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Backplane is shutting down

backplane.io

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Re: Backplane is shutting down

#51

Post by marcinzm »

Signez wrote: post #39
bilbo0s wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A self-funded slow-growth profitable startup can be a much more stable bet... I think his point is that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are even safer.

I may be mad, but I'm at a point where I would trust a self-funded slow-growth profitable startup waaaay more than Google to run a service in the long run. Decades of "quickly started, even more quickly deprecated" services have taken their toll.

Sure Google can and does shut down products but they tend to give more than two weeks notice during the holidays.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#52

Post by gamblor956 »

zalmoxes wrote: post #28

I'm neither an employee nor a customer, just someone who was following the project on twitter because it looked very intriguing. I just want to say that the comments on this thread are absolutely ridiculous and I expected better. Does anyone actually think the customers would find out at the last minute? That the company would leave its users without any support? It's baseless speculation and my guess is it's totally…

It sounds exactly like customers got last minute notice right before the holidays when everything shuts down.

Of all the times they could have chosen to shut down, they chose the absolute worst.

If I still programmed, I would never use this guy's products ever again.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#53

Post by gamblor956 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #44
irl_zebra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customers did find out at the last minute. Weeks notice is last minute.

> Weeks notice is last minute. Well, no, it's literally not. It's actually a reasonably long lead time for “going out of business”, which basically no one ever announces before essentially all hope of finding a way to keep the business running is exhausted, which intrinsically means there is little runway left.

Yep, it literally is last minute for a platform product used by others during a time of the year when the developers responsible for finding/building a replacement would otherwise have gone on vacation.

If this were a tangible product, a week notice would be fine since it gives customers time to stock up.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#55

Post by xnyan »

driverdan wrote: post #48
pizza wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being at a hackathon of theirs (the Lady Gaga backplane) years back and seeing dozens of what looked like Herman-Miller Aeron chairs all over the office. Maybe they got them for cheap, maybe they weren't actually Aerons, but also maybe this pretty small (I don't actually know how many employees they had..) startup had a couple tens of thousands of dollars worth of office chairs

The cost of a good chair is nothing compared to other expenses like salaries. Aerons aren't my favorite chair but I sure as hell don't want to work for a company that makes me sit in a terrible $50 Office Depot chair. Besides, you can get Aerons for much cheaper than retail if you look.

Even if you give zero shits about your employees, the $50 office max is going to fall apart fast with daily use. HM sells somewhat stripped-down cheaper versions of certain models specifically for the bulk office drone employee market and in bulk the pricing is competitive with other makers.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#56

Post by pizza »

driverdan wrote: post #48
pizza wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being at a hackathon of theirs (the Lady Gaga backplane) years back and seeing dozens of what looked like Herman-Miller Aeron chairs all over the office. Maybe they got them for cheap, maybe they weren't actually Aerons, but also maybe this pretty small (I don't actually know how many employees they had..) startup had a couple tens of thousands of dollars worth of office chairs

The cost of a good chair is nothing compared to other expenses like salaries. Aerons aren't my favorite chair but I sure as hell don't want to work for a company that makes me sit in a terrible $50 Office Depot chair. Besides, you can get Aerons for much cheaper than retail if you look.

I don't disagree, I just somehow got the impression they had way more chairs than employees

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#57

Post by acroback »

all2 wrote: post #3
williamstein wrote: post #2

What is Backplane? Why is it shutting down?

> Backplane is a service that unifies discovery, routing, and load balancing for web servers written in any language, running in any cloud or datacenter. Traffic shaping, request enrichment, blue/green deploys, and other difficult to implement networking operations become trivial when using Backplane's combination of hosted and on-premise software. From their docs page here: https://www.backplane.io/docs

So basically what ZeroMQ does at far better speeds with better latencies and reliability with a fraction of cost and it doesn't crash or stops operation out of nowhere.

Why is everything SaaS, when it is fairly easy to use existing proven solutions?

Is it just money?

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#58

Post by ksajadi »

I've been bitten by service shut downs like this and over the years, here is the "rulebook" I've made for myself to reduce the risk:

- Don't use products from startups with unknown, dubious business models that are clearly subsidised by VC money until they "figure out how to monetize". (recently I saw a company saying "our business model is still firming up, whatever that means).

- Open source doesn't mean it's safe. Very few open source companies have solid business models and if the vast majority of the contrinbutors to the project come from the same company, then if they go down or get aquihired reviving the project and its community is not always guaranteed or simple. OSS projects need major adoption to be safe from this sort of damage.

- I sometimes even research the VCs backing the founders as well. I have seen companies founded by associates in VC firms leaving the firm to start a company because they know 1. they can get funding from their old pals in the firm, 2. they are going to be selling the company quickly to X because of some insider information about X's need or an internal project to find a company to buy in the space. Some founders are serial "build and flip"ers and I avoid using their products.

I feel much safer buying crtical services from a bootstrapped and profitable startup than a well funded one that doesn't have a clear business model.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#59

Post by closeparen »

“Backplane” refers to the rear interior surface of an equipment cabinet, where there’s often a maze of electrical conductors for routing power/data around the various rack units or cards it can hold. Examples include blade servers, very serious routers, and theatrical lighting dimmer racks.

The system can be expanded and serviced (without interruption) by installing and removing modules, but the backplane is forever.

A hot SaaS startup purporting to be your backplane is about as backwards as it gets. Smart companies are using cloud services in exactly the opposite way: as temporary, interchangeable capacity slotted into a backplane they own.

Re: Backplane is shutting down

#60

Post by tmikaeld »

marcinzm wrote: post #10
tmikaeld wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an all-in-one solution and quite complex, I highly doubt that this can be exchanged in a short time or maybe even at all... I really feel bad for those who committed their company to this company.

Yeah, definitely not fun for those impacted. In my eyes it's evidence that you definitely shouldn't bet your company on a startup unless you have a backup plan that you can implement quickly or the benefits are massive (ie: the reward is worth potentially losing your business). Larger companies also kill products but they tend to give a lot more heads up.

The company I work for was heavily invested in Adobe BusinessCatalyst, which Adobe shut down.

The difference is that Adobe have money, so it's not a two weeks notice, but two years notice - which is reasonable!

Unfortunately, new customers where still annoyed and chose alternatives.

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