4 ms·

Definitely a misleading title and kind of unfair to Rackspace. I founded Slicehost (with Matt Tanase) and I absolutely think this is the right thing to do and d

by seats 15y ago

Definitely a misleading title and kind of unfair to Rackspace. I founded Slicehost (with Matt Tanase) and I absolutely think this is the right thing to do and definitely is the best thing for existing Slicehost customers. Given that this is a public plan now I feel like I can share that during the acquisition process of Slicehost we debated heavily what the right thing was to do with the brand. It was honestly a very very tough call and at the time the thing we all (Matt, me and Rackspace) were most sensitive to was to not disrupt the Slicehost community. We succeeded in that goal but the net effect (unintentionally so) was to disconnect Slicehost from Rackspace's cloud roadmap and effectively strand the product. Unfortunately I think in hindsight I can say that our decision was probably the wrong call. I honestly think everyone would have been better off if we just ripped the band-aid early and tried to figure out how to make the core Cloud Server community out of the incoming Slicehost customers. Control panels, features, pricing, etc all change and in the long run are only ephemerally important. What matters is having your interests be in the direct path for the company that is serving you and as a Rackspace Cloud customer you'll have that, while as a Slicehost customer you did not (post acquisition). I definitely can see this from all sides and for Slicehost customers, all I can say is that at no point along the way did anyone (at Slicehost or Rackspace) ever have less than the best intentions for the brand and the community. There are some serious champions of Slicehost at Rackspace both in the form of former Slicehost employees still there (Paul Tomes, article site creator) and long time Rackers. Trust me that these guys are really working for the best for you all.

