. The product should be first and foremost.
Gregor McKelvie — 08:02 on 11.28.2012
Good round up Ryan.
I think the support prices are fair. People were moaning about $49 per month for a site that costs
Calan — 08:12 on 11.28.2012
“The website is poor, but it’s better to “ship” and get feedback”
That statement is rubbish. It’s not a web app, it’s a migration of a mature CMS platform website that previously had content, and that hundreds of agencies are out there selling to clients on a daily basis. There is absolutely no justification for not having product information on the website. EllisLab need to help their clients sell their product.
I have 3 client proposals out there at the moment and any of those clients looking at the website to assess the product will likely think its a Mickey Mouse product.
Gregor McKelvie — 08:20 on 11.28.2012
“hundreds of agencies are out there selling to clients on a daily basis”
So you are relying on another business’s website to win your deals for you?
First and foremost, the client will buy from the people involved. If you are at a point where a prospect says no because of the EllisLab website (or even the product), you’ve done other things wrong in the sales process.
As for “rubbish” - I’d argue that the list of sites that EllisLab run are as complex as many web apps.
“There is absolutely no justification for not having product information on the website”
I agree with this, but what if they communicated it to the community and said “here’s our roll out plan because we can’t do everything at once” and you got the content you need in a 1 or two?
My point is they are bad at communicating.
Calan — 08:48 on 11.28.2012
“So you are relying on another business
Gregor McKelvie — 09:10 on 11.28.2012
@calan - you’re over reacting
If your prospect prefers Sitecore (from your previous comment) then you are more likely to come up against the differences in technology (.net vs php, stack, DBs, etc.).
On top of this, if your client has the budget for Sitecore then they are likely to want to see solid experience from you that you have done what they are looking for, that you can demo this using EE and that more technical issues (like integration with other business systems) can be done at some point.
And to return to my earlier point, they’ve got to like you too. The strength of the software’s brochureware site (although I agree plays a part) is down the list.
That’s why I am saying you are over reacting
Also, have you got documentation highlighting the differences between EE and Sitecore. Or are you expecting EllisLab to do this too?
Calan — 09:24 on 11.28.2012
You have an inability to stay on point. You should learn to focus.
“Also, have you got documentation highlighting the differences between EE and Sitecore. Or are you expecting EllisLab to do this too?”
1) No. Because I used Sitecore as an example. I could equally use just about any other CMS’s website as an example. Try to stay on point.
2) My expectations are to see some product information on their website. Your sarcasm is about as on-point as the rest of your response. Get off your horse.
Whether I can sell the product to a client or not, is not the point. And it’s not about ‘brochureware’ it’s about their representation of their own products.
I’m done replying to you. Learn to focus, it’ll stand you in good stead.
Tony — 10:40 on 11.28.2012
Ryan
A couple of years ago, I warned about the possibility that EE would be out of business if changes were not made. Recall the bitter rumbles at theNerdary.net.
It did not require a brain surgeon to ‘see’ that addon makers and other makers of EE-related products and services were determining and controlling the direction of EE. In fact, any blind fool could ‘see’ that Ellislab was headed in the wrong direction by not caring for the needs of all its customers (stakeholders).
As a customer of EE, I was extremely not satisfied with the way I was treated by the company, by the employees of the company, and by the parasites who consider the company as their only source of daily bread. Customer satisfaction is the driving force behind performance and profitability because customer satisfaction is the foundation of quality management, and without an effectiveness in managing quality of services and products a company is as dead as the door knob. When I think of EE, the US comes to my mind. Both the company and the country have great potentials, but internal bickering, lack of focus, and enthronement of the personal at the expense of the collective/public are destroying the core of both entities.
A business that does not care about ALL its customers (stakeholders) is doomed to failure and extinction. The same is true of a country that caters to a select few at the expense of the entire collective.
Chris — 13:43 on 11.28.2012
Ellis had committed itself to working on an ongoing dialogue & issuing ADVANCE notices with the developers and community - what happened?
It’s extremely disturbing to read on the ee forum the recent developer post that in his opinion CodeIgnitor is self-destructing, when ee is built on CodeIgniter.
.net magazine just previewed that Pixel and Tonic is about to release a direct competitor to ExpressionEngine. . the start of a new trend?
The new forum changes are startlingly awful.
Spamschlucker — 17:26 on 11.28.2012
Tony:
“As a customer of EE, I was extremely not satisfied with the way I was treated by the company, by the employees of the company, and by the parasites who consider the company as their only source of daily bread.”
I pointed my opinion out further up, I am not satisfied with the actual development.
But I myself always have been extremely satisfied with the way I was treated by the company and by the employees of the company. I never met any parasites; my contacts to the addon-developers also were very sweet.
I am just hoping this thread doesn’t mutate to an EllisLab-bashing where every *** could come and unload his *** because he cannot leech the support anymore.
Tony — 12:40 on 11.29.2012
Spamschlucker
You are right that “we” should NOT turn this discussion into EllisLab-bashing bonanza.
