RE: [cobalt-users] IROOT & IMANAGER

["Tony" <isplists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The Cobalt
> GUI is the primary
> reason why one would buy/use a Cobalt product.

>>That may very well be true for you.  However, you suggest that that's
>>the primary reason.  Frankly, there are other reasons.  For example, the
>>low power usage.  The low profile.

Agreed...The IU profile was actually just as important as the GUI when we
bought our first Raq1. I mentioned the GUI as primary because at the time
there were ZERO third-party 'control-panel' GUI's available. We were
actually
in the middle of developing our own on the Solaris platform at the time.
We ditched that entire project when the Raq1 debuted.


> I don't understand why people
> are seeking out
> these other tools like WebMin, Iroot, Control Panels etc when Cobalt's GUI
> does all that these
> programs do and more.

>>People are seeking out other tools because the tools that come with the
>>RaQ don't fit their needs or their marketing model.  Or in some cases
>>have what appears to be bugs.

Don't get me wrong here..I'm not a 100% diehard Cobalt fan...yes there are
many many
problems with the product that should not exist. We're working on developing
a multi-line
VAR business model and Cobalt is just one line out of many that we work
with.
Once again though when Cobalt debuted it was the best solution at the time.
For example, even if we had completed our Solaris control-panel project have
you
ever seen a Solaris box running as a fully functioning web server 10 minutes
out
of the box? Leave it by itself for weeks at a time and let it run itself?
Yeah--right.
Competition is coming for Cobalt and hopefully it will make their products
better.

My pet peeve about the Raq line is that supposedly Cobalt designed it for
ISP's with
ISP's feedback. Which ISP's? The clueless droids that run the monster
national ISP's?
Seems like the only important feature that national ISP's care about is how
much rack
space the units take up and how many of their support engineers they can lay
off because
they think they can just plop a customer on a Raq and be done with them.

How about surveying the Raq owners right now. How many of us are small
hosting operations
selling and servicing virtual hosting accounts to small business owners who
actually
talk to our customers on a daily basis?

Has Cobalt asked you what YOUR customers want in hosting services?
Radical idea huh? Something only a heretic would consider. Imagine that...
ask the customer what they need or want! Cobalt, if your listening go to one
of the dozen web hosting guide sites. Go look at the feature list of the
$19.95-$29.95
a month virtual web hosting accounts from the top ten hosting outfits.
Better yet shell out the few bucks and actually sign up for several of these
accounts, get your
user name and go use it. Build and manage a test web site.
Then build ALL of those features into the Raq4 ready to run out of the box
so that a hosting outfit
could offer the same features to their customers right off the bat instead
of toiling away in a telnet
window endlessly tweaking and installing 'unsupported' software packages.

>>The few other 1u solutions I've seen appear to be poorly engineered (at
>>best) when compared to Cobalt's RaQ3.
>>Jeff

Tony