Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, and Phil Wilson

Discussed during the show:

• MN-Based Cloud Startup enStratus Secures Series A VC Investment
• MHTA Tekne Awards (MHTA site; BizJournal article)
• Returns aren’t in on Best Buy’s VC venture
• Google’s new GoMo – Google Creates “GoMo” Portal To Help You Mobilize
• New in Google Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing  and Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision?
• Google Releases Gmail for iOS…then pulls it
• HTML5 and a great site with demos called,”HTML ROCKS”
• Square’s Card Case iOS App Adds Support For Hands-Free Payments, Twitter Integration For Merchants
• Groupon IPO 
• Mary Meeker’s State of the Internet
• Kidblog; Minnov8 Gang podcast with the co-founder; Graeme’s video with key folks about hitting 1M users

Upcoming Events:

• Friday, November 4th (weekly): Frontend Masters Workshop Series
• November 8-10: Defrag (Denver & MN startups going include: Zingstring, AsystMe, TST Media, KidBlog, FanChatter… enStratus is a sponsor)
• November 8-10: JAMF Software National User Conference 2011 @Guthrie Theater
• Wednesday, November 9th: Hacks/Hackers Twin Cities – “Newsrooms, Open Source, and the Maker Culture”
• Saturday, November 12th: ProductCamp Minnesota 3
• Saturday, November 12th: Code Slingers Challenge 
• Tuesday, November 15th: Mobile Twin Cities

Minnov8 Gang 144 – Smartphones & SmartScooters? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off).
Music: “Leave This Town” by Jake Lear via Music Alley.

DISCUSSED DURING THE SHOW:

• The launch of three local news apps for the iPad in one week: St. Paul Pioneer Press, StarTribune & WCCO
• Lots of Android tablets (shown at CES…not yet all shipped) and Ars Technica explains Android Fragmentation

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Sunday, August 22nd, Noon-4pm MinneBar-B-Cue
• Friday, August 26th, 8am, SMBMSP: Social SEO with Lee Odden
• Thursday, September 8th, 5-7pm, MN Cup 2011 Final Awards Event, U of M McNamara Center (NOTE: the finalists in six divisions to be named August 19th)

The Minnov8 Gang will off the next two Friday’s and back on Friday, September 2nd with an all new show!

Minnov8 Gang 135 – Take a Tablet is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: “Draggin’ Down” by Angie & the Car Wrecks via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Tough start for Best Buy Music Cloud (also here & link to Best Buy’s Music Cloud)
• Best Buy to Downsize Brick-n-Mortar Footprint
• Apple, Android Users Diverge on Wifi Usage…But Why?
• SEC’s Final Rules on Venture Capital Exemption
• HP TouchPad & CRN regarding pre-order problems
• Mpls-StPaul Business Journal “Brand Madness” article & the one on Latvians Arrested for StarTribune Virus-Ad Scam
• Steve Jobs WWDC 1997 Closing Keynote

Minnov8 Gang 128 – Cloud Money is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week hosting a panel discussion at the fabulous Social Media Breakfast, Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP)).

Music: “Angel of Mercy” by Guitar Jack via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Apple causes ‘religious’ reaction in brains of fans, say neuroscientists
• VISI’s: $10 million dollar expansion in Eden Prairie;  ReliaCloud offering; parent TDS
• LinkedIn Closes At $94 Per Share, With $8.9 Billion Market Cap
  • LinkedIn’s “Pop” on First Day of Trading (article at LATimes) (For comparison, here’s a local angle: In 1995 Secure Computing (then headquartered in MN & now part of McAfee) had a 274% first-day IPO gain)
• Apple Cloud Service (rumors)
  • Apple One Signature Away From Cloud Music Service
  • Apple’s cloud patent (article at AppleInsider)
  • Sony is latest label to sign up for Apple’s iCloud
  • How Apple Plans To Make Cloud-Based iTunes A Seamless Experience
• Earthquakes in the Midwest
• Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books
• The uber-sexy Olympus LS-20 which will do both HD audio and HD video
• That Minnesota company in water Graeme mentioned is Pentair (article at Wikipedia; press release on recent acquisition)

Minnov8 Gang 124 – No Rain in This Cloud is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

With all of the hoopla surrounding Microsoft buying Skype, Facebook hiring a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google, and the Google I/O conference releasing a lot of new opportunities with their platform technologies, it’s pretty clear that the ‘table stakes’ to be in the internet/web game are rising…quickly.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: “Straight To The Light” by Alex is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0).

