Wow there sure are a lot of experts in running a company. I'm glad I sold mine, it was way past one of my pet peeves. "You know what YOU should do?" Honestly if one more person said that at times I really really wanted to haul off and....

If you have not had a business, demanding customers, and a bunch of employees you've no idea.

This used to be one of my favorite times of the year. In that I provided computer support/sales and software for mid range Unix boxes (30 to 50k plus terminals), I had about 20 to 30 customers. I cut loose the worst 3 or 4 every year with a standard letter, your business does not meet my business model sorry about your luck. After I signed them I fired up a cigar, and poured a nice glass of single malt and smiled.

My replies to the dreaded question were always pretty much the same.

"Do you know what you should do?"
Me: 1. "Retire to Florida and forget about it." 2. "Go deaf so I can't hear what you are going to say" 3. "Quit listening to everyone tell me what to do?"

I suggest for simplicities sake you make some contact. Here's the model. You need to store about 100 gigs on their server. 2000 people will download. And 90% will do so on 10 days a year. The others will be concentrated in January and August. Now I think that's conservative. So all the files to to all those people on those times. Given what I THINK I know you are going to have to pay alot. Most companies hosting like that would set you up on a server, but wait, you need to do it all on certain days, so they need servers to handle 2000 people, or about 4 so the cost quadruples. The rest of the year 'your' servers sit there doing nothing. Now say you decide fine, I want this in MY office. Well sorry but the cost of the line you need to lease, the fibre optic one, well you don't want to know.

Maybe you've good money invested in making 30 drives at a time, and then you have seasonal help to package them. And a software program to print the labels, and you are going to make that redundant.

You now have the reality that you should have multiple mirrors, one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Canada. But you make a new release and you have to start refusing ftp calls and update and test your software.

Now there you are, with the investment in hardware, and you've had a long day, and shipped 300 drives and business is decent, and you turn out the lights at midnight, set the alarm, and trundle off in the cold early winter night, stopping at festive looking bar, fireplace blazing, coat undone at the end of a long day, you scarf still around your neck, having a nice Oban and watching the fire when a customer you recognise comes up and smiles. You have to buy this person a beverage, and as soon as the first sip is over he turns to you and says.."you know what YOU should do?

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGgggggggggg kill me now."

John Conley
Musica est vita