| Author |
Most popular FTP servers
|
|
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:31 am |
| > I just looked at four of the most popular FTP servers for Windows on thequote:
> market today: VisNetic FTPServer, Serv-U, WSFTP Server, and Cute FTP
> Server. The first one we currently publish, and previously we've published
> Serv-U. All four of these utilize SSL and/or SSL/TLS for encryption.
> --
> Regards,
> Mike Deerfield
> _________________________
> CEO
> Deerfield.com
> http://www.deerfield.com
It seems that Deerfield no longer sells VisNetic FTP server. In fact,
the VisNetic FTP product line has been discontinued! What happened?!?
Arvel Hathcock
Alt-N Technologies
| |
| Mike Deerfield 2004-01-19, 6:31 am |
| arvel@altn.com (Arvel Hathcock) wrote in message news:<af202fec.0310101003.16853827@posting.google.com>...quote:
>
> It seems that Deerfield no longer sells VisNetic FTP server. In fact,
> the VisNetic FTP product line has been discontinued! What happened?!?
>
> Arvel Hathcock
> Alt-N Technologies
Deerfield.com has made a strategic decision to focus primarily on the
email messaging and security space. As a result, the VisNetic FTP
products no longer fit this mission. However, the technology behind
both of these products is readily available from South River
Technologies (Titan FTP), and Deerfield.com / SRT has agreed to
support previous VisNetic FTP Client and Server customers. SRT can be
reached at http://www.southrivertech.com/
Mike Deerfield
CEO - Deerfield.com
http://www.deerfield.com
| |
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:31 am |
| > Deerfield.com has made a strategic decision to focus primarily on thequote:
> email messaging and security space. As a result, the VisNetic FTP
> products no longer fit this mission. However, the technology behind
> both of these products is readily available from South River
> Technologies (Titan FTP), and Deerfield.com / SRT has agreed to
> support previous VisNetic FTP Client and Server customers. SRT can be
> reached at http://www.southrivertech.com/
Hi Mike!
I agree that the technology behind your FTP products is (and always
was) available from other sources. I have pointed this out myself
many times. In fact, this is the case today with nearly all of your
existing products. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a
legitimate business model and is done all the time. The only weakness
(from the customers point of view) is that they are sometimes caught
in the middle when your contracts expire or something else goes wrong
or when the market or your partners force these "strategic decisions"
(which are necessary and inevitable from time to time). Your FTP
server customers are now using a dead product with no upgrade
possibilities unless South River or yourself grants them a free
license to Titan FTP server. My point is that they could have
purchased Titan FTP server from the author or through his distribution
channel in the first place, acquired the exact same product, and
avoided this whole mess. That's all I'm saying.
Arvel
| |
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| > Deerfield.com has made a strategic decision...As a result, the VisNetic FTPquote:
> products no longer fit this mission.
I guess another "strategic decision" has been made and the new targets
are your Visnetic Website customers:
http://www.deerfield.com/news/press.../index.htm/180/
I can understand that sometimes product life-cycles come to an end but
I think
that as the CEO you have to take some responsibility for the fact that
you choose to sell all these dead products of yours to dozens of
people. You can't just wash your hands of that by putting out a press
release. I'm amazed that your press release comes right out and says
that you aren't even going to support your WebSite customers anymore.
These are legitimate customers who have paid you already. Wow. I
think there might be some verbiage changes in that press release
coming in the next day or two. Mike, usually when you lose products
you at least continue to support the customers (at least for a while!)
quote:
> The only weakness (from the customers point of view) is that they are
> sometimes caught in the middle when your contracts expire or something else
> goes wrong or when the market or your partners force these "strategic
> decisions"
Mike, do you see what I meant when I said the above statement? Your
Visnetic WebSite customers now certainly understand it. I will only
add the age old maxim: Buyer beware. Buying a product from Deerfield
is a crap-shoot and in cases where the same products are available
from other vendors it is outright unwise.
Arvel
| |
| w_ashley 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| What type of support are you looking for it seems the software has
been out for a decade or so now and is said to be "stable". It would
seem there must be plenty of information available online. As far as
purchases go did the product come with gaurenties of upgradeability?
You bought a product does it work? If it does what is the issue.
Essentially what the press release says is yah theres no money in this
product anymore and we would rather spend our time doing something new
for istnace making even better software.
It isn't all of a suddent there is still 2 months on the product lfe
os it seems 3 months warning is one full quarter. I think its great
you value this software so much however it would see there may be
other options, of course what else did you want to see. What are you
talking about dude? Crazy talk Crazy talk.. what were you expecting?
Cause it seems to me like you are trying to slander this persons
company.
| |
| w_ashley 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| although I don't see how document archives would be such a hard thing
to do for all old products unless server space is an issue as
bandwidth would be dwindleing occurance and still perhaps allow some
traffic to sales areas etc..
| |
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not saying Deerfield hasn't the
right to discontinue products. They do have that right. What I'm
arguing is that Deerfield's record of discontinuing, losing, and/or
changing products should be carefully considered by consumers when
they are making a purchase decision. If the decision is between
buying from Deerfield or buying the same product from any number of
other sources the fact that Deerfield changes products so often should
be factored into the purchase decision.
Suppose you're in the market for a new TV. You have your choice of
purchasing the exact same model from either K-Mart or Walmart. Would
the fact that K-Mart habitually loses its rights to support or sell
your brand of TV and is constantly switching its allegiances to other
manufacturers influence your decision at all? Would you not want to
consider that fact or would you be happy to make your purchase at
K-Mart knowing that next week, next month, next year, your vendor may
no longer support or warranty your purchase? Wouldn't it have been
better in this case to have bought the product from a different vendor
that doesn't have such a volitile track record and from whom you have
a better chance of getting your product serviced?
