I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
NZ Internet identity Peter Mott of 2day fame (sold to ICONZ a few years ago) is back in the market with a new hosted service based on virtualization.
Swizzle Business Model
Simple and practical
Like an ocean going yacht, we have two or more of everything that’s important, and things that are not so important don’t exist.
This means you don’t pay for unnessary frills, and what you do pay for stays running.
Core ingredients
- HP Proliant DL series servers
- VMware ESXi Hardware virtualisation
- The Swizzle web site
HP enterprise-class servers, especially with the amount of processor, memory, disk and redundant options we run in them, are often well beyond the budget of a small business.
Fortunately, with the aid of hardware virtualisation we can slice them into a number of smaller servers (virtual machines) and rent them to you at prices that fit your IT budget.
blog
Site’s down at the moment — has it been Druried?
So it’s a VPS service… What differentiates it from all the other VPS providers? The extreme high prices?
Granted, your data is kept in New Zealand (and this will be enough for a few customers), but is there any technical advantage over say, Slicehost (at one tenth the price) or any of the US based VPS solutions?
Slicehost is perhaps not the best example (though their service is actually amazing for the price - I am a very happy customer, only using them for web hosting), but VPS is literally everywhere, and this Swizzle deal just seems the same as all the rest, with an extra digit on the pricetag…
Slicehost is linux-only and uses xen on commodity hardware, which is hardly the same thing. A better question might be: why are you paying for that at all? :-)
Anyway, I think Rod’s point was more that Mott is back in the game, which usually means interesting things are about to happen.
As I mentioned, Slicehost isn’t the best example, but I didn’t have time to look around for a more direct comparison. On closer inspection, there are a ton of Windows/VMWare VPS solutions around which still make the above product look quite unappealing.
This just reads like another example of Kiwis wanking each other off for creating just-another-startup. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great tech startups coming out of NZ right now (I think Xero is absolutely brilliant, or I wouldn’t be reading this blog), but it gets tiring to constantly hear the ‘Silicon Welly’ crowd give kudos to anyone that is willing to create a half-way average company (so long as their website meets its quota of web2.0 cliches; a name like swizzle helps too).
Swizzle… I wonder if Peter Mott has brought his helpful, unassuming manner, acceptance first that the customer is right, not out of the basement service, friendly attitude to this new venture!! Price is very high - look at other NZ VPS comps who have a track record… much lower. Good luck to new customers if any. Rod … you’re right Mott is a NZ Internet identity, could be interpreted many ways.
The basement is often the best place to start a business. Ask Sam Morgan. In fact, its the folk who operate out of their home that often are the biggest threat to established business.
If you want low cost VPS web hosting, then by all means choose slicehost.com. Swizzle isn’t in that space.
Confusion about what we do is probably occurring due to my previous company being a retail web host, and folk associating my name with that sort of offering.
We can certainly improve the Swizzle site to better communicate what it is we do. It’s only one day old.
Explaining things in plain simple English is an art. I may be a little rusty after a few years playing with boats.
Thanks to all those who welcomed me back and also to those who clearly would prefer I wasn’t.
@Evan,
I think kudos should be given to anyone with the motivation to start a “half-way average company”. Some of them might even turn out to be half way decent. Anyone with the drive to start a company, giving up their own time and money they could be earning (which in IT is generally pretty good) should be congratulated for trying. Celebrated even. Not knocked just because they haven’t made a billion dollars. Succeed or fail, those guys are all going to learn valuable lessons.
Its that sort of thinking, only celebrate once we’ve achieved success, that creates mediocrity. Creating a “half-way average” company might just be someones first step to creating a great success. Starting a ’start-up’ makes you learn a whole lot of lessons, real quick.
“Kiwis wanking each other off for creating just another startup” reads like a tall poppy cutter, who will only respect success, not the trying. Just what we need.
I look forward to your further clarity on the 1 day old site… for instance what backup plans / redundancy do you have in place when your microwave oven blows the house fuses? Is the basement on a different circuit? Greg I full agree we should give kudos half-way average companies - just not half-way average personalities!
People keep saying stuff like “look at other NZ VPS comps who have a track record”. I’m open to suggestions — I’ve tried four in the last six months and they were all appallingly, laughably bad. I’m hoping Mott will get it right, because Lord knows no one else has**, at least in NZ.
Have you actually tried any of these “VPS comps”? As in spent actual money? It sounds more like you just have some noisy grudge against this particular one. :-)
** Slicehost does look slick, though. Cheers for the pointer, Evan.
For the avoidance of doubt, Swizzle is properly funded and has its first server node in Citylink’s Auckland data centre.
My previous company owned a shiny new data centre in Takapuna when I sold it.
And as for the basement, the power only feeds the lights which help me find my way to the car. And its been this way for many years now.
Rob, there is no question we will get it right. It may take a few days but we will get there.
@Greg - couldn’t agree more.
After many years working on various projects overseas I have recently returned to NZ to get a new startup off the ground. It’s not easy and there’s always something that can be done better but it’s encouraging to see that there is an active start-up community up here.
Good luck with new venture Peter!
Unfortunately it doesn’t wash, and just like 2 Day is massively overpriced.
You can have a fully managed dedicated linux box for the same price and similar specification as the base machine offered here. Yet again NZ businesses are being screwed by overpriced service companies making a quick buck by delivering under-featured services, reliant on ignorance to get their customers.
