If I understand properly, the point of view of Rackspace and former Slicehost staff is that;
- Rackspace Cloud will offer the same technical capabilities,
- the transition will be as easy as Rackspace can make it,
- migrating to Rackspace will give users access to new features (Cloud LB/Files, Windows instances and so on...),
- Pricing will end up being close to lower for a good chunk of the customers,
Only thing is that, despite the fact that I spend a fair amount of time setting up my clients on various cloud services, I favored (and actively advertised for) Slicehost for some use cases because of two main features;
- Price; I could save a few bucks by setting up my AWS instance, but I like the simplicity of setting up your instance and be done with it, with a fixed price that you expect paying for at the end of the month.
- UX and UI; it just worked. Damn simple and straightforward.
- Feature set; only what I needed, no crazy catalog of 20 different ways of putting things together.
I remember signing up for my first instance about 18 months ago; I was convinced by the straightforward and simple website and the pitch line on the front page: "Sick of oversold, underperforming, ancient hosting companies. We took matters into our own hands. We built a hosting company for people who know their stuff. Give us a box, give us bandwidth, give us performance and we get to work.". Indeed, Slicehost would set up my box, give me access to it and then get out of my way. By experience, migrating on Rackspace Cloud will not provide me with the same value, and IMHO that was the core value of this product. That's a deal breaker in my book.
I also stated that you might not care about any of the other cloud products or extra bells and whistles. The fundamental building block (a cloud server) that Rackspace sells will be and is identical to a Slicehost slice, you can just ignore everything else and pay the lower (likely) rate.
I can't deny that simplicity is gone from the equation given all the extra products/services, but the core Cloud Server is the same simple VPS you once knew and loved.
- Rackspace Cloud will offer the same technical capabilities, - the transition will be as easy as Rackspace can make it, - migrating to Rackspace will give users access to new features (Cloud LB/Files, Windows instances and so on...), - Pricing will end up being close to lower for a good chunk of the customers,
Only thing is that, despite the fact that I spend a fair amount of time setting up my clients on various cloud services, I favored (and actively advertised for) Slicehost for some use cases because of two main features;
- Price; I could save a few bucks by setting up my AWS instance, but I like the simplicity of setting up your instance and be done with it, with a fixed price that you expect paying for at the end of the month. - UX and UI; it just worked. Damn simple and straightforward. - Feature set; only what I needed, no crazy catalog of 20 different ways of putting things together.
I remember signing up for my first instance about 18 months ago; I was convinced by the straightforward and simple website and the pitch line on the front page: "Sick of oversold, underperforming, ancient hosting companies. We took matters into our own hands. We built a hosting company for people who know their stuff. Give us a box, give us bandwidth, give us performance and we get to work.". Indeed, Slicehost would set up my box, give me access to it and then get out of my way. By experience, migrating on Rackspace Cloud will not provide me with the same value, and IMHO that was the core value of this product. That's a deal breaker in my book.