But you are incorrect in your characterization of my motivation. Before I stumbled onto EE, I experimented with lots of CMS, including Typo 3, Drupal, WP, etc. I decided to try EE, so I bought the license. After buying the license, I could not figure out what to do with the software once I installed it.
I sought for some help from the people at EE website on how to modify templates and how to get my site looking as I wanted it. The suggestions and help I got from EE people explain the reason I believe the company may go out of business in the near future.
To cut a long story short, I came into contact with Ryan because EE people suggested that I use Ryan
Spamschlucker — 19:24 on 11.29.2012
Yes, Tony, this sounds reasonable. I just could add that I had no bigger problems diving in, but I was using pMachine since 2004, then switching over to EE 2005 - and where I had problems I could get good help from the support.
But I agree: The starting-points always have been very lousy, also the example-site that comes with EE is didactically absolute senseless. Well I didn’t need this for years, so perhaps our experience differs.
And you are right: Commercial add-ons are absolutely vital for EE. It’s RIDICULOUS that you e.g. have to buy a filemanager (like Assets) and a WYSIWYG-Editor (like Wygwam) in a system for 300$. But for me this also was no real problem: I pay 500, 600$ for the installation and I have a system with which I am absolutely satisfied. I don’t build new sites every year, so for my 2 year-long projects this is ok.
Gary — 14:27 on 12.05.2012
I have worked for an IT company like EE - SCO. In the 1990’s they were the worlds largest provider of UNIX with 20% global market share. They got eaten by Linux ( Redhat) at the bottom of the market and Microsoft / IBM at the top.
Companies like EE and SCO get caught in an engineering mind set, where their confidence in their product overtakes and blinds them to market dynamics. They get caught between high volume competitors / business model ( ie WordPress / Joomla ) or a low volume / high price business model ( ie Sitecore). They don’t have the volume and their product & services can’t compete against the features of high price products. So they lift their prices to generate revenue only to discover that their low end business disappears. Not a big problem in the short term, but then they wake up 2 years later to discover that one of their big clients leave and they have nothing at the bottom to rely upon. Death beckons.
If I was CEO of EL I would seek to expand their market share as asap or else get eaten by Joomla / WordPress. You do this by making the product free to low end customers. You do not incur costs as you do not offer any EL support - support is community driven. Development, unlike Joomla is *not* community driven. Good development will attract nascent developers making your platform richer and indispensable for those developers who have invested energy into it.
Revenue can be generated not through the low end - but indeed high end customers. More revenue -> better platform -> more low end developers -> further market reach -> more revenues.
Losing 2 key and expensive executives and raising prices tells me you are in a cash crunch already.
Calan — 15:52 on 12.05.2012
@Gary - Not all companies are the same, and EE have done a great job in establishing their product and getting clients to pay for it. We have no problem paying because it’s a great product.
There’s no need for them to offer a free version at this stage, and just because a number of changes to the product range have been made at the same time as a management change, hardly means there’s a problem, it could quite easily mean they believe the product is strong enough to weather a big shake up.
You might also be overlooking the fact that the community support is still in place through the forums. Paying for professional support is not the end of the world for a company.
My only major issue is the new EE website being too light on substance and the fact that it’s not anywhere near professional enough.
Gary — 16:10 on 12.05.2012
@Calan good comment. I think the need and the benefit of offering a community edition is in attracting developers. A platform in itself has no value - it is what you can do with it which brings value. The more developers the more indispensable your platform becomes to the CMS market. I can see no downside to offering a free community edition so long as EL does not spend money on technical support. Well that said - I suppose it would eliminate the $300 licence fee from low end customers ... but are you really going to get low end customers paying it ??
I think a $300 licence fee could be marketed in a different way to mid range customers ie wrapped around some some serious features and support bundle. my experience is that the future of any platform software of any kind is 1 thing: developers with real end user drive functionality. End users go where the apps are. No developers -> no end users. No endusers -> no future. If you are a platform developer which EL is - you just have to love those application developers.
Calan — 16:47 on 12.05.2012
I’m still not following why you’re pulling apart a successful business model, it’s not relevant to the topic of this post. They sell thousands of licenses at the $300 level, which to me is a non-event as any business can afford it. They’re not trying to compete with the open-source platforms, and this discussion has been argued to death about EE in the past.
I would agree to the argument that too many native features are excluded from the product pipeline due to commercial add-ons being developed by external devs, but this is a different discussion entirely.
gary — 17:20 on 12.05.2012
The topic of this post is a summary of the changes they have made.
Your fundamental assumption is that they have a successful business model. They are a private company - you can’t possibly know if they are successful.
My assumption is that these changes may well be a reaction to poor financials which in themselves are the consequence of a problem in their market strategy.
I love their product. I am a developer and am an avid user of CI. However, as I develop my own company strategy going forward, I have many platforms where I can invest my rare abilities and those of the people I employ now and in the future. EL is in competition for my skills and those of thousand of others. So far the changes they have made make it *harder* for me to take on EE not easier. So all in all, my summation is that these changes have not served them well - they push developers like me and my team away.
