Disappointment
I read the headline too quickly and thought it said that someone was going to smother Zwinky. Now THAT would make for a happy Christmas...
Zimki, the floundering pay-as-you-use online application platform, is to be killed off by London-based developer Fotango on Christmas Eve, it was revealed today. A service announcement tells users that on 24 December their data will be deleted and the Zimki servers decommissioned. Fotango states: "We hope that Zimki has …
With names like Fotango and Zimki being bandied around, they deserve to tank. With no prior knowledge of what the company and product do (I've been outraged this much purely from the title of the article), here's what the names mean to me:
Fotango = photo sharing + dance routine mash-up
Zimki = phone-based door unlocking for Russians
For me, bollocks company/product names + improbably high-valued startups = bubble about to burst again (or at least a "market correction").
Zimki who? Fotango who? (Maybe they were thinking of Zimki-Korsakov, famed composer of the Flight of the BumblePig?)
However, this comment:
"We hope that Zimki has helped to increase your knowledge and understanding of the possibilities that utility computing and an online application framework can bring."
is ironically apposite. Yep, it has indeed "increased my knowledge and understanding of the possibilities" that "an online application framework can bring":
- the possibility that a company which enticed you to use their product in the expectation of being able to access the source will change their mind on a whim
- the possibility that a vital service around which you have built your business will be pulled without warning
- the possibility that you will be cut off from or otherwise lose control over your proprietary/confidential business data
- the possibility of being stranded up shit creek without a paddle
- the possibility that anyone who would trust and critically rely on an uncontrollable outside agency needs their head examined
- the possibility that the only sane business model is to have software you control running on servers you control and/or workstations you own
- the possibility that SAS is nothing more than another bunch of post-badger-dotcom-bubble-v2.0 bunch of hype and mirrors.
Thanks, Zimki-Korsakov!