Yes, you're right - when you purchase a product from Deerfield you get
the product and it works and you should be happy. You got what you
paid for and I agree. However, if I can purchase the exact same
product from another vendor and get a little something extra like
ongoing technical support and continued product development I would
choose to do that. This is all I'm saying.
Arvel
| |
| w_ashley 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| note I thought I saw a reply to this on some russian website the
response to your tv thing
I can see what you are saying as far as wanting that extra cushion
however what are some examples of deerfield discontinuing or changing
its products? You think 8track should still be technically supported
by whoever made it? I don't quite understand how much support you
expect exactly. What questions do you have? I'm just wondering where
the example actually exists or what practice this company is taking
that is unfair or unwarented or even illogical. Honestly there really
isn't much to know about the product.. ftp progs are really easy. So
to put it mildly I think you may be being unreasonable not because you
expect support its the type of support you expect. Look at how ms
handles it tech support you practically have to pay for it. In todays
word you have faq's the manual and support groups online, and usually
many websites in somecases specifically devoted to products. If your
unable to find your answers there then maybe you shouldn't be using
the products anyway as you are most undooubted ly putting the product
and yourself at risk. TV support press button change channel? its
pretty much the name good products shouldn't need support, its only in
the rare odd case that a product should and that is when it is
faulty..stable distributed code is not faulty(in almost every case..
insert ms joke here j/k) Take a company with 10000 products like sony
50 years latter its 233999 prodcuts do you expect little ol' frank
newkid to understand the technicalityies of how ham crystal radios
worked and how to tune them.. well maybe but chances are if you are
dealing with routines like enter diget here check this box little
frank newkid wont have a clue. Not that this is a good metaphor the
thing is sure keep the faqs and manuals package WITH the software,
have a newsgroup or make sure there is atleast one newsgroup and let
the users do it. I just don[t feel as though people are so lost as to
not know how to set up a ftp server and read some webpages or even
*gasp* "learn how it works" so you understand what all those boxes are
for. but whatever I understand your point I just think that technical
support on a well documented product is decreasingly needed as the
generations operating consume the new techs with ease. Its just in the
case of software its all cake in most circumstances howeverit would be
nice if ANY discontinued software had there source codes released on
say source code or something so the projects could be picked up by
others.. note I see what your saying arvel however your not giving
solutions you only seem to be attempting to make this company look bad
with no alterative then to support backdated software forever. why not
get a colour tv? note that may not be the instance today but 1yr from
now it may be. ftp is aging.. new transfer technologies are "better"
it is only a matter of time till they are mainstream simple ftp
command line does it the softs for ftp that are out are easy and in
some cases FREE. There are many sources for infos. I in many respect
AGREE that companies should support thier documentation and make it
available however handling support request that are no long MADE by a
company is another issue. IF no warrenty or support was purchased(yes
some companies charge for support and repair atleast s/h) then your
not loosing anything. If it did come with a support clause that is
another issue. It just seems your imagining services that really they
don't have to provide. I think its great and seperates a company from
others when they can make a gaurenty to support products for their
life personally. As far as the tv thing goes I dont watch tv and I see
how the logic of that statement goes to the company not the stores
anyway... but you wont find a company fixing a product that is 10
years old in most cases you have to go to specialists and unless your
an antiuque collector and they pay allot for services. Heres a strait
question two things 1. what type of customer support do you expect for
products that are discontinued and 2. how long do you expect this
support? and note i had this question a while ago I think it should be
for the lifetime of the comany however manuals etc.. should be
provided "somewhere" and in many instances they are provided "with"
the products. Its a big duty for the company to archive all their
manauls and no doubt they should archive it somewhere anyway so why
not make that archive or a mirror of it available. however the
internet is a big journal too.
| |
| w_ashley 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| I also wanted to add that SRT south river technologies is STILL
supporting this product... although I may be off here but it seems
your product is still very much supported they arn't dropping you they
are connecting you.. thus the slander or seeming slander
| |
| w_ashley 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| the ideal sollution to situations such as this is that if a patent
copyright isn't utilized then the details of that product and all of
its accompanying support documetns etc... is released via something
such as library of congress etc.. or even better a interational
originization(the us centric law is something else) the idea is that
all information that is not implemented or NOT able to be supported
due to infrastructure costs falls back on this orginization. Of course
there could be costs and it naturally should be a consortium of
universtities hardware manufactorers and telecommunications companies
making the information publically available. THe repsoitory itself is
of value for a number of reasons. Of course finding actual working
managment systems to cut through the patchwork called the internet is
something else. It will be interesting when THE INTERNET actually
takes an interest in making THE INTERNET organized rather then either
overly wieghted or overly scattered. But people wanna make money off
of "services"or somethign like that.. of course the sollution is
software to manage the clutter and resupply it and this post will be
continued on my webpage as it is getting awfully ranty
http://www.angelfire.com/retro2/w_a...llshomepage.htm
| |
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| > 1. what type of customer support do you expect forquote:
> products that are discontinued and 2. how long do
> you expect this support?
Deerfield is within its legal rights to offer ongoing support or no
support at all for discontinued products. They haven't done anything
wrong here at all. This is entirely their decision to make.
quote:
> I can see what you are saying as far as wanting that extra cushion
> however what are some examples of deerfield discontinuing or changing
> its products?
Well, just recently, Visnetic Website, WinGate, and WinGate VPN.
Arvel
| |
| Arvel Hathcock 2004-01-19, 6:32 am |
| > I also wanted to add that SRT south river technologies is STILLquote:
> supporting this product...
Yes, but wouldn't it have just been easier for those customers to have
bought from South River to start with then? I mean they ended up
there anyway. This is all I am saying.
Arvel
|
|
|
|