Archive for June, 2008

Automatic Backups Base Fee Lowered to $10.75/month; Some Clarifications

In Announcements, ServeBlast on June 26th, 2008, by Ben. 3 comments.

After today’s launch, a number of people contacted us (and Gabe Jacobs blogged about it) to let us know that they thought a base fee of $14.95/month for our Automatic Website and Database Backup service was a bit higher than they would expect.

We agree. So we’ve lowered the price down to $10.75/month, which, at this time, anyway, is the lowest we can put it at while still making a profit larger than 2 or 3 cents.

The price change is effective immediately.

Also, it’s important to note that there is a difference between what we’re calling “open software” and open source software. While we’re huge proponents of open source software and will never migrate our infrastructure to Windows Server, Mac OS X Server, or the like, they are not one and the same.

Open software, simply and crudely put, gives some of the benefits of open source software (maximized customizability, possibilities for third party extensions where it makes sense, etc.), not all of the code is open. We certainly see ourselves opening useful portions of our code as time goes on, it’s currently not a feasible business model to open source all of our code while still trying to make a profit.

Perhaps some of our future web services will be under the AGPL (Affero General Public License — basically the GPL modified for web apps and services) or similar copyleft licenses; it’s definitely something we’re considering.

Similarly, the pricing for temporary hosting and backup hosting isn’t anywhere near finalized; those were rough estimates — to prevent future confusion, we’ve taken them off of our site.

We’re always looking for additional feedback– please feel free to contact us at any time either through that contact form, through comments, by sending us an email (firstname at squishsoftware dot com — ben at squishsoftware dot com, etc.), or however else you think is appropriate.

Hello, world!

In Announcements, ServeBlast on June 26th, 2008, by Ben. 2 comments.

For programmers, the first thing you do when you begin learning a new programming language is spit out the text “Hello world” in some way. So, the same should apply with the launch of a new software company.

I’d like to welcome Squish Software to the world. Over the coming hours, we’re launching two web services announcing two other web services which will be available for pre-order. I encourage you to read the big press release in the next post. We think we’re doing some pretty exciting stuff, and of course, we hope you feel the same.

But it’s important that a software company do more than just develop software and services. It’s important that the company be founded on principles that benefit everyone — developers, designers, businesses, and of course, consumers.

Our commitment to open software does just that. We’re taking an approach that provides the essential “best of both worlds” from the open source community and the closed source community. We’re fervent believers in open, standardized formats like ODF and PDF. We also strive to make our applications as customizable as possible, and are always taking suggestions on how to make them more customizable. But at the same time, you’ve got a physical company behind the products (which isn’t always true with open source packages) that offers full and constant support (which, again, isn’t always true with open source packages).

Let me introduce you to the Squish Software staff:

* Ben (me), 14: Linux, open source, Google, and Linux fanatic
* Ari, 13 (14 on July 1): Mac, and iPhone/iPod touch fanatic
* Jesse, 14: Online games fanatic

We’ll be updating this blog with product announcements, new features, bug fixes, and some insight into our morals concerning things like DRM.

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