Joyent: another entry for workgroup collaboration

Thu Nov 10 19:01:41 PST 2005

Hey,

Joyent looks interesting.  It looks like it may not yet be fully baked.
I'm curious if they'll support standard file sharing protocols, and if
and how they'll add wiki and blog features, as well as what "upgrade
path" they forsee for companies that grow beyond the capabilities of a
single box.

I think the curmudgeony is mis-placed.  If you're a small business, you
likely need collaborative tools, but you don't need the $100k+ expense
of a dedicated IT infrastructure.  A lot of that cost is a FT employee,
or a consultant, either one of which can be serious investments that can
bite you in the rear far faster than an a small, tight outsource house
that has built its business on not screwing up your infrastructure.

I myself have thought that it might be a neat business to get into -
provide hosted LDAP / e-mail / calendar plus other services, targeted at
companies, who are willing to pay more than consumers for high-quality,
high-availability, well-supported solutions.  I think their hosted
solution is probably going to work a lot better for them and for any
consumer that isn't doing a lot of file-sharing ... there are fewer
issues of scalability and availability that need be addressed by their
customers.

But then, if a business grows past the 30 customers or so they bandy
about on their web site, it sounds like they can afford to invest in
their own dedicated infrastructure, and outgrow the Joyent box.

And, maybe they want to focus on "getting it right" in a particular
space, profit off that, and not worry too much.  Looks like a group of
veterans who got together, and decided that instead of reinventing the
wheel again and again, they could just build a better box once, and sell
the kit, and lead nicer lives that way.  Systems Administration for a
large userbase, by automation. :)

I'll put my curmudgeony here: they're very good at making a flashy,
persuasive website, with a trendy blog, and all the latest web 2.0
dynamic content XSLT skins, but there's no proof the core infrastructure
is any good, and the company may yet flounder as they move from R&D to
having to establish revenue, while still keeping their creative /
talented folks happy with what, at the end of the day, is IT
infrastructure.

As software goes, IT infrastructure is about as gratifying as bathroom
fixtures: it is gratifying to design a set and understand how they work
the first time through, but once you get them deployed then everyone
will use them daily for the mundane tasks they find least interesting
and not give your creation a second thought until something breaks and
makes a mess.  And heck forbid you should go rearranging the fixtures or
how they work ... no one wants to pull the wrong lever and be surprised
to discover that now you have bidet functionality. :)

At my place, we have a FT sysadmin, but he is concentrating most of his
energy on our production network.  But there's some desire among the
staff for flush-toilet style calendars, and thos folks are used to
Exchange.  And that's not my specialty ... so, if *I* can get a box,
plug it in, and make folks happy, I say hurray Joyent, and I'm as
skeptical as anyone.

I'll give them points for the 60-day refund. :)

Cheers,
-danny