4 ms·

2 months is not enough time for people to find alternative solutions.

gk1 9y ago
I was doing marketing/growth consulting for FoundationDB when they were acquired by Apple. The product was shut down overnight. Compared to that, a two-month notice seems generous.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  Wow, from these 2 examples, Apple looks like an awful acquirer :o
  - scarface74 9y ago
    You have three types of mega corps. 1. Vertically integrated 2. Horizontally integrated 3. Conglomeration (not integrated) And there is a "strategy tax" in whatever method you choose. Except for FileMaker and Beats, Apple is mostly a vertically integrated company. They have no real desire to be everything to everyone like Google. If they didn't play to their strengths and tried to service Android users, it still wouldn't be a great experience.
    - on_and_off 9y ago
      That's really not the point. I have no problem with Apple deciding to abandon BB on Android. It would indeed make very little sense for them to continue to support this platform. What I am complaining about is the shut off date, it is very close.
- Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
  It's another reason to not do business with smaller companies. Especially if their idea is good, you can only wonder, when will they be bought out and my workflow will be (temporarily) disrupted? I think Buddybuild was the only service with a free tier. For folks that aggressive bootstrappers (like myself), it's just another nuisance. And even for people who were paying -- they are still as equally as disrupted.
  - alashow 9y ago
    Bitrise.io also have free 200 builds/month.
    - Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
      Thank you for calling out a potential replacement service. Building iOS apps is certainly tricky (can't get Mac OS into the cloud easily), so these free-tier CICD services really are great for those creating new, smaller apps and are getting on their feet.
- wwilson 9y ago
  (Former FoundationDB employee). Where did this dumb meme come from? First of all, FoundationDB was not a service, so there was nothing to "shut down". It's true we stopped selling the product to new customers, and we no longer offered free downloads under the community license. However those with existing licenses were able to continue running the product (and in fact some of them do to this very day). What's more, the Community License was explicitly written to be valid in perpetuity, precisely to protect customers in this sort of instance. Many people were disappointed by the way Apple handled the acquisition, including me incidentally, but your comment is mostly FUD. If you really were doing consulting for us, then I'd expect slightly better treatment of a former customer.
  - gk1 9y ago
    > I'd expect slightly better treatment of a former customer. 1) Apple--who I assume made the decision to end the service abruptly--was not my client. 2) I'm making objective statements. I'm not making a judgement of whether it was smart, foolish, fair, unfair, etc. Actually I was very happy for the FDB team and stay in touch with some of them.
nsarafa 9y ago
I think its better to rip off the bandaid. I lived through the Facebook Parse shutdown with a production app where the drama was strung out over a year, resulting in service outages, poor messaging from parse/facebook, and a lot of general anxiety about migrating etc.

gk1 9y ago

I was doing marketing/growth consulting for FoundationDB when they were acquired by Apple. The product was shut down overnight. Compared to that, a two-month notice seems generous.

on_and_off 9y ago
Wow, from these 2 examples, Apple looks like an awful acquirer :o
- scarface74 9y ago
  You have three types of mega corps. 1. Vertically integrated 2. Horizontally integrated 3. Conglomeration (not integrated) And there is a "strategy tax" in whatever method you choose. Except for FileMaker and Beats, Apple is mostly a vertically integrated company. They have no real desire to be everything to everyone like Google. If they didn't play to their strengths and tried to service Android users, it still wouldn't be a great experience.
  - on_and_off 9y ago
    That's really not the point. I have no problem with Apple deciding to abandon BB on Android. It would indeed make very little sense for them to continue to support this platform. What I am complaining about is the shut off date, it is very close.
Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
It's another reason to not do business with smaller companies. Especially if their idea is good, you can only wonder, when will they be bought out and my workflow will be (temporarily) disrupted? I think Buddybuild was the only service with a free tier. For folks that aggressive bootstrappers (like myself), it's just another nuisance. And even for people who were paying -- they are still as equally as disrupted.
- alashow 9y ago
  Bitrise.io also have free 200 builds/month.
  - Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
    Thank you for calling out a potential replacement service. Building iOS apps is certainly tricky (can't get Mac OS into the cloud easily), so these free-tier CICD services really are great for those creating new, smaller apps and are getting on their feet.
wwilson 9y ago
(Former FoundationDB employee). Where did this dumb meme come from? First of all, FoundationDB was not a service, so there was nothing to "shut down". It's true we stopped selling the product to new customers, and we no longer offered free downloads under the community license. However those with existing licenses were able to continue running the product (and in fact some of them do to this very day). What's more, the Community License was explicitly written to be valid in perpetuity, precisely to protect customers in this sort of instance. Many people were disappointed by the way Apple handled the acquisition, including me incidentally, but your comment is mostly FUD. If you really were doing consulting for us, then I'd expect slightly better treatment of a former customer.
- gk1 9y ago
  > I'd expect slightly better treatment of a former customer. 1) Apple--who I assume made the decision to end the service abruptly--was not my client. 2) I'm making objective statements. I'm not making a judgement of whether it was smart, foolish, fair, unfair, etc. Actually I was very happy for the FDB team and stay in touch with some of them.

nsarafa 9y ago

I think its better to rip off the bandaid. I lived through the Facebook Parse shutdown with a production app where the drama was strung out over a year, resulting in service outages, poor messaging from parse/facebook, and a lot of general anxiety about migrating etc.