December 3 2007
Hosting software rocks
Somebody asked 37signals why they don’t sell installable versions of their web apps for companies to host themselves. A wonderful response:
Here’s why: We would have to be a fundamentally different company to develop, sell, and distribute installable software. We probably couldn’t be as small, we certainly wouldn’t be as agile, and we definitely wouldn’t be as happy.
They realize there’s a bunch of money to be made there, but they don’t want it. To an MBA or an economist this might sound idiotic, but to me it sounds brilliant.
December 3, 2007
1:06 pm
They’re onto something there too. Web app development cuts out many of the most painful aspects of building products. You get to work in more flexible languages, surrounded by a whack of reasonable text standards, using a large set of really nice tools. You write and test far less code … not to mention that by default you can connect your users to each other.
The whole web thing does add the running-a-service tax (hosting, uptime, etc.), but it’s really less of an issue than most people make of it.
December 4, 2007
8:23 am
I blogged about the same thing here: http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/12/to-host-or-not-to-host.html
I wonder how you could host apps that are traditionally not hosted. I suppose if your market is large enough, you will find enough people who are interested in your product…
December 4, 2007
2:42 pm
Hosting things yourself is definitely the way to go. You can control the environment down to the letter, eliminating a whole class of obscure hardware and software bugs. You can abuse the GPL and charge monies for open-sourced software.
Of course, as a punishment, you have to deal with bandwidth, browser incompatibilities and a big reduction in the amount of power you’re able to dedicate to individual users. I think it’ll still be a long while before we see a pro video-editing studio appear on the web.
Once you’ve chosen ‘hosted’, though, you’ve tied yourself to a platform and a business model and even (in 37signals case) a brand. Changing it around is a risky, difficult and expensive move for the meager couple of bucks that you’d be extracting. I think even an MBA could understand that.
December 4, 2007
3:14 pm
Bandwidth used to be a big cost, but nowadays I’m not sure if even that is, unless you’re doing video.