Discussed during the show:

• Microsoft buys Skype and a Reuters article on how investor/analyst reactions
• Google I/O developer conference. Visit their announcement archive here. Some interesting articles reacting to these announcements:
  • Microsoft could lose billion’s in sales to Google’s Chromebook
  • Google Would Like To Wirelessly Control Your Lightbulbs With Android@Home
  • Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable
  • A fun video by Best Buy CTO, Robert Stephens, recapping the conference
• Facebook Plants Fake Stories about Google
• The Minnesota Cup
• The Internet of Things
• Upcoming Events:
  • May 13: MIMA “iOS Strategy, Design, and Development Workshops” (what, SOLD OUT?)
  • Friday May 20th. SMBMSP Social Media and Higher Education. Moderated by Phil Wilson
  • Friday, May 20th – Saturday, May 21st: DrupalCamp
  • Thursday, May 26th: WordPressMSP Meeting

Minnov8 Gang 123 – The ‘Table Stakes’ are Rising is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Minnov8 Gang 120 – Is the Cloud our Idol? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Tim Elliott (Phil is off this week).
Guest Host: Julio Ojeda-Zapata
Music by: Charlie Crowe and the song, “Vegas Hard Rock Shuffle” from the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Graeme’s DEMO adventure
  • Interview with Lief Larson and Tanner Thompson from Minnesota-based Workface
  • PhotoRocket
• Unemployment dips to 8.9 pct., 192K jobs added
• Apple iPad2
  • John Gruber’s thoughts on iPad2
  • Engadget editorial about the “post-PC” era
  • Wall Street Journal: Tablet Computer Demand Putting a Dent in PC Sales
  • iPad 2 wasn’t Apple’s big March 2nd announcement (via Beta News)
• Malware hits Android – Google Pulls 21 Apps
• Publishing discussion:
  • Wildly successful Austin, MN-based indie writer Amanda Hocking (article; blog). USA Today reports that her sales have exceeded $450k for the month of January 2011 alone.
  • Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite
  • Drupal distribution called “Open Publish”

• Upcoming Events:
  • Saturday, March 19th: MOBILE MARCH New part of this years mobile event…Mobile 3D (Note: Only a few tickets remain!)
  • Wednesday, March 23rd: Cloudcamp MSP
  • Thursday, March 24th: MSP WordPress User Group meeting
  • Saturday, March 26th: Overnight Website Challenge
  • Monday, April 11th: MinneWebCon

Minnov8 Gang 113 – Facetime Fever Flabbergasts? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Opening version of the New Year’s Eve favorite Auld Lang Syne was performed by J.E.L.L.i., and the closing version of the song was performed by Mario Ajero. Both made possible by the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• The Year in Review: Mobile Technology… The Rise of Apps, iPad, and Android
• Semantic Web
• Internet of Things
• Compellent’s sale could boost tech ecosystem
• Small Companies Look to Cloud for Savings in 2011 (WSJ)
• DemandMedia
• I, Cringely

Minnov8 Gang 105 – 2011 Tech Predictions is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Dom Duff & the song “March Azur” via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• iPad means business
  • How to buy
  • To win a copy of “iPad means business”, email steve@minnov8.com with the code word we mentioned in the podcast. We will draw a name at random and announce the winner on Monday on Minnov8
  • “iPads Are Latest Weapon in Medical Sales” (Medtronic is one of the biggest corporate buyers)
  • One way Graeme uses his iPad
  • Apple’s iPad Luring Small Businesses
• Don Ball links: CoCoMSP; Network 2010; pariSoma; iPass; SoCoCo (Graeme’s interview at DEMO); James J. Hill Library and that incubator article in StarTribune.
• CrashPlan
• All social media experts “are actually the same person,” Wikileaks documents reveal

Minnov8 Gang 104 – We Are All Virtual Now is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Kahuna Kawentzmann & the song “Late Bird” via the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Google Zeitgeist and this YouTube video about it
• StarTrib story on Dell’s bid for Compellent and this one in TCBusiness Journal
• Social Media Titans winners
• Graeme’s post about Gazaro Protect
• Visi/ReliaCloud Links:
  • News Release on TDS Communications Acquiring VISI
  • Explanation of Data Centers and the Tiers
  • ReliaCloud comparison of their offering vs. Amazon and Rackspace
  • A cool, virtual walk-through of their Eden Prairie Tier III data center
• Split Rock Partners
• Springpad app
• Upcoming Events:
  • Dec. 15th: MIMA’S “Chrismahanukwanzakah” Holiday Party
  • Dec. 17th: SMBMSP #32: Social Event Planning
  • Dec 20th: SMBMSP Holiday Tweetup

Minnov8 Gang 103 – Surfin’ the Cloud is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Clintone and the song “Full Circle” via the podsafe music network Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

Minnov8 Gang 87: More Buzz About Mobile is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions.

