The End of a Bryght Era
created on Tue, 2009-04-07 16:37
In November of 2007, Raincity Studios struck a deal to acquire, Bryght, the pioneering Drupal hosting solutions company. By combining the Raincity Studios development and design team with the hosting expertise of the folks at Bryght, we hoped to provide comprehensive online solutions to a range of clients. The last year and half has been a great learning experience, however it is with regret that today we must announce that effective April 30th, 2009 Bryght hosted services will be phased out with a plan to be closed completely by May 29, 2009.
Over the past five years, Bryght and Raincity Studios have forged many wonderful and productive relationships with partners and clients around the world. We pride ourselves in being able to create mutually beneficial partnerships. As two companies that emerged at the same time and grew up together in Vancouver, we have had no relationship more meaningful than that with Bryght. The shared vision and complementary personalities of the two companies made for a excellent fit and we believe the cooperative efforts produced great results.
Bryght ideas, ahead of their time
Bryght was an early player in helping to build the Web 2.0 industry and one of the first group of people to put Drupal publishing tools in the hands of the untrained public (a scary prospect at the time). As the first commercial venture in the Drupal world, Bryght paved the way for all sorts of individuals who earn a living today using Drupal. As early innovators and active contributors to the Drupal community, the team at Bryght worked tirelessly to develop the Hostmaster module and Aegir hosting system giving site administrators tools to help manage multiple sites and rapidly deploy new site installations. Their services, Bryght VPS and Bryght Light, released in 2005 were the first hosted Drupal offerings and made signing up for a turn-key Drupal website simple and effortless for the end user.
Over the past year as we worked to improve our offering by relaunching Bryght.com, and adding new languages (French and Chinese), and upgrading our servers and technology, it became apparent to us that in order to offer competitive pricing and the best possible service to our clients, hosting must be carried out on a scale that is beyond our current capacity and in turn we could not provide you with the level of service that we would expect from anyone else.
In the midst of an economic downturn we recognize the importance of keeping our company agile and innovative. At the moment, we want to focus on doing what we're best at: developing and delivering innovative applications and software solutions to power online communities.
Adrian Rossouw, the architect and father of Aegir, is now part of the great team at developmentseed.org. Together they are committed to continue the effort that he and Bryght put forth over the years. Combined with their internal projects, Context and Spaces, we feel this is a great use of Adrian's talents and opens new options to the technology we helped develop.
We also want to wish the best to our "coopetitors" in the hosting market, especially those offering turn-key hosted Drupal solutions, such as Acquia Gardens and Fields, Lullabot (with their forthcoming and still unnamed entry into the market) and Work Habit’s Elastic2. We recognize that the continued success of these companies is good for everyone in the community and industry.
Existing Bryght Customers
For our existing Bryght Light and Bryght VPS customers, we thank-you for your business and want you to know that we are committed to making sure your transition to a new hosting provider will be as smooth and painless as possible. We've partnered with hosting providers Rackspace and Slicehost and will be able to offer you competitive affiliate pricing as well as facilitate the migration of your site to its new home. Depending on the traffic your site is receiving, we can find the best solution for your needs. As a Bryght customer, you will receive more information by email today.
If you have any questions at all, please contact us at transition@bryght.com
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Many thanks for all your efforts
"it became apparent to us that ... hosting must be carried out on a scale that is beyond our current capacity and in turn we could not provide you with the level of service that we would expect from anyone else. ... "In the midst of an economic downturn we recognize the importance of keeping our company agile and innovative. At the moment, we want to focus on doing what we're best at"
I think it takes a lot of guts to make a decision like this and it is excellent and inspiring wisdom. Any business should try to focus on their "core competancies" and leverage the resources they have to best effect--rather than being pulled into areas that others are better equipped for. The current climate doesn't change this this, but it certainly brings it into sharper focus.
Among many, I am really grateful for all the tools and inspiration you've provided for others working with Drupal. I wish you the smoothest possible transition, and every success in the future.
lack of foresight
It's very horrible that you are turning your back on the people that have trusted in the Bryght platform.
The people that decide to buy out, take over, and otherwise ruin a good -- excellent-- out fit should be hiding with a high level a shame. I am glad I did not get involved,, I almost did.
I am sorry to see you run and hide.. It's really a shame..
However, The people in this world are getting used to seeing companies that have been taken over only to sell out or shut down when things get a little hard to handle. It is a $corporate $mentality that is trashing our world to the core.
It is the small innovative companies and people that really make a huge difference..
We will all miss everything you have done and the contributions that you have provided before the big mistake took place,,
Thanks for being one of the innovators from the past-- we all learned a lot from your efforts.
VPS hosting woes
Bryght, I have a colleague that used your services for many years and they loved it. Too bad you are shutting down. I understand that specialized VPS hosting is getting harder to run since there are so many cheap VPS hosting plans available and even shared web hosting that have fantastico deluxe installers is making it easy for entry level site operators to install and run Drupal.
A combination of technology evolving and becoming more user friendly and “dumbing down” of software is pulling the Internet onto a new course. I hope that there will be a place for hosting companies that choose to specialize in content platforms such as Drupal, while proving services such as VPS hosting or even shared web hosting with custom Drupal solutions.
ts really tragic to see how
ts really tragic to see how this economy is forcing the hand of many businesses to cut back services offered and in some cases entire departments or divisions. I do think its admirable that you guys have found sort of a middle ground to ease the transition by partnering with a more abled hosting provider to ensure that your existing customers can still take advantage of competitive pricing as you phase out your own hosting solution. I hope this move works out for the best.
All good things come to an
All good things come to an end I suppose. Rackspace has been taking over for a few companies as of late. We had our hosted exchange with mailtrust. They too were recently gobbled up. So far though other than a name change on the bill we really haven't noticed much of a difference. Seems like rackspace goes out of its way to make transitions such as these smooth for the customer.