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37signals becomes Basecamp

37signals.com

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Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#41

Post by aytekin »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30

It still escapes me why this recent trend of naming companies with the names of products "for brand recognition" (the other obvious example is 10gen to become MongoDB Inc.) It would be interesting to see other companies do that in the past: - "Microsoft is going to become Windows Inc" - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" - "The new name of the company will be Air Jordan & Co. Nike no more!"

Large companies have big pockets and lots of people so they split their resources on multiple products. Things are very different for small companies and startups. Losing focus for a small company is deadly. It is extremely hard to be the best in a single market, trying to do it in multiple markets is crazy.

Best strategy for a startup is to find the best market they have a chance at dominating and focus all of their resources on it. Branding is just one of the resources you have. You want everyone to mention your product when they talk about you.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#43

Post by MattBearman »

wbercx wrote: post #29
MattBearman wrote: post #27

So does this mean all their other products will be killed / sold?

They will be kept alive one way or another, as described if you check out the link.

Ah, ok. I did read the article, but it was a half read, half skim, so I must have missed that.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#44

Post by wlll »

alexcroox wrote: post #17

While I admire 37signals I do find myself increasingly comparing them to Google and their offering. They make incredible services, but it's hard to trust them to build your business workflow around their products. If there aren't stripping back critical business features such as time tracking for our billing in the new Basecamp, they are looking to shutdown or sell others a few years on. I hate corporate software as…

The only feature I can think of that we ever removed (I might be wrong) is OpenID, because almost no-one used it and it was really confusing.

Time tracking is still there in Basecamp Classic, and that's not going away. If you rely on time tracking in Basecamp Classic you can continue to do so.

See this from the announcement page FAQ:

Q: What about Basecamp Classic? "We are fully committed to running Basecamp Classic forever." - http://37signals.com/

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#45

Post by abalone »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30

It still escapes me why this recent trend of naming companies with the names of products "for brand recognition" (the other obvious example is 10gen to become MongoDB Inc.) It would be interesting to see other companies do that in the past: - "Microsoft is going to become Windows Inc" - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" - "The new name of the company will be Air Jordan & Co. Nike no more!"

You forgot about a product called the Apple II Computer by Apple Computer.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#46

Post by Grue3 »

10 years after they released Basecamp and apparently it's still their "best idea". This explains why every 37signals blogpost I read was so devoid of good ideas. One hit wonders.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#47

Post by theknown99 »

daveoflynn wrote: post #28
kesor wrote: post #26

Who will buy Campfire? Atlassian or GitHub?

Atlassian already owns HipChat. Bet GitHub steps up, as they use it already.

Github would be better to write a campfire clone in a day or so, and roll it out.

I'm betting github has a larger userbase than campfire, so what would be the point in paying a few million for campfire?

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#48

Post by coob »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30

It still escapes me why this recent trend of naming companies with the names of products "for brand recognition" (the other obvious example is 10gen to become MongoDB Inc.) It would be interesting to see other companies do that in the past: - "Microsoft is going to become Windows Inc" - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" - "The new name of the company will be Air Jordan & Co. Nike no more!"

One way to see the renaming is that it's not for outsiders, it's for those that work there. There's nothing that could do the job of informing everyone in your company what the new direction is more effective thank this.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#49

Post by netcan »

Software is a hard business. Novel becomes trivial fast. Competitive edge can become a standard "best" practice fast and a product or business which was revolutionary and profitable one decade can seem naive the next.

Basecamp needs to move to keep up. They have their commitment to "not too much software" and simplicity which is great but has some tradeoffs. In any case, collaboration between people working on things remotely or in the same office using the internet is not done yet. There are still big things to be figured out. The culture and the technology is evolving. Personally, I use Basecamp and it is better than email for a lot of things, but there are a lot of thing I wish it did or did differently.

In essence, there is plenty of work for a 50 person team in this space. Good luck to them.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#50

Post by ig1 »

RafiqM wrote: post #16
fs111 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pioneer? web-mail is nothing else but SaaS in the end and it exists way longer than 37Signals...

SaaS as a business model, not as a technology. Webmail was a feature, not the entire business, for the most part. I'm sure you can find examples of SaaS before 37signals, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they were amongst the first to build an entire company from the business model.

Not really. Basecamp wasn't created until 2003, in the second wave of of web SaaS after the Salesforce wave (1999).
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