Sarah let us know that Qlusters had “bitten the dust” after we mentioned the company in relation to Groundwork OpenSource last week. Thank you, Sarah!
What are the signs that a systems management company is going out of business?
a) they abandon their open source project, which was supposedly tied to their commercially supported version
b) they switch CEOs very very quietly
c) they are an “open source” company trying to actually make money (via paying customers, not VC)
d) all of the above
Amazingly, Qlusters blew through $34 million of capital, the last $10 million just in the past year. If you remember, these are the guys who were first proprietary software, then decided to go open source, then tried to figure out a revenue model off of open source plus relaunched proprietary software. Phew. In the same year (2006), they said they didn’t compete with the Big 4, just integrated with them, and then said they in fact did compete with the Big 4. Very confusing externally – wonder what it was like internally…
Does Qlusters going out of business put more pressure on the other open source systems management players to prove they can actually make it as a business? To prove that their business model can actually make money? To prove to their VCs that there will be a return on all those millions that were invested?
Can someone tell the Open Management Consortium?
Actually, now I’m wondering why this hasn’t been reported more in the media. Just called the company main line and support line and got recordings to leave a message. Hmm. When do you know that a company is officially dead??