thesethings 15y ago
Thank you for making an awesome product in Slicehost. You mention that "...control panels...are only ephemerally important..." Many in this thread disagree. You can see it getting brought up over and over as a reason we loved Slicehost, and a reason we don't like other alternatives as much. I won't get too deep into UX theory here, so I'll just say this: people who make apps: if you hear the same comments over and over from your customers, they might be on to something interesting. I truly believe in the expression "listen to what your users do, not what they say." So i'm not gonna pretend every lil gripe we have about this is right. But there is definitely a pattern in this thread that Rackspace can learn from. [update: so far i've counted 18 mentions of the phrase "control panel" in this thread. it, and all user experience, matters a lot.]
- seats 15y ago
  I don't disagree with you. It's just that even if the Rackspace control panel was perfect today that wouldn't fix the core issue. The core issue is that you're going to have your needs met if you are on the critical path, especially for a company growing at such a fast pace that has to deal with the reality of making choices on where to spend scarce resources. By your own logic, having more people be squeaky wheels for the Rackspace control panel should be a good thing. It will be even more pressure for that to be addressed.
  - noodle 15y ago
    > By your own logic, having more people be squeaky wheels for the Rackspace control panel should be a good thing. It will be even more pressure for that to be addressed. or, people will just leave because they don't want to deal with having to downgrade to a smaller featureset and worse CP at a higher cost, and then have to wait around for it to perhaps get better. i'm already preparing my slices for migration to linode. sorry. been with slicehost for years and was perfectly happy up until this.
    - seats 15y ago
      Make sure you do the math on the options, last time I checked Cloud Servers will be cheaper for the vast majority of use cases, by a fairly real margin. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone at Rackspace who will tell you their existing CP is great. Definitely not a matter of if, but when on the improvement there.
      - noodle 15y ago
        a bit cheaper on average when converting slicehost to rackspace, but not universally so. $20/mo slice, for example, converts to somewhere between $0 ($11 if you estimate 100% uptime) and $38 on the rackspace plan. its kind of dependent upon what you're doing and still a roll of the dice. not cheaper at all when converting slicehost to linode or some of the other competitors.
  - 15y ago
howradical 15y ago
I'm the other Slicehost founder (Matt). Jason's comments are right on, but I wanted to thank all of our customers for the support over the years. We built an amazing community and I'm sad to see it go. If I can ever be of assistance to any of you please let me know - matt@devstructure.com. I owe all of you a ton, thank you.
blhack 15y ago
Jason, Tell me why I should stay on slicehost instead of moving to linode or somewhere else. How does this move benefit me? In what ways does this move make your product better than linode's? >disconnect Slicehost from Rackspace's cloud roadmap What is Rackspace's cloud roadmap? To be direct: I don't care, at all, about rackspace's "cloud roadmap" and it sounds like we're all going to be eating the cost of either a poor engineering decision decision on slicehost's part, or a poor business decision on rackspace's part. As somebody that's been a loyal customer of yours for about a year and a half, and has recommended your service to countless people, that kindof hurts, man. Maybe it's just the phrasing, but what it sounds like you're effectively saying is "We're shuting slicehost down. Please please please pretty please sign up for rackspace instead because that would be good for us." (I'm sorry, this comment comes across as a bit rude. I think I might just be a little unclear how this will affect me.)
- seats 15y ago
  First I want to be clear that I'm no longer a Rackspace employee and while I can certainly comment on things I know of first hand in the past (i.e. the acquisition), I do not have direct knowledge of Rackspace's roadmap or plans. Consider me a very knowledgeable outsider that used to be an insider. I wouldn't want conduct a point for point comparison of the cloud server offering to Linode. I also don't want to discourage you from trying out Linode. It's clear those guys have a solid product and a great following and if you think you fit better over there, give it a try. Rackspace wants to have the most engaged and happy customer base it possibly can, it is totally counter productive to try and 'convince' you to stay if you really are better off elsewhere. There are a handful of providers I truly would trust to use myself, and I would absolutely put Linode on that list. Having said that, here are some things I think Rackspace can offer that Linode currently does not. I could very well be wrong about any of these, I'm not intimate with Linode's current service. In addition you may not be interested in any of these features. - Cloud Files - Cloud LB - Hosted mail options - Hosted calendar - CDN - Windows Cloud Server instances - Backup/image integration with Cloud Files (vps backups go into your cloud files account and can be downloaded as well as persisted when an instance is deleted) - Managed Services - Desktop backup and virtual drives to the cloud (jungle disk) - Platform/application hosting - All of the above on a single bill from a single provider and with private networking in between for free (for colocated services in the same DC) As a slicehost customer you couldn't use any of those products, as a cloud customer you can. In addition you will have access to all of the new cloud products in development at Rackspace (whatever those may be, but use your imagination and I'm sure you can guess on likely candidates) as well as all the datacenter locations where Rackspace has active and growing footprints. To put it simply, you'll be switching into an active and growing product suite and I do believe that benefits you. I personally would not consider it 'shutting down' Slicehost, but instead a merging of Slicehost into Cloud. It is true that the backend mechanics of the two products are essentially the same, and that's why you should not overly fear losing core functionality. I don't think your comment comes across as rude at all and I completely understand your sentiment. All I can say (I and I think I'm repetitive to do so here again), is that I think Rackspace is doing the right thing here. From my perspective I'm breathing a sigh of relief because at least I know that all the still existing customers will finally start getting some TLC (via being on the actively developed product again). I'm certain Rackspace wants the transition to be as painless as it can be and I'd expect quite a bit more detail to come out over the course of the year as this unfolds.
nocman 15y ago
I'm not sure what part of the title you think is misleading, and I definitely don't think anyone is being particularly unfair to Rackspace. On the plus side, I think it was a good idea to bring this change out in the open early, and for that I will give Rackspace credit. The problem is, they muffed the announcement so badly, I don't know how well they can recover from it. They seem to be so completely clueless of the type of customers that use Slicehost, it's no wonder they thought this kind of announcment was OK. I have never even heard the name Slicehost except from technical people who know exactly what they are doing. They want nothing more than a simple VPS (sometimes more than one VPS) they can bring up quickly, install exactly the way they want, and for the most part never have to deal with a tech support person unless there is a problem on the provider's side (and obviously, they'd prefer that to be almost never also). They don't want to be instructed on "two tectonic shifts happening in IT at the moment" -- these people are IT, and they know exactly what is going on. They don't want to listen to the sales pitch about a "massively scalable cloud operating system", and then be told how the service as they know it now is going to cease to exist. Before you say that for most people things will stay close to the same, let me say this. Rackspace -- listen to your customers. Rackspace has an awful control panel. Current Slicehost customers love its control panel. If the Slicehost control panel goes away, the service is not close to the same. It is a big deal, and I think the number of people besides me saying the same thing speaks for itself. Promising "Oh, it's really important" and "We're working on it -- it's a high priority" isn't enough. People will switch over to another provider that already has a nice control panel. If you want to keep these customers, you'd better get that fixed way before any migrations have to happen. And to be quite honest, I wonder how much time you really have to fix this before losing most of those who care about it. Now, I freely admit that Rackspace may just not be terribly worried about small-time single VPS accounts (like mine). I don't have access to their customer list, and perhaps the number of customers in situations similar to mine is a much smaller percentage than I think it is (so perhaps I am the one who is clueless about Slicehost's customers). Maybe those of us in that category simply make the most amount of noise about this, and at the same time mean the least to Rackspace's bottom line. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just saying that I don't know, but it could be a possibility. Mark's email certainly seemed to be targeted at corporate business types, who make decisions on where to spend technical money, but actually know very little about how technology works. That email contained the exact kind of jargon-filled spin that rubs Slicehost customers like me the wrong way. It certainly leads me to question whether Rackspace has just outgrown customers like me and is not particularly concerned if many of us switch providers. You said "Unfortunately I think in hindsight I can say that our decision was probably the wrong call.". Well, know this -- I was a fairly new customer to Slicehost when the news came that Rackspace had bought Slicehost out. I was pretty disappointed, because I specifically did not want to use Rackspace based on the experience of others I knew who had used them. If Slicehost had not led me to believe that it was going to continue to exist as it was after the acquisition, I would not have remained a customer. Like many others, I was a bit skeptical, but was impressed enough by Slicehost that I wanted to stick around. And I've been 100% satisfied from then till now with Slicehost's service. Judging from the response I've seen here and elsewhere, I think a lot of other people would have switched away from Slicehost right after the acquisition, had you not made the call you did make then. So maybe you are too quick to question the decision. It could have meant a lot less revenue for the company since the acquisition. I know that the Slicehost folks made a really big deal about how great they thought Rackspace was, and how the deal was really good for both companies, and that Rackspace was an equally great company. When you say "Trust me that these guys are really working for the best for you all.", I have to say that I'm at best much more skeptical than I was immediately after the acquisition. I'm definitely going to be shopping around.
norackspace4me 15y ago
Thanks to the Slicehost crew for offering great service over the past few years... but I will not become a rackhost customer as a result of a forced migration. Sorry.

