[SDBUG] Free Server Installation

[Joseph A. Kitzman]

Sounds interesting.

My initial feedback would be to ditch the picture of a server at the top of
your webpage, align and shape up those navigation buttons some how, and make
yourself a real logo... Times New Roman for your logo isn't very memorable.

Next thing... are you completely aware of the nightmare you're making for
yourself working on hardware that the customer provides?  Do yourself a
favor, if you want them to foot the entire bill for the hardware, then give
them one or two options at Dell.  Build out a profile for an entry level
server, and then one for an enterprise level server.  Keep their hardware
uniform, and make sure it's all compatible with your driver kit.  You are
absolutely going to regret it if you have to do such large scale installs on
customer provided hardware... face it, business owners are cheap skates.
They'll make you piece something together from parts and it'll break 6
months later, assuming it even works in the first place.  A bad DIMM or a
bent pin will quadruple your install time.

The services you're offering, even with automated scripts and pre-compiled
configs, are going to take time to do.  It won't be as simple as Ghosting a
machine and selling it to them turn-key style.  "Flexible and feature rich"
takes time, a LOT of it.  I could see your guys spending an entire day on
the phone with the customer's DSL provider trying to get them connectivity,
things like that.  Is your team going to be able to spend a week+ setting up
each customer AND also be available to maintain what you've already put into
place?

Free install isn't going to pay the bills, so make sure they understand that
if they want your team to maintain their setup, it's going to require a
service contract with your company.  Without a service contract, you're
never going to make any real money.  You might break even, but I've seen
this before, nickel and diming an hour here and an hour there isn't going to
turn a profit.  Also, make sure you have a lawyer draft up your service
contract.. this goes back to the business owners are cheap skates comment.

Lastly, form a Limited Liability Corporation for this project.... just in
case things ever get legal.

-Joseph

P.S. Put Google Adwords on your webpage or something so you can at least
make a few bucks.  There's no such thing as a free lunch.




-----Original Message-----
From: sdbug-bounces at sdbug.org [mailto:sdbug-bounces at sdbug.org] On Behalf Of
Metin Pasaoglu
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:13 PM
To: sdbug at sdbug.org
Subject: [SDBUG] Free Server Installation

Hi to all,

I know that everyone here can install their own servers, but I would 
like to share one project with you. I have a project named Free Server 
Installation.

You can check the details from the web site:

We have two all-in-one server for installation now:
1. Security Gateway (Firewall, Proxy, VPN server, etc)
2. Business Server (Email server, Domain Controller, File server, Print 
Server, etc)

For details, visit our site: http://www.freeserverinstallation.com

We've just started to announce this, if you like the idea, could you 
please inform the people around you about this project.

Also I would like to hear all feedbacks about the project, it could be 
positive or negative :) I'm open to any ideas.

No need to tell about the software we use, of course open source :)


Best Regards,
Metin Pasaoglu


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