When the Cloud Precipitates...Potential Problems with Online Services (and Stikipad)
By Tom Foremski - October 8, 2008
I'm perceiving a bit of push back in the enterprise world towards cloud computing and software as a service (SAAS). This is a good sign because it shows that both have reached a certain level of maturity. Enthusiasm for, and pushback against the adoption of new technologies is a natural part of the progression for new ideas.
However, if we start to see bad behavior by some companies it might be a more serious setback to the future of online business services. And it could make it difficult for small companies to win users compared with larger competitors that offer a measure of stability.
For example, Debbie Rich, a friend of mine, is having a problem retrieving her company's data from Stikipad.
Here is Debbie in her own words from her Ferocious Pixie blog:
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ferocious pixie: Stikipad and Jonathan George are still lame assesOn a tear to hunt down my data again for my software company. The quote/unquote company Stikipad.com that was hosting my company's historical and lead data is still AWOL and the 'president' of the company continues to duck calls, posts and emails regarding giving me access to that data. I don't even care about getting back our payment -- the hosting cost was minimal -- but i have a TON of info that i really need and will take weeks to reproduce, if that is even possible.
Amazingly, surprisingly, startlingly, all of the projects listed on his blog are down. The website links churn and think and then give a 'server is temporarily down' response. Gee, what does that remind me of... let me think... it's coming... Oh, the lameass Stikipad site that stopped working months ago.
Jonathan George, jonathan@jdg.net, www.jdg.net, be a normal person and contact me with information about what you are going to do, or at least give me an apology. Now I'm off to start using Google Docs like everyone else. Just shows that you can't always support the small companies, which is really a shame.
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Comments (2)
Great topic, Tom.
Cloud Computing brings many benefits, but there will be additional risks as well. As more companies build their businesses in the cloud and utilize services (such as storage) from the likes of Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, an outage with any one company could bring down several hundred others. We should pushback and consider these risks.
As you mentioned, this pushback is healthy. We are moving forward with the technical details, but we also need to focus on the business aspects as well. What are our contingency plans? Who is responsible for data recovery? What are the procedures in a worst-case scenario? These are the things that IT departments have managed internally for years. We need to demand the same level of service from our vendors before signing any contracts.
Posted: October 8, 2008 3:38 PM
Debbie here. Just to clarify, the software company that I help manage, Digital Anarchy, is the entity that lost all of its historical data. Over 1.5 years of press tracking, product revision info, vendor relationships. I brought this situation to Tom's attention because it is larger than just my company's issues. Former Stikipad customers (and folks who are confused if they ARE still customers) have found my complaints about Stikipad on my completely unadvertised personal blog and commented about their similar woes.
What astounds me is that Stikipad *was* a small company whose negligence has affected many other small businesses and individual proprietors, all of whom have limited resources and reach. It's irresponsible. Jonathan George and Stikipad could easily have sent an email to their subscribers, all of whom were paying a whopping $5-10/month, and told us of the impending breakdown. It would have taken a simple though lengthy series of HTML exports to back up Digital Anarchy's data. Instead, the company continues to lie on their home page at stickipad.com by not taking down the 'servers being switched' message. Since April.
Anyway, Google docs... pretty cool stuff, and they're not going away.
Posted: October 9, 2008 3:01 AM