by seats 15y ago

thesethings 15y ago

Thank you for making an awesome product in Slicehost. You mention that "...control panels...are only ephemerally important..." Many in this thread disagree. You can see it getting brought up over and over as a reason we loved Slicehost, and a reason we don't like other alternatives as much. I won't get too deep into UX theory here, so I'll just say this: people who make apps: if you hear the same comments over and over from your customers, they might be on to something interesting. I truly believe in the expression "listen to what your users do, not what they say." So i'm not gonna pretend every lil gripe we have about this is right. But there is definitely a pattern in this thread that Rackspace can learn from. [update: so far i've counted 18 mentions of the phrase "control panel" in this thread. it, and all user experience, matters a lot.]

seats 15y ago
I don't disagree with you. It's just that even if the Rackspace control panel was perfect today that wouldn't fix the core issue. The core issue is that you're going to have your needs met if you are on the critical path, especially for a company growing at such a fast pace that has to deal with the reality of making choices on where to spend scarce resources. By your own logic, having more people be squeaky wheels for the Rackspace control panel should be a good thing. It will be even more pressure for that to be addressed.
- noodle 15y ago
  > By your own logic, having more people be squeaky wheels for the Rackspace control panel should be a good thing. It will be even more pressure for that to be addressed. or, people will just leave because they don't want to deal with having to downgrade to a smaller featureset and worse CP at a higher cost, and then have to wait around for it to perhaps get better. i'm already preparing my slices for migration to linode. sorry. been with slicehost for years and was perfectly happy up until this.
  - seats 15y ago
    Make sure you do the math on the options, last time I checked Cloud Servers will be cheaper for the vast majority of use cases, by a fairly real margin. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone at Rackspace who will tell you their existing CP is great. Definitely not a matter of if, but when on the improvement there.
    - noodle 15y ago
      a bit cheaper on average when converting slicehost to rackspace, but not universally so. $20/mo slice, for example, converts to somewhere between $0 ($11 if you estimate 100% uptime) and $38 on the rackspace plan. its kind of dependent upon what you're doing and still a roll of the dice. not cheaper at all when converting slicehost to linode or some of the other competitors.
- 15y ago

howradical 15y ago

I'm the other Slicehost founder (Matt). Jason's comments are right on, but I wanted to thank all of our customers for the support over the years. We built an amazing community and I'm sad to see it go. If I can ever be of assistance to any of you please let me know - matt@devstructure.com. I owe all of you a ton, thank you.

blhack 15y ago

Jason, Tell me why I should stay on slicehost instead of moving to linode or somewhere else. How does this move benefit me? In what ways does this move make your product better than linode's? >disconnect Slicehost from Rackspace's cloud roadmap What is Rackspace's cloud roadmap? To be direct: I don't care, at all, about rackspace's "cloud roadmap" and it sounds like we're all going to be eating the cost of either a poor engineering decision decision on slicehost's part, or a poor business decision on rackspace's part. As somebody that's been a loyal customer of yours for about a year and a half, and has recommended your service to countless people, that kindof hurts, man. Maybe it's just the phrasing, but what it sounds like you're effectively saying is "We're shuting slicehost down. Please please please pretty please sign up for rackspace instead because that would be good for us." (I'm sorry, this comment comes across as a bit rude. I think I might just be a little unclear how this will affect me.)

seats 15y ago
First I want to be clear that I'm no longer a Rackspace employee and while I can certainly comment on things I know of first hand in the past (i.e. the acquisition), I do not have direct knowledge of Rackspace's roadmap or plans. Consider me a very knowledgeable outsider that used to be an insider. I wouldn't want conduct a point for point comparison of the cloud server offering to Linode. I also don't want to discourage you from trying out Linode. It's clear those guys have a solid product and a great following and if you think you fit better over there, give it a try. Rackspace wants to have the most engaged and happy customer base it possibly can, it is totally counter productive to try and 'convince' you to stay if you really are better off elsewhere. There are a handful of providers I truly would trust to use myself, and I would absolutely put Linode on that list. Having said that, here are some things I think Rackspace can offer that Linode currently does not. I could very well be wrong about any of these, I'm not intimate with Linode's current service. In addition you may not be interested in any of these features. - Cloud Files - Cloud LB - Hosted mail options - Hosted calendar - CDN - Windows Cloud Server instances - Backup/image integration with Cloud Files (vps backups go into your cloud files account and can be downloaded as well as persisted when an instance is deleted) - Managed Services - Desktop backup and virtual drives to the cloud (jungle disk) - Platform/application hosting - All of the above on a single bill from a single provider and with private networking in between for free (for colocated services in the same DC) As a slicehost customer you couldn't use any of those products, as a cloud customer you can. In addition you will have access to all of the new cloud products in development at Rackspace (whatever those may be, but use your imagination and I'm sure you can guess on likely candidates) as well as all the datacenter locations where Rackspace has active and growing footprints. To put it simply, you'll be switching into an active and growing product suite and I do believe that benefits you. I personally would not consider it 'shutting down' Slicehost, but instead a merging of Slicehost into Cloud. It is true that the backend mechanics of the two products are essentially the same, and that's why you should not overly fear losing core functionality. I don't think your comment comes across as rude at all and I completely understand your sentiment. All I can say (I and I think I'm repetitive to do so here again), is that I think Rackspace is doing the right thing here. From my perspective I'm breathing a sigh of relief because at least I know that all the still existing customers will finally start getting some TLC (via being on the actively developed product again). I'm certain Rackspace wants the transition to be as painless as it can be and I'd expect quite a bit more detail to come out over the course of the year as this unfolds.

