| Operating system | Cross Platform |
|---|---|
| Platform | PHP / MySQL (MSSQL available) |
| Type | Forum software |
| Website | www.invisionpower.com |
Invision Power Services, Inc. is a software and web hosting company established in February 2002, best known for Invision Power Board. Its headquarters is based in Forest, Virginia.[1]
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Matthew Mecham and Charles Warner established Invision Power Services when they resigned from Jarvis Entertainment Group (JEG), a company (now Westlin Corporation) that acquired Mecham's forum software IkonBoard.[2] Mecham promised his software would remain as freeware before and after the acquisition by JEG.[2] The company proposed commercializing his software rather than maintaining its freeware status, and placed Mecham and Warner under pressure with the workload of IkonBoard that lead to their resignation.[2] 85 percent of supporters from IkonBoard followed them to their new company and Ibforums (now Invision Power Board) came to be.[2]
The Invision Power Board software license changed incrementally. The free software became an unlimited free trial and required payment to access official technical support. On September 27, 2004, the discontinuation and commercialization of the free software received criticism from the community, describing the movement as hypocritical as Invision Power Services was established in protest of Jarvis Entertainment Group.
Invision Power Board (abbreviated IP.Board) is a commercial Internet forum package written in PHP, similar to other forum software such as vBulletin and phpBB. Even though it is a commercial product, many communities are dedicated to creating and distributing free modifications for the software.
Invision Power Services operates its own data center and servers to provide hosted installations of its software with maximum optimization,[3] as well as web hosting on both shared and dedicated servers.
Invision Power Services has, in the past, released products and services which have since been discontinued.