Coghead refugees to Intuit or Caspio? Fat chance
The Web-based app development and hosting company Coghead announced Wednesday that it was shutting down (TechCrunch: Coghead grinds to a halt). Citing general economic pressures (the excuse du jour for layoffs and shutdowns), it told its customers they'd have until April 30 of this year to use their apps. They won't be charged for the service until then, but they won't get any support, either. So the rush is now on for Coghead's users to find a new home for their apps.
At least two companies are hoping to win converts to their competing service platforms: Caspio is offering two months free access to its Caspio Bridge, as well as free support and training. The pitch to Coghead customers: "Caspio offers a more scalable, robust and dependable platform-as-a-service than your previous solution, and our unique unlimited-user pricing is the most business-friendly option anywhere." See Caspio's offer page.
Intuit is offering six months of free service on its QuickBase hosted app platform, as well as two hours of personal consulting, unlimited standard support, and classes specifically for Coghead customers. See Intuit's offer page.
Update: Via the comments to this story, we learn that there are other offers for Coghead customers from TeamDesk, TrackVia, Zoho, and Qrimp (see Data-Driven Web Apps blog for links), and from Iceberg.
After being left high and dry by one cloud-based platform, I can't imagine any Coghead customers making a quick move to another. Even the true believers need more than righteousness to go on. They need to know their hosting companies will survive. A realistic alternative: Do your development on your own servers and host your apps inside your firewall. (For more, see "The firewall vs. the cloud".)
Minus its users, Coghead's technology is moving over to SAP. According to a memo sent to Coghead customers today, "SAP did not assume any of Coghead's customer relationships or obligations," thus paving the way for Caspio and Intuit to open their Coghead refugee camps.
Paul McNamara, Coghead's CEO, told me in an e-mail that "It was a wrenching decision because of the customer impact." And while he is obviously a booster for the platform-in-the-sky model ("It's clear that the benefits of Web-based applications are significant," he says), he also realizes that this situation is not good. He thinks there could eventually be a way to mitigate it: "I'd like to see the development of standards for declarative applications that are represented as XML documents. I think this is the logical evolution for cloud computing. As the industry evolves, we need to address portability and interoperability."
McNamara will not be making the move to SAP.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
http://webappsatwork.blogspot.com/2009/02/helping-coghead-customers.html
http://blogs.zoho.com/announcements/zoho-creator-offers-helping-hand-to-coghead-customers
We look forward to helping you make a smooth transition.
For mid-size companies and divisions within larger organizations not willing to take the risk of an unproven PaaS startup, consider Rollbase as an on-site alternative. Formerly a hosted PaaS similar to Force.com, CogHead and others, Rollbase is now offered as a licensed product.
Available for in-house licensing at the source code level complete with documentation and implementation services.
www.rollbase.com
Iceberg is the only platform in this space that I have seen (and this has been verified by customers) that can deliver on both the UI and the logic that users have put into their coghead apps.
But more importantly Iceberg is available to run on your own server, and if anything ever did happen to us customers would not be left hanging they could very easily download their apps and run behind the firewall.
See for yourself at www.geticeberg.com and see our coghead offer at blog.GetIceberg.com
Any questions please contact me directly wayne@geticeberg.com
Shame on Coghead VC?s not to see in themselves to pony up a small amount to keep the lights on for a few extra months and let customers have a smoother transition.
And total disappointment in Coghead management for not working out a migration plan for their customers with one of their competitors.
Frank Zamani
Founder and CEO, Caspio
www.caspio.com/coghead
Cheers,
Tara
Qrimp Inc
http://www.evolutility.org
wolfframeworks.com
InQuest Technologies (www.inquesttechnologies.com) would like to invite Coghead users and partners to learn about IQ9, the first enterprise Business Application Platform that allows users to configure (not code) 100% web-based applications that include Workflow Automation, Document Management, Project Management, Asset Management and Collaboration capabilities.
With IQ9 you never have to worry about your SaaS provider pulling the plug - you get an installable license that you can run in your data center or you can have it as a SaaS deployment in ours. You also never have to worry about all those exorbitant hidden storage fees and file transfer fees some providers charge.
To learn about IQ9, give us a call at 800.254.4050 or check us out online at http://www.inquesttechnologies.com/Company/Contact_Us/ - no gimmicks or short, free trials just a great application that you can seamlessly transition to from Coghead and run your business. There is a reason that organizations like ADT, The US Navy, ConEdison and NBC have deployed hundreds of applications using IQ9.
As I say, other Online players did as well. However, unlike the other small online vendors, we are the only company which is not just online as a Cloud, but has also the more traditional revenue model of the Enterprise BOP?.and we do it with the same technology! We are a much deeper and rounded business with a global outreach and a historic perspective on how to guide these market transitions.
However, the question we need to ask is why, with so much invested, has SAP let COGHEAD go to the wall? They owned shares of Coghead, i.e. they were part of this new model, yet they were publicly criticizing the Cloud for not being ?ready??all along they have had an existing enormous revenue stream to defend?.
?.Then the Economic Crisis hits and all of a sudden the safe traditional revenues have an abrupt stop?.the world begins to look seriously at the CLOUDSOURCING alternatives?and what does SAP do? It sinks the investment it has made in the CLOUD by not funding it?.and when it dies, it buys its assets??hurting its customer base?.almost to teach all a lesson!
FEAR can be the only answer?.SAP says ?let the CLOUD wait until SAP is ready???
BUT WE ARE HERE TO SPOIL THIS FEAR GAME?.whether you want to buy the Business Operation Platform as a license or as a PAAS?or if you want to embed it in your products ?.CORDYS is here to help.
- by alincc1 April 10, 2009 2:28 AM PDT
- Alternative for Coghead is PerfectForms
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(13 Comments)Check out www.perfectforms.com