Last week, I discussed Acquia which provides managed commercial grade support for Drupal sites. This week, I’m going to talk about some companies that don’t quite have $7 million in their back pocket, but are creating new support and hosting products for Joomla.
I’m always fascinated by new business models in the Joomla world, so I’ll let the leaders of these two projects explain what they’re up to:
1) NinjaHostingHQ.com
From the same company that runs Ninjaforge.com (formerly Ninjoomla.com), comes a hosting company dedicated to Joomla. I talked with Daniel Chapman, the founder of both sites and asked him what NinjaHostingHQ.com was all about:
“We aimed it at people who need a stable, Joomla oriented host. No more permission problems, no more hosts who know nothing about Joomla and tell you ‘I don’t know’ if you have questions. Different Hosts server configurations are one of the biggest problems new site owners face.
This one has safe mode on, that one doesn’t have suexec (so you have LOTS of permission problems), the other one has register globals on. Few of them know anything about securing Joomla, which extensions are risks, how to keep the risks down. We aim to provide a safe, stable, Joomla-friendly hosting environment with staff who actually understand Joomla and the issues faced by site developers.”
Unlike Acquia you don’t actually provide the installs?
“Right now, just a standard one click process but our intention is to have prebuilt installs ready to go. As well, we are compiling a list of preferred extensions, which we have tested on our servers and will make available.”
Mainly its niche hosting rather than managed sites?
“At the moment, yes, but managed is where we are headed. We have some extensions under development which will facilitate remote extension and even complete site installs. So, yes as a service that will be offered. You can have a fire and forget site.”
2) SimplWeb.com
Simplweb is a project of Barrie North from Joomlashack. I talked with Barrie and asked him what Simplweb.com is all about:
“We provide turnkey Joomla websites at the click of a button. The sites are created with enough structure and content to go live with less than an hour of editing/customization.”
How much does it cost and what do people get?
“The monthly subscription is priced at $29.95. A free month trial is given with no credit card needed. The service includes a fully managed Joomla website, rich ongoing support for any website-related questions and detailed education to get the most out of your site.”
What is the technical set-up for the hosting?
“Hosting servers meet tier 1 provider specifications, are optimized for Joomla 1.5, and have been specially hardened (security) servers for running Joomla. CPanel isn’t not provided (or needed). All aspects of the site are accessed through the Joomla backend and the user’s Simplweb.com account. Users can install templates, but not other extensions. New extensions are added monthly. User feedback is used to provide the roadmap for additions. Sites can have a domain name as normal.”
What plans do you have for the near future?
“On the drawing board are being discussed free ad supported Joomla sites and a developer reseller version.”
Another Hosting Related Story
Rochen, the company that host Joomla.org and also Alledia.com, have launched a new blog. Chris Adams, the company’s CEO, has opened up with a great post about Joomla security.