Steadfast + TCAdmin

[JasonF]

Steadfast is now offering TCAdmin installed on their dedicated servers for $10/month. That I know of that is the first data center to offer that. It will pull from their master server and includes all of the game server files. They are offering the data center install which allows for reselling.

 

http://steadfast.net/services/dedicated.basic.php - Listed on the bottom of the page

 

http://steadfast.net/services/game.php - details

[leetservers]

That is funny!!

 

-Bobby

[jbiloh]

I think Bobby likes our Chicago network

[Defcon|Rich]

Not really news... Steadfast doesn't own a datacenter, They rent cage space from a datacenter which a few of us have been doing for years now and offering much better deals to boot

 

 

.

[qwidjib0]

Not really news... Steadfast doesn't own a datacenter, They rent cage space from a datacenter which a few of us have been doing for years now and offering much better deals to boot

.

 

Actually they have a 2,000 sq. foot cage and an 8,000 sq. foot private suite now at 350 Cermak which are direct with Digital Realty Trust (though the new suite is still mostly empty, they play a lot of Wii in there). It's true that they don't own the building- most of the nation's data center space is owned by people like DRT and CRG West.

 

I suppose you could say that they don't own a data center, but if so, you'd also need to say the same thing about SoftLayer (who rents their space from the Infomart in Dallas), LayredTech (who rents from Savvis/Databank), FastServers (who rents from the same place we started out - Team Technologies - as well as Switch and Data in Chicago, who I believe is renting from somebody else there), Equinix (who rents from the same people that Karl does in Chicago and by someone else in just about every market), and the majority of all people that advertise having their own data centers. I think most have adopted the mentality that it's good to be at a region's IP hub, at minimum with a network POP.

[Defcon|Rich]

Good points and very true. It's becoming a gray area of sorts.

 

Brings back memories though, back in the day we had space at the switch and data facility in Detroit until cogent took over which is a whole other mess

[qwidjib0]

Very true, the veil of the internet is pretty thick.

 

You have to love what Cogent has done to the bandwidth market though, remember when Internap started at $250/Mbit?

[Defcon|Rich]

Ahh yes, Back in the good old days when gamers lined up to pay $50/mo for a 12 slot server and never complained

 

I used to speak to Bill Cheng over at Ilan quite a bit back then around 2001-2002. They had 100mbit commits to Inter/nap then Peer1 later on. Thinking about it now it blows my mind if you consider at the time you could almost fill a rack and allocate 10megs to it and not worry about going over..

[adamnp]

stop, your making me feel old

[Defcon|Rich]

stop, your making me feel old

 

 

[KarlZimm]

That is funny!!

 

-Bobby

 

Just wondering, what exactly is funny?

[Defcon|Rich]

Now THAT's funny

 

 

Long time no see Karl!

[KarlZimm]

Now THAT's funny

 

 

Long time no see Karl!

 

Hmmm, I get the fealing I'm missing something....

 

I figured that since we offer TCAdmin now I might as well check out this forum once in awhile... :-)

[Defcon|Rich]

Nope, not missing anything but I suppose a welcome aboard is in order since your here

[JasonF]

Welcome Karl.

[Brandon]

You may want to remove this text from your 'Game Servers' section now "To add your company or change a listing please send an email from an authorized contact on your account to sales@steadfast.net with the subject: Game Server/Voice Service Provider Database.".

 

And everyone is laughing because you are treading in their territory. It's never good to compete with your customers. Look at the track record (insomnia365) and (layeredx), both are gone. I think you had maybe 30 game customer sites listed on your website before.

 

Anyway best of luck.

[JasonF]

The reason Insomnia365 died was they had 2 developers making roughly $40,000-$60,000 each but only had 280 customers in the game server department. It did not make sense for TP to continue to pay someone to actively develop their control panel when they were losing money.

 

edited - forgot to mention the brainchild of Cortex was Lance who is now at SL.

[Creed3020]

The reason Insomnia365 died was they had 2 developers making roughly $40,000-$60,000 each but only had 280 customers in the game server department. It did not make sense for TP to continue to pay someone to actively develop their control panel when they were losing money.

 

edited - forgot to mention the brainchild of Cortex was Lance who is now at SL.

 

Don't forget to mention that Kevin was a public relations guru and helped to fix more than a couple of issues. Last I spoke to him he was at SL aswell...

[Brandon]

Regardless they were also competing with their customers. They may not be competing in the 'shared' arena but there are many game providers that offer dedicated machines for game hosting. I'm sure if they would have gone through the list of their game customers that were listed, more than half of them are offering dedicated servers for game customers. This doesn't really affect my business but it may affect their other customers businesses.

 

Again I wish them luck with this addition.

[leetservers]

Just wondering, what exactly is funny?

 

 

Well, out of respect for Kevin I didn't want to explain myself in that reply.

 

Now that Brandon opened that can of worms I guess I can reply...)

