News, Aug 23: SkaDate is NO LONGER based on the earlier aedating version.
We are glad to announce that SkaDate SuccessPoint release is out. It's a WRITTEN from scratch software masterpiece containing all our industry experience and technical knowledge insured by our 30 days money back guarantee.
More info on SkaDate Dating Software site.
Now we are in no way associated with aedating/dolphin which is a good thing for 2 reasons:
- We have a superior product now, SkaDate SuccessPoint, which simply makes aedating and dolphin a bad joke.
- We have no more prospects saying "we are interested in your product but concerned by your past association with boonex". We are a different company with a well-designed product and different approach to customers.
The original message of this site will stay because morphed products are still online
Note: This message is addressed to the existing customers of AEwebworks but also would be interesting to anyone considering buying their products aeDating/SkyDatepro or working with them in any other way.
Quick facts
When SkaDate was launched there was a lot of misunderstanding, negative reactions, skepticism and suspicions from people regarding what SkaDate was. A lot of people were convinced that SkaDate was an attempt of aewebworks to develop a new brand because the old one was slowly and naturally dying because of the bad reputation. Let me refresh your memories, it was a long discussion in SkaDate forum on modmysite around the fact that we have the same author right for this software and develop and market it separately.
SkyDatePro
Now, let me introduce you http://www.skydatepro.com/
Please, spend some time digesting the site, software demo and compare everything to skadate.com and aewebworks.com.
Let me sum it up for the impatient: it's a site copycatted from SkaDate. Name, version number, price (590), initial period of free technical support, words on the pages. Demo shows us aedating version 4.x.
SkyDatePro belongs to Boonex
- Nameservers for skydatepro.com at http://whois.sc/skydatepro.com show ns1.xyho.com, ns2.xyho.com. Let's now open 4ppl.com, we see xyho.com mentioned there as a future complimentary service of some kind. This would mean that xyho and 4ppl have the same owners. Meanwhile, 4ppl belongs to boonex as link on the bottom of the page says.
boonex = aewebworks
- You can see your most wanted and hunted down person Victor Trunov (ae support manager) at their page: http://www.boonex.com/about/team/. As well as Andrey Sivtsov, on the same page and on the certificate, showing his author rights for aeDating software (http://www.aewebworks.com/copy.htm).
Same people, and most probably the same business practices.
Got the idea? SkyDatePro = aewebworks
AEwebworks is another company trying to morph to another brand!
Like tons of those unable to deliver in world history!
Why was this done?
2 things come to mind:
- Hope to rebrand and fish out more $$$, because obviously, AEwebworks is sinking because of its growing bad reputation and their sales going lower and lower. They need more and more new sales to be able to provide "free lifetime unmatched customer support" to the old ones. It's a story as old as this world about what free lifetime things are worth.
- A clear attempt to throw discredit upon SkaDate by cloning its brand and business model, they even went this low to think that it was funny to copy version number, and some text on the pages, like "run for excellence" taken from dotSilver homepage (another Skalfa eCommerce project; SkaDate belongs to Skalfa eCommerce), and such. They do it because they realize that SkaDate (and Skalfa eCommerce) is their serious competitor. We at SkaDate don't see too much sense in this move nonetheless but apparently aewebworks people thought there was.
What will they do now?
Shortly after reading this they can:
- Erase any traces of boonex, aewebworks, skydatepro being connected. It would take correction of some pages, possibly changing nameservers and IPs to pretend skydatepro is run not by them but by some "russian outlaws" who stole the software (they even have that ridiculous "Based in Russian Federation" statement on "about us" page). That's simple, but unfortunately late and not enough because anyways you see this before them.
- Change skydatepro to make it look not as aedating-rebrand but a different software. That's not easy and it would be easier for them to write new software. Maybe people are even going to benefit from it ?
- Shut skydatepro down. This doesn't look probable at this point unless they realize what kind of consequences it can bring them in return and in fact already bringing because you guys are reading this.
- They can pretend it's one of their separate departments selling some kind of "light version". This is probably the first lie to come up with out of head in this situation. Even in this case why was this department directed to copycat virtually everything from SkaDate?
- Ignore this info and fair indignation of their customers discovering this nasty move and continue to sell bad old ae-sky-whatever-dating-pro.
We think that the most probable cases for them to choose are 4 and 5. Or even finally abandon the old brand with all existing customers at some point and promote a new one. What can prevent a company like aewebworks with great marketing, ability to design nice pages, minimize responsibilities and practicing questionable business from selling aedating in various re-incarnations years and years further? All you need is to hide well and change the brand every 3 year period. And the facts tell us that they already started doing it. They actively promote the site with Google Adwords (you can google for "dating software" and "dating script" and see the top adwords message) and submit it to software directories (google for "skydatepro"). Most important is that aewebworks created a dangerous precedent that it's quite possible to conduct this kind of business on this kind of scale.
So, which scenario of the above will aewebworks choose? Time will show. I invite everybody to watch the situation.
What will WE (at SkaDate) do now?
We understand that they are stepping on a "bad games" soil by this move and together with everything else it's directed against our own business. I firmly assure anyone that we won't answer in similar manner. I just can't imagine any of our company managers saying "hey, let's do the same to them". And I don't see that we receive a directive from the top management to dedicate some of our people to waste their time on this kind of activity.
Nevertheless, our politics will include telling the whole story to anyone in any kind of aewebworks/aedating discussions taking place over the Internet (and we chose modmysite first because we find it critical for you all to know the truth). I remember Mike Jones (Userplane CEO) leaving kind of positive remark on corante blog: "We have numerous clients using AE Webworks software - it seems to be a great platform - all in PHP and source-accessible.. I have had clients complain about difficulty reaching them as they are overseas" (Corante blog). I wonder what Mike would say and I also wonder how companies like Hostforweb and 2checkout would react being, say, "surprised" by discovering about this activity. HostForWeb, 2checkout surely wouldn't like to be marginally involved into a lawsuit. How many of you didn't file a lawsuit for non-delivery of a paid service (speaking about support) because it seemed virtually impossible to make them answer in court? We know that a lot of you hoped to at least get your money back not even taking into consideration your wasted time.
In order to avoid misunderstanding we think we made it clear in this open letter to you where among all this the hard facts are (you can easily check that for yourself by visiting all the URLs given) and what our own opinion and prediction for the nearest future is.
My name is Max Dubovitsky, I am a Spokesman and Sales & Marketing manager at SkaDate, daughter company of Skalfa eCommerce. I will answer any questions and give any info to highlight the situation to anyone interested and we are open to any discussions. From the very start we speak on our own behalf only. We had to face all negative emotions people expressed on this forum suspecting us in being aewebworks agency and responded to all of them in contrast to aewebworks clumsy attempts to secretly visit this place to pick up info (everyone remembers "Ajax" story, if not Smoge can refresh your memories, I think).
What will YOU (aewebworks customers) do?
Do you guys think you all are AT LEAST eligible for $100 (the difference between aeDating and SkyDatePro) partial refund? And/or is it a good idea to finally try to stop people doing whatever they want just because they think they are unreachable by the civilized world? We've seen all the negative reactions when SkaDate first appeared (this was discussed all through and all questions were carefully answered in details), now, unfortunately, you have all reasons in the world for that. Looks like they took your suspicions as an idea for "business development". Will they "develop" further?
Thank you all,
Max