At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.

CloudCamp MSP Liveblog is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

One of the key players there is Jonathan Zittrain, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and a guy who served as its first executive director from 1997-2000. He’s also the author of “The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It“.

I came across a 1.5 hour talk called “Minds for Sale” on the commercial side of cloud computing that was posted a few days ago and I’ve been listening to it in starts-n-stops whenever I had some time. It’s worth your time to listen to it closely if you are at all involved in commercial cloud computing, a startup in the web hosted space, or are a strategist or business leader in any thought leading capacity for your organization. In it you’ll hear “…why cloud computing is not just for computing anymore and how a new range of projects is making the application of human brainpower as purchasable and fungible as additional server rackspace.”

Listen by hovering over the speaker icon or download the mp3: Minds for Sale

Jonathan Zittrain on Minds for Sale is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

ReliaCloud, the new service from Visi that offers small-to-medium-sized enterprises cloud computing servers and storage space, has announced a new partnership with enStratus, a national cloud management platform that delivers governance for enterprise applications in the cloud. As they state in their press release about the “2+2=12″ aspects of this alliance, “Together ReliaCloud and enStratus offer companies a seamless, manageable cloud computing service. The two organizations are also joining forces to sponsor 2010 CloudCamp events and an April 7, 2010, webinar to educate information technology professionals about the business advantages of using cloud computing.”

Right here in our backyard we have both a strong cloud computing server infrastructure player (and ReliaCloud will also soon be offering storage as well) and a world-class cloud server management offering (enStratus) that offers such powerful tools that they’re used on the Amazon Web Services, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure platforms.

ReliaCloud & enStratus Form Partnership is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

We also discuss the Flash and iPad/iPhone controversy, Comcast bandwidth metering, upcoming events and more.

This Week’s Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week)
Music by The Birdinumnums and the tune is “Thirteen Steps”. From the podsafe music network Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

• Cloud Computing links:
  • Google backup articles from Lifehacker, Webmonkey, Labnol
  • Virtual container company: Jumpbox
  • Funny take from “Shouts from the Abyss” called, “The Great WordPress Outage of 2010“
  • Comcast Bandwidth Metering in the Twin Cities
  • Upcoming Event: CloudcampMSP
• Flash and the iPad/iPhone controversy:
  • New York Times article about no Flash on the iPad
  • Steve’s post about a personal Flash video test
  • Article about Adobe blocking HTML5 specification from supporting Flash
  • AppleInsider’s post entitled, “Inside Apple’s iPad: Adobe Flash“. It’s a three page article so be sure to read all the pages
  • An Adobe Flash developer on why the iPad can’t use Flash
• Other links:
  • Doc Searls (@docsearls)
  • Maverick Beach south of San Francisco and this awesome video of a surfer
  • Events:
    • MIMA’s March soiree at the Fine Line
    • Mobile March
    • Overnight Website Challenge
    • MinneWebCon

Minnov8 Gang 68: Falling Through the Cloud? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

And that was just the schmoozing part! 

There were lots of live demos going on in the theater adjoining, if you could squeeze yourself in there:

1. ArtsApp – like Monster.com for artists to submit multimedia (Dejen Tesfagiorgis)
2. ReliaCloud – a cloud computing platform that allows people to build scalable computing infrastructure on demand (Jason Baker, VISI)
3. Pedal Brain – advanced cycle computer based on the iPhone platform combined with web-based data analysis (Matt Bauer)
4. MinuteBids – an online bidding platform that makes it easy for property managers/owners to request and get bids for their property maintenance needs from top rated service providers (Jon Coudron)
5. Pedair – a many-to-many market place for people who love bikes (Andrew Korf)
6. MobileRealtyApps.com – Custom branded MLS home search apps for realtors on iPhone and Android (Aaron Kardell)
7. MileMarker - helps organizations capture ideas and prioritize them, making it easier to understand what to work on first (Bill Galfano)
8. Live Information Manager for Business – connects employees of an organization to their data and each other from anywhere in the world, all from within a single workspace (Roger Peters)
9. Mobile Roots – customized iPhone applications for campaigns (Lynn Smith)
10. WebSlide – provides you and your clients with a private, secure, easy-to-use system for uploading, sharing, and collaborating on designs without ever leaving your browser (Paul Armstrong)

Kudos to Luke Francl, Ben Edwards, and their team of volunteers for pulling off another great Minnedemo!  And a shout-out and huge thanks to the sponsors this time:

• TECHdotMN
• ipHouse
• W3i
• Livefront
• Split Rock Partners
• New Counsel

MN Tech Rocks – Last Night Was Proof is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Hosts: This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Midnight Music Quartet and the tune is, “Sweet Lorraine”.

