joyent and pricing

Ian Landsman • October 6, 2005

Joyent went live yesterday. It's an interesting app, sort of an intranet/exchange server in a box. Literally in a box, because it seems they actually ship you a server with the app on it.

In addition, if you're in the northwest they even have "Concierge" service where they'll come to your location and help with the install, do training and so on.

The thing I don't understand is their pricing. I'm getting a server, an application, an actual human to my office and it only costs $4950 plus $65/month? I just don't see the math on that.

Also, in general I'm not a fan of the unlimited user models. It's unfair to small customers who end up paying the same prices as another customer with potentially "thousands" of more users. I believe customers should get what they pay for. If only 10 people are using an app then the cost should be less than a customer with 10,000. There are exceptions for certain types of software but in general this seems both the most fair to me and the best business model.

It'll be interesting to see where Joyent goes. I could use something like it myself :-)