The fundamental problem with Untangle: Hardware Compatibility

[fasttech]

You hit that nail right on the head. Direct sales or partner sales, not both. I've lost deal to untangle direct, and they have lost deals to me. They win in both cases, but I lose in the first.

I have that issue in another industry. They need me because of location, I handle customers in over 5 states that travel to me for the service, but I lose sales because of sales tax, or the misconception that they can service it themselves, then after purchasing the product at full retail direct from the manufacturer, they expect me to service it, and get pissy if I won't jump over the moon for them.
Then the manufacturer demands advertising budget levels and such from me, my reply is always, when you're not my competition, then we can talk about your demands.
That works in that market.

I can't even fathom why you resellers put up with it from the folks at Untangle in a software market.

[sky-knight]

Easy, we don't...

I don't know how others work with it but I know Jim and I have a similar approach. We sell what we can, and try and educate the customer. We provide additional support Untangle themselves is incapable of providing. And we do what we can to move the project forward.

The real issue here is resources. Untangle doesn't have enough to properly sustain itself. Us resellers are just SMB guys too. Of course, they are moving to push all of us resellers out by trying to make a deal with Dell so there's gratitude for you. The schizophrenia runs deep. But it really isn't done out of any kind of malice, they are just fighting to survive like the rest of us.

In the end, little guys like me will be forced out, it's the way of things.

[proactivens]

That's one of the main reasons were also sell astaro now. They are partner sales only, they put me into a L3 reseller program right off the bat, and they give out leads.

I will say this though, the losing deals to untangle hasnt happened in a while. They have also been nice enough to take a deal or two direct that I couldnt finance for a net 30 and remit my margin to me in a check. I have a very good relationship with Shaun Gardner at Untangle and we talk almost daily. They have done things for me, and me for them. I just wish we could get some more input into the direction of the product, get a little more visibility for sales, and be given more credit for our hard sales work.

[Cozmo]

I'm not seeing a lot of non-reseller/non-2k-posters here. I'll try and be that person...

First off. Thanks for the Untangle product we have now. Its fawesome.

The issue on my side was indeed the homework part. I'll be honest and say I didn't do it. I went out and bought a T410 from Dell. Slapped in the 7.2 CD and thought "oh how sweet this is going to be". I had little knowledge of anything Linux at that time (1m ago) and basically, other than logging in and typis "ls", I couldn't do much on Linux.

So then errors started popping out. I get antsy. Luckily, we have a linux guru here (a programmer, I'm running solo in IT) and sat in the chair with me looking over his shoulder. He actually got the machine to go, and was communicative enough to tell me what he was doing and whatnot.

Reboot the machine one last time after a couple of apt-get's. Cool. Then I use one of my other machines to connect to the UT webinterface, but it's giving me an error. I ask the same programmer guy to take a shot at it. We end up in a log that says that some part of the interface because we aren't running Untangle/Lenny anymore. (We had to upgrade to Squeeze).

So in reply to the op that the issue is Hardware compatibility. I'm not sure that's completly true. I was much more disappointed to see that Untangle wouldn't let me upgrade to a newer version of the kernel.

I think the issue is being obstinate to the point of wanting to keep old software.

Heck, I would even still use it (in a production environment) even if I got a message saying "Oh, I see you're not running our beloved Squeeze. You are SOOOOO not-supported".

Once again, when trying to catter to the SMB business, you need to realize that people are not all Linux gawds, nor does everybody understand from the get go that Debian means "older" hardware-only.

This is by no means flame. I do love the product.

[sbz]

Thanks everyone for their initial thoughts on this subject. Especially Sky-Knight and Proactivens, you both have helped me and countless others A LOT in the forums here and I am very very thankful that you're in this community.

In my mind, there are two sides here:

1. The standard "open-source community" feeling here in the forum.
I have an understanding and comfort of the "open-source, community love, put a little work in for the greater good" I appreciate that very much.

But there is more than that going on with untangle:

2. The education/SMB "no bull$**" side of business (btw, this is where monetization comes in!)
On the other end of the spectrum, if I am the Director of IT and Deployment for a business, or school district and I stumble across Untangle, it is expected that the solution is right there, ready to bought and deployed with no "homebrew research" required.

