Rain making clouds and the usual HP nonsense

Wired wrote a puff piece on Amazon Web Services, the story of which I've heard at every web get together from where I'm sitting now, around the world and back again. But what's interesting is that AWS's total revenue for 2007 was $100M.

Lets face it $100M in anyone's language is good money but when you consider that Amazon is the undisputed leader in that space that's a piddling amount of revenue and a clear sign that this market hasn't even started moving yet.

Oh and HP Upline continues the long tradition of screwing HP customers. I was digging through my pile of unread email and I found the following..

Dear HP Upline Service subscriber,

On Thursday, April 17th, HP suspended operation of the HP Upline Service.

We fully anticipate that suspension of the Upline Service will be temporary and short in duration, and will notify you when the Upline Service is operational again.

If you are not a resident of the United States, we regretfully must inform you that the initial launch of the HP Upline Service was intended for United States residents only. Unfortunately, our filtering tools did not adequately screen for subscribers residing outside of the United States.

That would include me then..

We thank you for your early adoption of the Upline Service, and look forward to being able to provide the HP Upline Service to you when we launch it in your country of residence. Since the HP Upline Service is presently offered for use within the United States only, we will be discontinuing your current subscription.

After we notify you that the Upline Service is operational
again, you will have a limited period of time to access and download files that you have uploaded onto the HP Upline Service servers. After that time period, you will no longer have access to your present HP Upline Service account. If you would like to be contacted by us when the HP Upline Service is made available in your country of residence, please send us an email at help@upline.com.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

And I apologise for trusting HP to deliver on anything. I now remember why I automatically reached for a printer/scanner/tea maker combo from a different vendor instead of from HP the last time I was shopping for one.

I can and do use Mozy today but EMC Fortress can't go global soon enough.

(And trust me when I say each day is one step closer to that goal)

Comments

[Conor O'Neill]

Have to say that I avoid any consumer product/service by the current incarnation of HP. Usually over-priced and under-specced. I dealt with the guys who built the original app (smart cookies) that became Upline and was surprised McAfee didn't buy them.

It's kinda funny that a one-off fee of $20 to JungleDisk and an AWS account gives me something I can use on unlimited machines with utter reliability for a few bucks a month. Compare that to the Upline car-crash. Looking forward to seeing what EMC comes out with!

[Storagezilla]

Check the entry above this one for a hint. ;)