About George Reese (@GeorgeReese):  George Reese is the founder of two Minneapolis-based companies, enStratus Networks LLC (maker of high-end cloud infrastructure management tools) and Valtira LLC (maker of the Valtira Online Marketing Platform). Over the past 15 years, George has authored a number of technology books, including MySQL Pocket Reference, Database Programming with JDBC and Java, Java Database Best Practices, and Cloud Application Architectures.

Throughout the Internet era, George has spent his career building enterprise tools for developers and delivering solutions to the marketing domain. He was an influential force in the evolution of online gaming through the creation of a number of Open Source MUD libraries and he created the first JDBC driver in 1996—the Open Source mSQL-JDBC. Most recently, George has been involved in the development of systems to support the deployment of transactional web applications in the cloud.

George holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife Monique and his daughters Kyra and Lindsey.

Discussed during the show notes:

• CloudCamp Minneapolis 2 on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at Microsoft office in Bloomington, MN.
• Visi’s Reliacloud
• Jumpbox
• Dasein Cloud and OCCI
• Apple data center in North Carolina
• ProgrammableWeb
• Apps.gov
• Alvenda.

Minnov8 Gang 63: A Conversation on Cloud Computing is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The first offering, dubbed “Cloud Servers,” allows business users to establish an account online. They can then quickly and easily set up one or more computer servers that run in one of  VISI’s data centers and are accessible to them and their users “in the cloud” — meaning via any Internet browser anywhere in the world.  Customers of the service thereby avoid the expense and work of having to purchase and maintain their own computers servers at their own site.  ”It’s a pay-as-you-go model,” said Gary Elfert, director of marketing at VISI, which is headquartered in Eden Prairie and has its original data center in downtown St. Paul. The pricing model for these Cloud Servers is by the hour, starting at 5 cents.

Why would anyone be crazy enough to enter a market that is already dominated by notable heavyweights like Amazon?  “Though there are some large players already in the public cloud computing marketplace, it’s still a nascent business, and a rapidly growing one,” said Antonio Piraino, Research Director at Tier 1 Research, in VISI’s press announcement.  “There’s certainly room for a competitive offering such as ReliaCloud.” His firm has projected that cloud computing services will be a $1-billion market in 2011.

A local observer sees another reason a public cloud offering from VISI has a place. “It’s no secret IT directors and CEOs like knowing where their company data actually is located, which can be almost impossible with the big players’ globally dispersed data center operations,” said Graeme Thickins, a Bloomington-based technology startup advisor, who has been a consultant to VISI and is a colleague here at Minnov8. “And beyond just peace of mind, firms in many industries have compliance requirements whereby they must prove in which state or country their data resides.” With both its data centers being in Minnesota, that is not an issue for VISI’s cloud customers. And many firms in the region will also prefer working with a firm they know, he said, with people they know, and a long history of stability here in Minnesota.

What’s more, Jason Baker, CTO of VISI, added another differentiator in the company’s press announcement: “We specifically designed the new cloud service to be more reliable than the commodity providers in the market.” He also noted that “we didn’t want customers to have to re-architect their solutions just to work reliably in the cloud.”  Other goals in designing the service, said Baker, were elasticity and affordability. “We wanted customers to be able to scale from 10 servers to 100 servers, and back down again.” Regarding affordability, he said, “We made our pricing transparent and competitive — with a slick web management portal, high availability, load balancing, 24x7x365 support, and a complete API.”

VISI said the service is targeted both to IT managers in established, small to midsized firms, and to startup firms that want to take advantage of the significant economic benefits provided by running their servers and applications in the cloud.  Business users apply to be beta testers for the ReliaCloud service by filling out a one-page form at  the ReliaCloud web site.  Over time, the ReliaCloud brand will encompass a suite of cloud computing services, with “Cloud Storage” expected to be introduced in 2010. In the meantime, ReliaCloud “Cloud Servers” are complete computing environments that users can provision 24 hours-a-day, with full administrator access.

Founded in 1994, VISI is the Upper Midwest’s largest locally owned data center services and managed hosting provider, offering cloud computing, colocation, and managed hosting services.  VISI serves 10,000 customers with products and services provided through its two world-class SAS 70 Type II data centers, in St. Paul and Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  The company provides a full range of robust Web and application hosting services, first-rate Internet services and support, and personal, expert advice.