Understand that I am writing this thread with this side in mind. The business side. The monetizing side. Really, if I may, the Sky-Knight and Proactivens side.

When I first started with Untangle, I saw 2 things:
1. An excellent marketing page, indicating that schools, hospitals and public sector police stations use Untangle
WOW! Said I, this isn't homebrew at all, this is amazing!

2. "FREE DOWNLOAD!" With 1 click, I was downloading the ISO with only the following instructions noted on the page:
1 Burn the ISO Image to a CD / 2 Install the Untangle Server/ 3 Start the Untangle Server
WOW! Said I, this isn't homebrew at all, this is amazing! Theres no mention of hardware incompatibility at all. I'll just run the installer, and then I'm done! If hospitals and schools are using this, it must be incredible

Nothing. No mention of required hardware or debian, or anything. Just click here and download.

As a matter of fact, go ahead, click "hardware requirements" on the home page: http://www.untangle.com/#hardware. All it mentions is:
"1-50 PCs P4 1 GB 80 GB 2+ NICs"

Please take some time to think about my explanations here. I think there's a lot of holes in the logic between long time members of this forum and business decisions being made by untangle. I'm simply attempting to point these flaws out, for the good of this community and the successful monetizing of the untangle platform.

[sbz]

See screenshots please.

[sky-knight]

You are dead on, Untangle needs to either do the hardware themselves or support the channel better.

The reality is, Untangle cannot do direct sales if they aren't going to do the hardware too. Microsoft learned this lesson ages ago, and even still with ubiquitous hardware support. Microsoft does NOT SELL DIRECT.

Why? The answer is obvious.

And I like Jim am trying very hard not to come off as hostile to Untangle in any way. They've been the most flexible company I've ever had the privilege of working with. They really are as awesome as the product they produce.

Nothing is perfect, but in this storm of awesome a bit of crap really rubs the wrong way!

[dbunyard]

Oh what the ****, I figure I will throw my into this one.

First of I was to say, sbz, I believe you make some very valid points. I couldn't agree more that there needs to be a more clear view or the requirements being laid out from a hardware side.

That being said, however, you mention Schools specifically a number of times. From my experience, Untangle runs superb on hardware 1+ years old and even much newer boxes. Most schools (at least the ones around here) don't usually have the "latest and greatest" anyway. My mom works for one of the local schools and their IT budget is extremely tight to the point that they share a SINGLE IT person between a few schools.

This does bring up the point though that UT (or really any gateway/IPS device) that's targeting the small business, schools, public safety, etc. should have a "more" clearly defined set of requirements. There are other things out the (I believe someone mentioned Astaro earlier) that do have a more clearly defined set of requirements and that also keep the kernels of their software more up to date to keep up with changing/emerging hardware.

Ok, so that was more than a bit. Let me just conclude by throwing a HUGE thank you out to every since person who has contributed to Untangle. I run this at my office and at home and it's a rock solid product with a great feature set. UT's future, however, needs to have a clearly defined path and needs to answer to the feedback provided from it's users. Without users, there is no Untangle.

Sorry, I realize now that was more a jumble that any particularly well laid out thoughts, such is the way my mind works when I haven't had enough coffee! To the break room, away!!!!!!!

[sky-knight]

And pursuant to that goal Untangle has no choice but to get Dell or someone big to sign up as a reseller, then take their entire store offline and redirect it at said large reseller and have them do it all.

And the death knell of the SMB guys like me is sounded.

Why do you think I don't push this issue? It will destroy my ability to compete.

[dwasserman]

Sbz:
I believe there are a shadow area in the main page of Untangle, its right
But
Its the same shadow area in all tech selleres pages
Go to Cisco.com and you can buy on line a high end switch or router, but its implicit you need have the knowledge and expertise to install and configure this in your network, or call the especialist.
Same to Microsoft, Oracle, IBM or whatever.

The home pages are created with marketing words in mind "easy" "plug n play" "best" but you as Director of IT and Deployment must know this.

My simple 2 cents