Hello Product Hunters! I’m Ali, co-founder of Protonet.
When we started hacking on this idea cloud was a novelty word. We loved the simplicity of it but hated the centralizing effect it had. So we started building an alternative. Our private cloud servers (yes we know the wording might not be perfect) give small business a chance of running their own infrastructure without the mess that comes with it. Plug it in, push the one button that it has and you've got a whole suite of cloud based productivity apps running for your business.
We'd love you guys to give it a try and since we're all hunters: if you need more than the 14 days trial just send us a message we're happy to help you out!
See you guys on the other side, Ali + cheers from the whole team
ps. if you want to know what originally drove the idea (warning: it's a little crazy): http://www.slideshare.net/jelveh...
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great product! awesome team! :)
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Woooohoooo finally it's on here!
I've been using protonet for about a year now and couldn't be happier. It combines all your communications with partners, customers and coworkers beautifully with a complete file management system and task management. And the most important part is it keeps all of your data on your own desk!
The hardware is also amazing, a whole server the size of a shoebox! I'm sure protonet will go a long way and I wish the team all the best.
Love the throwback to the italian retro radio maker Brion Vega. Orange + hex shape. What software will it run? My short attention span mind could find any easily avialble info about this on the site.
@eonpilot Hi. Thanks! The software has been created by ourselves. It comes with a range of features such as task management, file syncing, calendars and many more - Feel free to try it out. Looking forward to hearing your feedback.
If you're more of a technical guy: The underlying operating system is open source. Check https://experimental-platform.gi...
@christopherblum Any plans to open it up for other software makers? My utopian dream is a box like this but with an Atom.io like philosophy/community behind it. I guess if you were financially backed by github that dream could come true.
@eonpilot Agree! Starting in March the operating system behind our box is OpenSource and comes with a heroku-like deployment for custom apps for web and iot development. Check this: https://experimental-platform.gi... - based on CoreOS and Docker.
@christopherblum I Checked out the website. There are refs to voice recognition, smart lights co2 sensors etc. Having recently renovated my house and added smarthouse "features" to it, what i figured out during the build was that there is no working solution out there yet. Sure you can get some things to work but not in a truly meaning-full way. And thus I just layed the pipes and empty boxes etc for future support for a smart home rather than investing in lots of redundant sensors + lights + smart home hubs etc that isnt going to work with future standards. KNX seems to be the future but its pricey and until Apple backs it through their home automation kit its not a true winner. Then there is http://www.loxone.com But they have been criticized for favoring their own standards over open standards such as KNX. Aka eco-system lock-in. It would be nice See a road-map of were you want to place your product in the marked. Or a comparison chart of your self and similar products.
@eonpilot the product we posted here targets small businesses. The heroku-like system will help those companies to easily extend functionality. However the operating system can be used universally - in fact it could even be used as a hub where the data of all your smart home devices is aggregated. We decided to focus on such use cases on the website as it attracts developers more than "boring" business apps.
I can't really provide you with an roadmap for now :) but I can provide you with a teaser of what's next: https://choice.protonet.info/en/
@asong408 this has to be the most flattering comment I've seen so far on PH. :)
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I still remember your demo in Berlin a few years ago and it was great! This is a great product.
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I dig the retro design of the servers, it's dope. Congrats on YC btw. From looking at your website and 3 Protonet unit specs + pricing, it seems that the value is greatly based in the software your team has developed. It's like a handful of amazing products rolled in together on a file server. You mention running other applications on the server - what have you seen customers deploy, or are they largely satisfied with the SOUL sw? Are there performance trade-offs when hosting other applications? Super, super neat for the SOHO & SMB spaces. Particularly with the 50 person limit and lack of configuration and all that fun stuff that comes with setting up a new server or storage box.
Obviously working in storage I am biased against public cloud usage for work files so I am all about the FUD on your site :P
@stttories Hi, thanks for your feedback! Glad you see the potential.
Yes, the value is mostly based on the self-crafted software :) Most customers are satisfied with the software as it is. The biggest app potentials we identified are CRM, ERP and Time Tracking. We are already working with partners in order to provide our customers with this functionality.
The smallest unit still has capacity to run at least one medium cpu- or ram-consuming app. Of course it depends on the number of concurrent users. :)
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