In another press release last week, VISI announced a cloud storage offering unrelated to its new ReliaCloud brand.  This service, part of its main VISI.com hosting service offerings, is a pay-as-you-go cloud offering geared for business customers whose need for storage is increasing, but can’t justify the capital necessary to expand their storage pool. With VISI Cloud Storage, there’s no need to buy new storage hardware. The new cloud storage service is “an elastic, pay-as-you go service, meaning businesses pay only for the storage and data transfer actually used,” said the announcement.  Pricing starts out at $0.25 per gigabyte per month, with no minimums or monthly contracts, “making it ideal for temporary storage requirements as well as off-site storage, backup, disaster recovery, and Web 2.0 storage.”

VISI’s Elfert said, “This initial cloud storage product is not an entirely pure ‘cloud’ service, by the strictest definition. However, it does have many benefits for companies such as per-hour pricing, no term commitments, and the ability to scale on-demand.” He added that the company expects to launch a 100% pure cloud storage offering under the ReliaCloud name soon, perhaps before the end of first quarter 2010.

Twin Cities Firm Joins Ranks of Public Cloud Computing Providers is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Straight 8′s and the tune is, “Ann Bowman”

Discussed during the show:

• StarTribune article on Minnesota venture capital
• Don Ball’s post An Embarrassment of Hidden Talent about impressions from the recent MIMA holiday party
• Zipnosis
• Morgan Stanley Mobile Internet Market report, recapped nicely in this post by ReadWriteWeb (Bonus: this Forbes article on the “no brainer” investment potential in mobile
• Visi’s ReliaCloud and the comparison
• Others mentioned during the cloud computing discussion: Enstratus; Jumpbox; and Subversion used by Tim Elliott with his various installations
• Mobile discussion included MotherApp; 100,000 iPhone apps post by Steve; WebDesignerDepot post on 40 Awesome iPhone Application Websites; publisher O’Reilly & Associates Best iPhone Apps website.

Minnov8 Gang 61: Mobile & the Groovy Kids is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The seminar featured talks by Mike Sowada, CEO of Visi, shown here on stage. (Photo courtesy of Charles Robinson.) Visi is the state’s largest Internet services and hosting firm, with data centers in both St. Paul and Eden Prairie.  A talk followed entitled ”Cloud Computing as a Business Advantage” by Chris Howard, a VP at analyst/research firm Burton Group.  Jason Baker, CTO of Visi, wrapped up the event by presenting the first details of his firm’s new ReliaCloud offering, which included a live, online demo by product manager Johnny Hatch that came off flawlessly. I captured a few of the key slides for you…

The suite of ReliaCloud services starts with the obvious one called “Cloud Server,”and Visi tells me they have already signed up more than 100 qualified beta testers for the public beta of this service, now underway. There is no cost to be a beta tester, and you can sign up here. The demo made it very clear that no special knowledge is required to quickly “spin up up a server” in the cloud. Visi’s cloud service is clearly being positioned not just for IT professionals, but for business users as well. And the firm is targeting organizations of all sizes — large enterprises, midsized companies (Visi’s sweet spot), and certainly startups as well.  Cloud computing is, of course, especially a favored choice of the latter, with their minimal IT budgets.

So, Why Would a Company Choose a Regional Player Like Visi as Its Cloud Computing Provider?

The obvious advantage for Visi that I heard attendees discussing following the presentations — as compared to the large cloud players such as Amazon EC2 and Rackspace — is the peace of mind that many firms will have in knowing where their servers and data are actually located. That is, the “comfort factor” that it’s all nearby — not in some unknown location that could be on the other side of the world. Also, more responsive, local customer support — including live, 24/7 online chat that Visi will offer — will have appeal to many firms, as opposed to the big national or global players, which have support that’s largely self-service or provided only by email.

CTO Jason Baker said that the second service to be offered in the ReliaCloud suite will be “Cloud Storage,” and that pricing for that would be by Gigabyte, and highly competitive. Watch for that announcement soon — in November, I gathered.  I also learned, after the event, that the ReliaCloud service is not even officially public yet on the Visi.com web site.  But a new site — www.ReliaCloud.com — will be going live in November. In the meantime, you can start reading more at Visi’s blog, including a brief recap of the October 21st seminar, complete with PDF downloads of the slide presentations.  You can also check out other blog posts there that chronicle the ongoing construction process at Visi’s new data center in Eden Prairie — including some cool time-lapse photography — a facility that CEO Mike Sowada told me he expects to be fully up and running in December. Financing for the project took well over a year, Sowada said — “a process that would have taken three days in previous years.”

A final note: to get ongoing updates on Visi’s new ReliaCloud services, you can start following along at special new Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as a new ReliaCloud blog.

Visi Launches ‘ReliaCloud’ Services to Packed House is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.