Foldera, Google, Marc Orchant and me – Odd man out!

by Shrikant Joshi

Over at ZDNet, Marc Orchant has this to say in his article Foldera: Measure twice… cut once:

I applaud this strategy. The more forethought and preparation put into the launch, the better.

Marc was talking about the eMail sent out by Foldera CEO Marc Orchant stating that Foldera is postponing its launch, simply because:

"we didn't have the firepower in our datacenter to handle the sort of demand indicated by so many registrations."

I wish to make it known for the record, I haven't received the mail, this snippet has been extracted from the mail extract that Marc posted in the article.

Marc goes on to say that even after the resounding success of Gmail and the early frustrations of Gmail users, Google did not learn. The result was apparent for everyone to see with the initial pull-backs of Reader and Pages.

Some (personal) observations:

Personally, I believe Google did not pull back Pages because of high demand. It was probably due to a bigger glitch, something I have previously blogged about.
Foldera may be stretching the public interest a little too far. Going by the conversation on Mike Arrington's Techcrunch, Foldera should have been launched and here many times over by now.
However, interesting a tool may be, the longer you take to launch, the shorter the buzz post-launch.

At least that's what I think happened with Origami. Of course, Origami was a little early, about three years early, by my guess. In a world where laptops and palm-pilots have not yet become commonplace, introducing a gadget that was a level up in the futuristic scale seemed to me, a crazy idea.

One thing I have realized so far is:

"You can't hurry up or slow down the future. It comes when it comes. You better be prepared for either case."

Probably that's what Foldera is thinking. Or are they?

PS: I have decided to be a little more regular now. Hope to live upto my words…

Technorati Tags: foldera, google, peeves, launch

Posted on April 19, 2006 at 6:59 pm in foldera, Google, Peeves | RSS feed | Reply | Trackback URL

4 Comments to “Foldera, Google, Marc Orchant and me – Odd man out!”

Michael Sampson
April 21, 2006 at 6:58 am

(same comment as on http://performancing.com/node/2138)

Shrikant,
Thanks for sharing your reaction to Marc’s post on ZDNet regarding the timing of Foldera’s release of beta accounts. We are acutely aware that there are lots of people interested in what we have to offer, which is both incredibly exciting and humbling at the same time. Although I personally have only started with Foldera this week, others on the team have been working on the application in stealth mode since 2001.

Launch timing is important, but we must err on the side of caution in this case given the large numbers of people that have requested beta accounts. We’d all love to have this out in the wild now — making a difference in people’s lives — but we have to ensure that it is “right” and “ready” and “robust” enough first.

Finally, I wanted to add a couple of thoughts regarding your “futures” quote. Origami is definitely too early for the mass market, but geeks like me and Marc would love to get our hands on one now. The possibilities of such a device are intriguing, and figuring those out is very interesting. With respect to Foldera, I walked away from my IT analyst firm to join Foldera because I believe they have an offering that will be compelling to millions of users today. The tools that the big vendors offer are non-integrated, and this causes real pain for the mass market. I think Foldera has a great offering that will fix many of those pain points.

I thank you for sharing your views, and hope that you’ll try it out once the beta accounts are released in early May.

Michael Sampson
Global VP of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Foldera, Inc.

Reply
Shrikant Joshi
April 21, 2006 at 4:42 pm

(same comment as on http://performancing.com/node/2138) Simply because, it is not everyday that a post of mine gets a response from the Global VP of Word-of-Mouth Marketing of Foldera, Inc.

No offense meant there.

Yeah, even I would like to lay my hands on an Origami, but as you know, anything that launches world-wide is launched in India only after it has outsold its buzz. Only Internet Applications are sometimes exceptions to that.

Foldera seemed quite an interesting tool given the way it was described. If I were you, I would keep this buzz going until the day of the launch. And please accept my compliments when I say, "Good Job!"

I know where you are coming from when you say that you left your IT analyst job to join Foldera. I did not do something as drastic, but the Company that I work for, develops a product that ignites the same amount of passion in me, as Foldera does in you.

Please note that my post was not intended for flaming. It was an honest critique, well, maybe even blunt. And rest assured that I will be among the first users to try out Foldera (if it is India-compatible). Heck, after all, my post clearly proves, I have been itching to have a go at it!

Regards,
Shri.

Reply
Marc Orchant
April 24, 2006 at 8:50 pm

Hi Shri.

Well, Michael beat me to it in replying to your post and he is, as always, eloquent and passionate.

I did not take your post in any way other than that which you intended and wanted to just toss a few additional comment into the mix:

1. I beleive that over time, people will be less and less willing to invest any time in releases that appear half-baked or rushed. Google gets something of a pass becuause they’ve got an amazingly strong brand, but the proliferation of “not quite there” offerings with very little to distinguish themselves from half a dozen similar mashed-up ideas will rapidly reach a saturation point. In fact, based on the memetrackers I use, one could argue that the half-life of an AJAX Web 2.0 web app has essentially flatlined already.

2. Having said that, I do not believe there is any necessary link between pre- and post-launch buzz. In fact, I would argue to the contrary because of the flatline state I think the early adopter market is at or approaching. The post-launch buzz for Foldera will have everything to do with the quality of what they release and the interest it precipitates. The fact that Foldera was able to amass such an incredibly large list of interested people tells me two things. First, they will have no problems staging a broad and robust public beta. Second, they are addressing a pervasive problem faced by many people.

Keep on blogging.

Reply
Shrikant Joshi
April 25, 2006 at 3:46 pm

Thanx Marc for your kind reply.

1. The things is even with its half-baked initiatives, Google tends to come out with some strong products. That is what seems interesting to me. Yes, you may experience occasional down-time, but the bugs are vistually non-existent or hidden. When you build something with this amount of attention-to-detail no matter how many such 'half-baked' products you dish out, people are always gonna lap them up.

2. Ok, probably I did not clarify myself properly there. What I meant was the state immediately before and after the launch. ONce the event/product/offering in question has faded from public memory, (which is awfully short) the only way it can re-surface is if there is a scandal or if there are some really good offerings. I finally received the same mail from Richard Lusk, which loked to me as a good attempt to sustain the public interest in Foldera.

Pardon me if I bring in a third element here. AllPeers. All of us know that AllPeers is a cross between P2P fileshares, IM, etc. But yet I still tend to think about it. The reason is simple, according to me. AllPeers had managed to hide itself very well from the public. Apaprt from the one low profile rview on TechCrunch, there seems to be no other mention of late. That to me is risky. They have to sustain PR even if they do not generate it.

But then again, these are simply my random ramblings. It's not as if Peter Drucker is saying this or anyting 😉

Once again, thanx for your comments.

Regards,
Shri.

Reply

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