The biggest issue is lack of disk space and support. Considering how cheap disk space and ram is even on premium servers, Swizzle is massively over priced.
The base cost of $95 itself is more expensive than most VPS services, and thats before you even start choosing the essentials like ram - so you actually get NOTHING for that $95. Even RackSpace, renowned for being expensive, would look good compared to this pricing.
For the price I would expect 99.9% guarantees, fully managed 24×7 support. Instead all we see is “DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES” which absolves Swizzle of all responsibility.
And the comment “VMware Infrastructure 3 is superior to virtual private servers” is simply untrue. Where is the proof of this statement. The measured and tested proof that Xen or similar are inferior.
Sorry, just another quick buck rip off service in my opinion.
Karl,
We believe our prices are reasonable taking into account the quality of the kit we have deployed and our costs. We intend to stay in business for the long term, and to do this we need to be sure we remain profitable.
We have signed several large web development companies in our first month of operation. They were all looking for a company they could trust with staff who had an intimate understanding of their business. They also wanted significant flexibility in the server offering.
Price is certainly a consideration. For at least two of the customer’s that have moved to us, they have told me their overall cost has gone down. We are committed to adding more value as we grow. An example of this is hot image backups to another data centre. We have included this without additional fee.
All the SLA’s in the world wont work for you if the people running the show are not skilled and committed. My previous company had a reputation for never dropping the ball. Nothing has changed in that regard.
Unlike retail hosts, we spend time working with our customers to help them pitch for business where infrastructure is a prime concern for the client. We don’t charge for this time.
If price is your first and only significant factor in choosing a hosting company, then you are probably in the market for a retail web host, not a wholesale operator with the depth of experience and level of commitment provided by Swizzle.
I find it surprising considering you can have a fully managed dedicated server with 24×7 support for the same price (in fact far less) than the top virtual you are providing.
Sure there are a lot of companies putting in Supermicros instead of IBMs or equivalent, but why would someone pay the same price as a dedicated machine for a virtual solution.
From a business risk perspective, I would rather spend $700-$800/month per server if I needed multiple isolation points/redundancy, than $1,394.00 on a virtual machine.
$1,394.00 for a virtual server is pretty over the top. This is easily achievable as dedicated servers from “industry leaders” who have extensive experience in facilities management for comparable prices.
Other parts that don’t wash are the traffic charges. I know of no data centre left in NZ that still charges for national traffic.
Essentially once the hardware is in place - a management fee is applicable - but little else.
And as for the comments on SLAs, if it does go horribly wrong, the client has no comeback without one.
That is why I don’t see the value of Swizzle, nor can I see anything that is a legitimate point of difference over dedicated services to justify the cost.
Karl,
Have you considered you might be asking the wrong question.?
A virtualized platform provides customers with scalability, portability, and in many cases redundancy beyond simple RAID provided in a single dedicated server.
Many dedicated server offers have a minimum contract period and significant setup fees. Swizzle has neither.
Your view that national traffic should be delivered free of charge is not uncommon. Unfortunately we have real costs if we want to have high bandwidth, low latency connections to every business desktop in New Zealand. Historically ISP network investment has been focused on delivering International content to consumer desktops.
As a wholesale hosting operator, our focus is completely different. A single ethernet connection to a local peering exchange doesn’t get us anywhere near what our customers are asking for. We need to invest in high speed transit to every access provider. Some of these are Telco’s (or have taken on the appearance of a Telco) and want serious money to deliver content to their customers.
SLA’s are fine for people who have been told they must have one. Most clients want to know you have deployed skilled and dedicated people to take care of their stuff. They will forgive you if despite all the clue and care in the world, something goes wrong. Because that’s what professional relationships are made of.
I can see the quote you generated includes 146GB of storage and 200GB/Month of traffic. This combination reflects a higher price whilst we are within the first few months of operation with economy of scale barriers.
When you buy 146GB of disk from us you are actually contributing to an expensive disk array (RAID is a complete misnomer in our world) and backup servers to run your virtual machine should the online server fail. Over time, we will be able to reduce the price of the very large storage options. Its worth noting that the smaller disks are more competitive, and they are were most of our customers needs are for the time being.
Our web site has some way to go before it communicates clearly our advantages over others. For this I apologize. The fact you don’t see a point of difference is a problem for Swizzle to solve.
Having said that, I am not sure how you would get a supplier to offer services that meet your needs by kicking them in the bollocks within a few weeks of start up. You will need to forgive me if I question your motivation.
Hi Peter,
Sorry if I came across too negative. I just see a lot of start-ups and many established companies in New Zealand that charge like wounded bulls because they can, not because of what they deliver.
SMEs are still pretty ignorant in NZ; and they tend to go with “what the expert says” with little or no recourse if it goes horribly wrong except to pay someone else to fix the problems up (which is generally where I start to get involved lately, and it can be very heart breaking seeing the SME trying to recover).
Because of the sort of service you are offering, I recommend you get rid of the pricing off your web site altogether. If I understand it correctly, the target market of Swizzle probably won’t be too bother by price, but first impressions of people doing the initial investigation who may not be the decision maker will likely make them run a mile.
I still think you are wrong about the SLA subject; just like a contract, you don’t need it until it all turns to burnt custard.
Anyway, best of luck; and I hope it all works out for you.