I agree with your comments on the website though - it sucks.
ClasDev — 16:34 on 12.06.2012
This probably is the last straw for me with EE. There have been many glaring issues that I’ve run into with EE over the past 3 years and none of them would fall under the need to have a support plan. They were all bugs. Try getting one of the devs at Ellis Lab to fix a bug, you’ll be waiting a long time. In this case, it was a deal breaker with my client and I had tried emailing Ellis Lab directly, posting my need on the forums, all with no timely response. I was forced to opening up EE’s code and fixing it myself. The official fix took a month or so to finally get released.
Here’s my point… I don’t know what these guys are doing/thinking, but IMO, they don’t know what they are doing. If I have a customer that pays 300.00 for a product and that product is buggy, I expect FREE support for it. Also, if it’s a critical bug (as was the one that I discovered) I expect Ellis Labs to jump all over it and get it fixed right away. I can’t look like a fool to my customers, and that’s exactly the concern.
I can’t recommend a product by a company that clearly has some major issues to fix first.
Calan — 05:03 on 12.07.2012
@Clasdev - You’re having a bit of a rant here without knowing the facts. You do not need paid support in order to add a bug to the log, so your point isn’t valid. Also, EE is not ‘buggy’ and calling it that discredits yourself from a meaningful conversation.
ClasDev — 15:49 on 12.13.2012
Calan, here’s the facts… EE 2.x has had several major/critical bugs. It happens. But what is not acceptable is the lack of priority in fixing those bugs. If a customer pays $300 for an app, they expect it to work. They also expect that if there is a critical bug, that it will get fixed in a timely manner for FREE. Posting a critical bug report and getting no response from Ellis Labs for several days to a week is terrible. Waiting a month or more for that fix is unacceptable.
I realize their new support plans are separate from bug reports, but you missed my point. Advertising “Guaranteed first response” for their new support plans is nice, but Ellis Labs should apply the same response to fixing critical bugs which has not been the case.
Regardless, I don’t think we will continue moving forward with EE unless Ellis Labs gets their act together. Maybe the new changes at Ellis Labs will do that, but only time will tell.
Darin — 00:42 on 05.10.2013
We’re now a few months into these changes and the EllisLab community forums are a wasteland.
The single biggest mistake I think EL made was assuming the excellent EE community would continue to hang around and compensate for the sudden departure of EL’s community support.
But why would they? Anyone who needs regular pro support has purchased a support plan and is going to get their money’s worth, instead of spending their valuable time searching EL forums in hopes of an answer… especially when they know that they’ll never again find a current answer from EL in the forums.
That leaves a few nostalgic members and a whole lot of first-timers, hobbyists (me), etc. trying to get occasional and/or basic answers. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad if:
1) the forums were easy to search. But they haven’t been. Until recently, I couldn’t even properly distinguish which forums to limit my advanced search to. And, as time goes on, the information in the forums/archives is becoming more outdated, creating a self-fulfilling obsolescence; and
2) since the experts aren’t there anymore, the posts are filled with people struggling to find solutions. These days, the forums contain a lot of frustration, but very few answers. Wading through this crap for an occasional nugget is increasingly time consuming and disheartening.
As a hobbyist, I only do the occasional website for friends every few years. Usually, they’re just static sites, but every now and again a CMS is desirable. A number of years ago, I tried drupal and pretty much gagged. I hated the entire system (not sure if it’s different today). Then a couple of years ago, I tried WordPress. At first, it seemed pretty good, but I soon found it restrictive after the freedom of EE. Because of these experiences, I decided to go back to the familiarity of EE for my current project, even if I had to pay for EE out of my own pocket.
Next, I decided to try a couple of things I hadn’t done before with EE, so I went to the forums for answers. There was nothing current about my issues and the older posts were no longer accurate for today’s version of EE. Upon further review, there hadn’t been a functional solution posted in the forums for weeks. I was mightily discouraged. I didn’t want to pay the ridiculous support prices for my two questions, I just needed an answer or two from community experts, of which few remain these days. My experience in the early days with pMachine and EE1 was so much better.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be to come up with a winning support formula that balances the needs of a supplier and it’s clients. I don’t envy EL the task. But whatever they do, they need to address the sad state of their community forums and find a way to restore the active community of experts who provided value and built the community’s reputation. Without them, the community is on the fast track to extinction.
anon — 10:44 on 06.07.2013
i think their paid support is ridiculous. we needed a user name and password reset for an expression engine site. the client misplaced the info. even with proof of purchase through a receipt – they made us sign up for their support plan just for THIS and would not address the inquiry until they had successfully collected our credit card assets. we immediately canceled. i mean… come on. makes me want to go on a smear campaign.
OakleyDoakleyDecker — 08:27 on 07.23.2013
P+T jumping ship and Codeigniter being offloaded too.
Depressing reading - http://ellislab.com/blog