Didn’t I just talk about life-time hosting plans last week, and used TextDrive/Joyent as a pioneer example? They have just released the new VC200 — Life-time Accelerator Plans! For only $799 out-right, you can buy a small Solaris container with 256MB RAM, 5GB NAS storage on the Thumper and 15GB/month data transfer. You’ll be in front within 18 months!
Even better — if you are an existing life-time plan holder, you get to pay only half the price ($399 for a small life-time Solaris container) AND keep your existing shared hosting with TextDrive as well! However, there will only be 200 slots available. My Solaris skill is pretty rusty (last used one — 2000), otherwise I will be very tempted.
Now, the mic is over to you, Mr. SliceMatt. What do you think? :)
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Lifetime plans feel gimmicky to me. They seemingly pit a company against their customers in a game of “who will lose on this deal”. If there are other motives, ala financing, such a plan may be worth it to the company. This certainly is a great deal if you were already a lifetime customer though. My guess is that they’re shooting to generate a bit of buzz for the new service and some cash.
I think you are exactly right. I am pretty sure Joyent is not taking selling those life-time plans as a long term business model, but a way to create buzz and get more funding.
However it seems to work for them, and many who paid for the life time plans 3 year ago still enjoy them today.
Joyent and Sun obviously have a tight relationship. I wonder if Sun sends some free hardware their way for cross promotions? Man wish someone would do that for us :)
Just listened through ps pipe grep episode 16, and the way they talked about JavaFX. The relationship is surely obvious :)
The Solaris tech really looks amazing. In fact, TextDrive/Joyent have been at the forefront of web hosting tech since they launched 3 years ago. The whole VC pyramid is a little disconcerting, but realistically it shouldn’t be a problem since it’s backed up by a much larger number of regular subscribers.
The price you pay with TextDrive is in support. I’m a VC3 member from two years ago, and though the shared hosting has been much improved since then (I am on what used to be a problematic server stability-wise), when I do put in a support ticket (usually for email issues), they usually don’t respond for days or weeks if ever. I’m sure if you host a huge app like Twitter they care a lot more about you than if you are a lifetime VC member paying nothing though.
I’m really looking forward to a company with a real dedication to quality and customer service getting ahold of some of this Solaris tech.
PS. Great blog. Hosting information is one of the hardest things to get on the web, being that it’s dominated by link farms, affiliate schemes, anecdotal evidence, and ignorance. It makes it really hard for an top-notch host to really shine.
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