XenServer Backup
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@olivier said:
@anonymous That's something we discussed a lot here. Limiting to a number of host or VM or whatever will need to spend some times to develop this feature. And because our working bandwidth is not infinite, we prefer to focus on XO features first.
Check the number of contributors on GitHub: we are a VERY small team ^^
From my perspective, I think just making the "Build from Source" option is visible and clearly states that it is inclusive. We are so used to products where all the functionality is in non-open source add-ons that we just assume that building from source would have the same limitations as the appliance. I know way too many people that looked at XO and immediately looked elsewhere because of the assumption that even for testing that there was no free option.
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@Dashrender said:
Weren't you the one who said that SMBs don't buy support, they buy software. If the vendor is lucky, the buyer will continue to buy support year after year. If not, the vendor got at least one purchase.
Yes, that was me. And in doing so was trying to point out that this is one of the misconceptions and failings of the SMB - not understanding that the two are different things. That's why they keep overspending on Windows and VMware, because they are confused about what they are paying for.
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XOA Free is a quick way to test the product (and we even have users totally happy about it, and using it everyday for basic tasks).
We got a trial, which is relatively easy to access (about 100 new trial users per month), so it serves the purpose to make people discover without having to pay anything.
Sincerely, if a company can't afford a "Starter" plan for using a basic backup solution (without limitations!), they won't be become a paid customer anytime.
The only way to please (almost) everyone, is to have something which seems totally free, like Facebook or Google, even if it's not in reality. But this strategy can only work on huge volumes and not in our niche market.
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@Dashrender said:
I disagree with the above, I don't think you should include backups in the XOA, you should get rid of the free XOA completely. Reduce the offerings down to install from source and the paid version.
From a business point of view this isn't a good idea at all. I bet many, many company's start with the free version (because why not, it's free) and end up upgrading for features and support. By removing it completely, many company's will never consider/try it.
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This thread is more a business thread than a technical one now ^^ But yeah, this is the point: having people liking your product but test it first. That's also the goal of the trial version. It helped us a lot to convert people from Free to paid plans.
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@anonymous said:
@Dashrender said:
I disagree with the above, I don't think you should include backups in the XOA, you should get rid of the free XOA completely. Reduce the offerings down to install from source and the paid version.
From a business point of view this isn't a good idea at all. I bet many, many company's start with the free version (because why not, it's free) and end up upgrading for features and support. By removing it completely, many company's will never consider/try it.
So you'd rather pay for features, then for support? That seems insane. I always want better functionality and features, support I can deal with if something isn't working as expected when it comes to it.
Learn to lift the fork.....
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@olivier said:
Sincerely, if a company can't afford a "Starter" plan for using a basic backup solution (without limitations!), they won't be become a paid customer anytime.
Not sure if I agree there. Well, with the "afford" bit, yes. But one of the things that I know affects my decision making is the availability of a fully free version. I've been places paying for RHEL, but the staff would not have stood for it if CentOS wasn't free for them to use at home. I know lots of places that will pay for XenServer, but need their engineers to have free access to Xen at home.
Remember that engineers drive business buying decisions in good shops. Shops need to know that their staff has access to learn, has been learning, has been testing. And often we test years before deploying. XO as a product to buy and pay for support is something I never even thought of recommending to shops before - because lacking a totally free version to install myself I wasn't going to invest a lot of money in a supported version or use a very limited free version at home or in the lab to learn how it might work or not work for them.
I think the fully free options matter more than people often realize for enabling the purchase of bigger support contracts.
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@scottalanmiller So you need "assurances" (locks/verifications) somehow to avoid people abusing of your Free product. So you need time to develop them...
Can you develop how you imagine the ideal process?
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@anonymous said:
@Dashrender said:
I disagree with the above, I don't think you should include backups in the XOA, you should get rid of the free XOA completely. Reduce the offerings down to install from source and the paid version.
From a business point of view this isn't a good idea at all. I bet many, many company's start with the free version (because why not, it's free) and end up upgrading for features and support. By removing it completely, many company's will never consider/try it.
I can see where and why that would be true, but I do wonder how often it is actually true. Companies choosing based on free rarely make a transition, in my experience. And those that do often do a "leap" where they evaluate things again and often go to sales people and ask what to buy instead of upgrading what they have. Then the sales people sell them whatever they sell without considering what they currently have.
Companies will to use free, limited products I think rarely turn into good customers. Just look at SW. Getting customers from there is really, really tough for vendors because the common factor is... they were all willing to use something based solely on the fact that it was free (and closed source.)
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@olivier you know your business better then anyone here, but I am wondering if you ever considered something like the XenServer model? Everything is free, support cost money?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Weren't you the one who said that SMBs don't buy support, they buy software. If the vendor is lucky, the buyer will continue to buy support year after year. If not, the vendor got at least one purchase.
Yes, that was me. And in doing so was trying to point out that this is one of the misconceptions and failings of the SMB - not understanding that the two are different things. That's why they keep overspending on Windows and VMware, because they are confused about what they are paying for.
I understand that - but since you know that, wouldn't it make sense to play to the way they do things?
Sure we'd love to change them to view it the other way, but do you think that's practical?
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@anonymous said:
@olivier you know your business better then anyone here, but I am wondering if you ever considered something like the XenServer model? Everything is free, support cost money?
They are basically doing this now, or am I missing something? You can deploy the entirety of XO without paying a single penny. It is the pre-built appliance and support that will cost anything.
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@olivier said:
@scottalanmiller So you need "assurances" (locks/verifications) somehow to avoid people abusing of your Free product. So you need time to develop them...
Can you develop how you imagine the ideal process?
I don't know that there is an ideal process. If you want free and open source, there is always the risk that tons and tons of people will use it for free. But then again, is that bad? As long as you are not supporting them (causing additional cost) this is only bad if it costs you sales. And I think that big vendors (Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle, IBM, etc.) would tell you that their experience is that open source drives support sales rather than hindering it. Think of the free, open source usage as your best sales person, and your cheapest. What better way to get your product known!
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@anonymous Nobody will pay just for support. Except huge companies, but our prices are flat. So not scalable at ALL. You need to put value in your product. Remember: a software itself is NOT a product.
XO : a software
XOA : a product (appliance + updater + support)The only solution is to scale prices. And even with that, we need to be bigger than we are currently.
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@coliver said:
They are basically doing this now, or am I missing something? You can deploy the entirety of XO without paying a single penny. It is the pre-built appliance and support that will cost anything.
I am staying appliance (at every level) free, and just change for support. Just like XenServer.
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@scottalanmiller We are not in US here. Investors don't believe in this. And a very few succeeded by doing that.
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@coliver said:
@anonymous said:
@olivier you know your business better then anyone here, but I am wondering if you ever considered something like the XenServer model? Everything is free, support cost money?
They are basically doing this now, or am I missing something? You can deploy the entirety of XO without paying a single penny. It is the pre-built appliance and support that will cost anything.
It's just the confusion around the free XOA vs the other free option getting people confused that I think that he wants to eliminate.
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@anonymous said:
@olivier you know your business better then anyone here, but I am wondering if you ever considered something like the XenServer model? Everything is free, support cost money?
Everything is free....
There are even VM's you can download from people in this community for a fully working solution...
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@olivier said:
@anonymous Nobody will pay just for support.
Good ones sure do. It's the little failing ones that don't. They aren't a good market to target because... failing and small
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@olivier said:
@scottalanmiller We are not in US here. Investors don't believe in this. And a very few succeeded by doing that.
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