nocman 15y ago

I'm not sure what part of the title you think is misleading, and I definitely don't think anyone is being particularly unfair to Rackspace. On the plus side, I think it was a good idea to bring this change out in the open early, and for that I will give Rackspace credit. The problem is, they muffed the announcement so badly, I don't know how well they can recover from it. They seem to be so completely clueless of the type of customers that use Slicehost, it's no wonder they thought this kind of announcment was OK. I have never even heard the name Slicehost except from technical people who know exactly what they are doing. They want nothing more than a simple VPS (sometimes more than one VPS) they can bring up quickly, install exactly the way they want, and for the most part never have to deal with a tech support person unless there is a problem on the provider's side (and obviously, they'd prefer that to be almost never also). They don't want to be instructed on "two tectonic shifts happening in IT at the moment" -- these people are IT, and they know exactly what is going on. They don't want to listen to the sales pitch about a "massively scalable cloud operating system", and then be told how the service as they know it now is going to cease to exist. Before you say that for most people things will stay close to the same, let me say this. Rackspace -- listen to your customers. Rackspace has an awful control panel. Current Slicehost customers love its control panel. If the Slicehost control panel goes away, the service is not close to the same. It is a big deal, and I think the number of people besides me saying the same thing speaks for itself. Promising "Oh, it's really important" and "We're working on it -- it's a high priority" isn't enough. People will switch over to another provider that already has a nice control panel. If you want to keep these customers, you'd better get that fixed way before any migrations have to happen. And to be quite honest, I wonder how much time you really have to fix this before losing most of those who care about it. Now, I freely admit that Rackspace may just not be terribly worried about small-time single VPS accounts (like mine). I don't have access to their customer list, and perhaps the number of customers in situations similar to mine is a much smaller percentage than I think it is (so perhaps I am the one who is clueless about Slicehost's customers). Maybe those of us in that category simply make the most amount of noise about this, and at the same time mean the least to Rackspace's bottom line. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just saying that I don't know, but it could be a possibility. Mark's email certainly seemed to be targeted at corporate business types, who make decisions on where to spend technical money, but actually know very little about how technology works. That email contained the exact kind of jargon-filled spin that rubs Slicehost customers like me the wrong way. It certainly leads me to question whether Rackspace has just outgrown customers like me and is not particularly concerned if many of us switch providers. You said "Unfortunately I think in hindsight I can say that our decision was probably the wrong call.". Well, know this -- I was a fairly new customer to Slicehost when the news came that Rackspace had bought Slicehost out. I was pretty disappointed, because I specifically did not want to use Rackspace based on the experience of others I knew who had used them. If Slicehost had not led me to believe that it was going to continue to exist as it was after the acquisition, I would not have remained a customer. Like many others, I was a bit skeptical, but was impressed enough by Slicehost that I wanted to stick around. And I've been 100% satisfied from then till now with Slicehost's service. Judging from the response I've seen here and elsewhere, I think a lot of other people would have switched away from Slicehost right after the acquisition, had you not made the call you did make then. So maybe you are too quick to question the decision. It could have meant a lot less revenue for the company since the acquisition. I know that the Slicehost folks made a really big deal about how great they thought Rackspace was, and how the deal was really good for both companies, and that Rackspace was an equally great company. When you say "Trust me that these guys are really working for the best for you all.", I have to say that I'm at best much more skeptical than I was immediately after the acquisition. I'm definitely going to be shopping around.

norackspace4me 15y ago

Thanks to the Slicehost crew for offering great service over the past few years... but I will not become a rackhost customer as a result of a forced migration. Sorry.