According to gigaom.com, Godaddy.com “has decided to close its Cloud Servers cloud computing product, according to an internal email shared with Gigaom.com by an anonymous ex-employee.”
“After reviewing all of our hosting products, we decided to double-down on our shared hosting and site builder products and invest to win in these spaces,” it reads. “As part of this focus, we will discontinue Cloud Servers as a stand-alone product.”
GoDaddy has confirmed the decision in an email to me via a statement from CIO Auguste Goldman:
”We are focused on SMBs and SMBs don’t use this product the way we are offering it now. So, in the weeks ahead, it won’t be a stand-alone product in and of itself. However, we plan to continue developing cloud technology into our other hosted products.“We will continue to support existing Cloud Server customers in a variety of ways.”
Gigaom, notes that GoDaddy “removed the Cloud Servers page from its web site site, and the offering’s old URL redirects to the GoDaddy home page.”
A sudden announcement like this could potentially damaging to small business clients who will be forced to find similar service elsewhere…and quick! The trust level in the Cloud will most definitely take a hit. I would strongly suggest looking into a provider who solely focuses on cloud/dedicated (virtual isolation) hosting services with managed support services to handle a smooth transition.
The key will be accomodating the migration and re-assuring Cloud confidence. Before jumping into a new cloud service, educate yourself about the differences between public-shared cloud environments and private or isolated environments.
I would highly recommend ex-Godaddy Cloud users to investigate services like http://www.atum.com for secure, managed Cloud hosting.