 

Karl, You have MANY GSP's there reselling TCA. Now they are competing with you. When The planet did I365, We pulled over 20 boxes out of there. I have a funny feeling that many of the same guys are going to start pulling boxes from SF. And I don't blame them. I'd do the same thing. The GSP's paid you alot of money over years and this is how you treat them? I guess it's all about the almighty dollar over there at SF. The RIGHT thing to do Karl is have a page on your site listing the GSP's at SF that offer TCA.

 

=bobby

[Jdubz31]

Well, out of respect for Kevin I didn't want to explain myself in that reply.

 

Now that Brandon opened that can of worms I guess I can reply...)

 

Karl, You have MANY GSP's there reselling TCA. Now they are competing with you. When The planet did I365, We pulled over 20 boxes out of there. I have a funny feeling that many of the same guys are going to start pulling boxes from SF. And I don't blame them. I'd do the same thing. The GSP's paid you alot of money over years and this is how you treat them? I guess it's all about the almighty dollar over there at SF. The RIGHT thing to do Karl is have a page on your site listing the GSP's at SF that offer TCA.

 

=bobby

 

Bobby,

You make an excellent point, but why not jump on the other side of the fence a little bit, and reason things out.

 

Any customer could purchase a box from Steadfast, and pay TCAdmin for a master server license, and have TCadmin install it. However, that client would have been a very intelligent one at that, to have already known the platform and control panel that he/she wanted. Karl is simply offering a webhosting panel, much like every webhosting panel out there. For this example I will use cpanel since it's fairly popular and well known. Karl provides the license to a lot of his clients, and they choose to purchase from him, rather than from Cpanel direct as it's cheaper. However, they only support the product running, and do not provide end user support for a 3rd party script that you may install on your website.

 

It's somewhat the same concept here. If an advanced user knows what he/she is doing, and prefers to go Datacenter direct, that should be ok. However, he/she will encounter problems that Steadfast may choose not to support, or that Steadfast may not have seen before or know how to fix. (Game Related --- Not trying to step on your toes Karl) Therefore, just because it offers competition, it's not on the same level as your product offerings. GSPs provide dedicated servers with comprehensive support (Game Server Experts) down to each game server installation normally, which holds value in itself, and should still be worth enough in the consumers eye to purchase from you seeing that most are new to the dedicated market, in which case they probably won't know about Karl's offerings.

 

Plus, I'm not sure on Steadfast's licensing model with TCAdmin, but it may be cheaper for some of the GSPs to purchase their licenses through SF. While I myself prefer going TCAdmin direct, the $5.95 savings / month / per machine may be worthwhile for some companies. In short, maybe clarification from Karl on their intentions of support with TCAdmin would be helpful. If it's just a default installation, possibly a disclaimer his webpage with the links to GSPs that provide white glove game server support should be recommended if you do not know how to manage game servers. That would likely lift a burden of children from Karl's shoulders at the same time!

[JasonF]

I think you guys have a lot of assumptions that Steadfast is primarily going to compete with GSPs.

 

What if GSPs rented out these game server boxes and resold them? The server files are already supplied and they do not need a master server to suck up bandwidth so that means less work and expenses for the GSP.

[leetservers]

Jdubz,

 

The Cpanel comparison does not hold water. You get CP/WHM and you still need to cfg it etc. IF SF were just selling master/remotes of TCA than yes its the same but they are selling the whole nine yards. I'm not at SF so it don't affect me, If I had some boxes there I'd be gone so fast it would make your head spin. If a GSP is there now and they don't leave they should have thier head examined.

 

I kind of feel bad for the GSP's there now. now a potential customer is going to price check the GSP and SF and SF will win.

 

Like I said before, I don't have a horse in this race, just my thoughts on the matter.

 

=bobby

[Defcon|Rich]

Not to stir anything up here but we all know there's a heck of alot more to operating a successful GSP then simply having the tools to do it.

 

However.. I also see Bobby's point. Just a few years ago the GSP market was looked at like the red haired step child of hosting by most of the same folks trying to now make money off it.. I've watched just about every major datacenter try (in vain i might add) to capitalize on what we busted our humps to build so I can relate to some of the comments being made and believe there always will be that resentment towards outsiders suddenly wanting to be our peers.

[Jdubz31]

Jdubz,

 

The Cpanel comparison does not hold water. You get CP/WHM and you still need to cfg it etc. IF SF were just selling master/remotes of TCA than yes its the same but they are selling the whole nine yards. I'm not at SF so it don't affect me, If I had some boxes there I'd be gone so fast it would make your head spin. If a GSP is there now and they don't leave they should have thier head examined.

 

I kind of feel bad for the GSP's there now. now a potential customer is going to price check the GSP and SF and SF will win.

 

Like I said before, I don't have a horse in this race, just my thoughts on the matter.

 

=bobby

 

Very good points Bobby. My only question is if Steadfast has all these game files available for installation with the game configs they offer. It seems to be alot of games for a new installation.....