I wrote six months ago about the launch of Symantec’s GoEverywhere product – a reasonably innovative web top solution that was an aggregation point for multiple web applications.
It seems that nice execution and a good idea aren’t enough – I expressed some concerns at the time of the launch around monetization saying;
As with all thing web 2.0-ish, a good product is just the first part, it’ll be interesting to see how Symantec develop the business model for GoEverywhere.
Well an email today told me that they didn’t in-fact develop the business model. Symantec have announced that;
This innovative project in cloud computing was very successful and provided a number of insights on technical features and usage patterns derived from substantial user feedback. However, the beta program for GoEverywhere will come to a close on June 30, 2009. At that time, the service will no longer be accessible and available for use.
Symantec continues to develop innovative technologies and remains focused on its vision to become the leading provider of cloud-based offerings that secure and manage the world’s information. However, at this time we do not plan to release Symantec GoEverywhere as a standalone service.
Close but no cigar…
Interestingly enough it looks like nothing has happened to the offering in terms of development since March – about the time that funding and staff cuts would have really been kicking in.
I still fundamentally think the web top concept is a good one – time will tell if the marketplace agrees.
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This speaks to the hazards of getting too involved in beta cloud computing trials. If you get too dependent on a particular system you run the risk of it being shutdown or being forced to pay an upgrade fee to continue. All this and no guarantees of performance. A nice downloaded program may not be completely portable, but at least you can use it until you adjust to a new system if support and upgrades are discontinued.
I never understood the point of these web tops! It’s kind of link VT100 redux: fine if you’ve got a big central system and physically connected terminals. But if you’ve got your own computer with an OS installed why would you want to use a web top that you can only access when you’re connected?!