Jungle Disk has had a company blog since we started, which we’ve found to be a great tool to communicate with customers about our products and plans. Many times I’ve been tempted to post my personal point of view on topics ranging from the startup life to cloud computing, but decided against it since most subscribers to this blog are customers who are primarily interested in product news and updates.

After my post earlier this summer on the Structure08 conference, I found that there were also a number of readers who were interested in broader commentary on the cloud computing space,  so I decided to start a personal blog, which you can find at http://davewright.me. I’ve already got a few posts up, the first covering the definition of cloud computing, and the second reflecting on how cloud computing is really just a way to describe how the Internet is transforming traditional IT.

While my first few posts are cloud-centric, I do expect to talk about a number of other software development and broader Internet topics as well. If you’re just interested in Jungle Disk, don’t worry - the latest news will always break right here first.

We’re pleased to announce the release of the first public beta for Jungle Disk 2.5 (beta version 2.49a). Jungle Disk 2.5 represents a significant architecture change for the software, with the core backup and WebDAV drive mapping functionality of Jungle Disk now running as a background service.

Key features in this beta:

• Installs and runs as a background service. Will keep running even if Jungle Disk Monitor is closed or logged out.
• Automatic backups are performed even when not logged in to the computer
• Wake from sleep for backups will now be available on Mac in addition to Windows
• Backup in-use files feature will work on Vista without UAC constraints
• Easy backup of data for multiple user accounts on the same computer
• “Time-machine” style restore interface, allowing to you restore files from a point-in-time view of your backup

Release notes for this release:

• Only the Desktop Edition is currently available. Future betas will include the Workgroup Edition as well.
• The current beta supports Windows (all versions) and Mac 10.4 and later. Linux, Mac 10.3.9, and USB will be supported in a future beta release.
• The current beta is 32-bit. 64-bit native versions of Windows and Linux will be available in a future beta.
• Mac users may experience installation issues if their boot volume is not their primary drive
• On Windows, the Jungle Disk Monitor application must be running for the network drive to be automatically mapped
• Selecting network drives or UNC paths for backup in Windows is not presently supported, but will be in a future beta.
• If you revert to Jungle Disk 2.10 you may need to delete your cache directory

Sound good? Download the beta from our Desktop Edition beta downloads page.
Post any feedback or support requests to our Jungle Disk 2.5 Beta Forum.

Lastly, for those of you who wanted to watch the Rackspace announcement event, they’ve now posted a replay.  The portion with Jungle Disk starts around 14:30.

We’ve got some exciting news to share with you today. Jungle Disk has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Rackspace Hosting, Inc., the world leader in managed hosting. This transaction will ensure that Jungle Disk can continue to innovate and grow even in challenging economic times that are resulting in downsizing at other startups. We expect that the additional resources available to us by working through Rackspace, along with their commitment to Fanatical Support®, will help us accelerate development, improve quality, and reach a larger audience than would otherwise be possible.

We know that many of you may have questions about what this means for the future of Jungle Disk, so we’ve put together an FAQ to help address these concerns. Several of the questions are below, and you can see all the questions and answers on our FAQ page. Feel free to add any other questions in the comments and we will do our best to answer them.

• How does this affect new and existing customers?  There will be no changes for new and existing customers. The software and service will continue working and be supported just as it is now, by the same team that has developed it from day one.
• Who is Rackspace?  Rackspace is the world’s leader in managed hosting. They operate 8 datacenters in the US, Europe, and Asia. Founded in 1998, they have a consistent record of profitability and are a public company traded on the NYSE. In a market that is highly competitive, their commitment to great customer service (they even trademarked it: Fanatical Support®) has established Rackspace as the gold standard in hosting. Rackspace is also a strong believer and early leader in Cloud Computing.
• How will Jungle Disk customers benefit from this acquisition?  The primary benefit for our customers will be our ability to expand with additional resources available for both development and support. Rackspace is a company that has built its entire business around the promise of Fanatical Support and we will adopt the same approach with Jungle Disk. The Rackspace acquisition will also help ensure the long-term availability and stability of the Jungle Disk software, something that is very difficult for any startup to do alone in the current economic environment.

See this page for the full Rackspace announcement FAQ.

You can read the official Rackspace press release here. In addition to the Jungle Disk acquisition, Rackspace announced a number of other new cloud computing developments at a live event in Austin today. You can watch a replay of today’s event (including a cameo by yours truly, Jungle Dave) at the Rackspace Cloud Event website.

With all the recent talk of belt-tightening and startup layoffs, we’re fortunate to be going in the opposite direction. The Jungle Disk business is growing fast and we’re looking to expand our team. If you’re a kick-ass C++ or .NET developer looking for a new opportunity at a fun and fast moving startup, take a look at our Careers page.

Come join us in building the world’s leading cloud storage and backup software.

Late yesterday, Amazon announced a change to their Amazon S3 pricing effective November 1st. They will now offer bulk pricing, with pricing tiers all the way down to $0.12 per gigabyte. Of course this won’t directly affect most Jungle Disk users - the first discount pricing tier starts at 50TB, and very few of our users have that much data.

The good news is that this change will allow us to implement a new billing option we’ve been wanting to add since launch - the option to have a single account and single bill with both software and storage fees, rather than receiving separate monthly bills from Amazon and Jungle Disk. The current process of setting up Jungle Disk requires setting up multiple accounts, copying long random keys during configuration, and can be confusing to many users. As we expand our reach to a less technically savvy crowd, it’s important for us to keep our signup process as streamlined as possible, lest new users be turned off by the complexity. Although we’ve wanted to do this for over a year now, it wouldn’t have been practical previously without raising storage prices. This bulk pricing will allow us to aggregate the storage costs of multiple users and use the discount to cover our billing and overhead costs.

How will this new option affect existing users when it gets rolled out early next year? It won’t - you’ll still be using your existing Amazon S3 account, and still be billed directly by Amazon. New users will have a choice between simple integrated billing, or going through the current process to sign up for direct billing from Amazon. Pricing will be the same either way - we aren’t planning on marking up the $0.15 per gigabyte price at all.

Over the next few months before this option is available we’ll be providing more details on how it works and how your data will be secure no matter what option you choose. The ability to offer an integrated billing option will be a significant advantage to us as we strive to make Jungle Disk fun and easy for everyone to use.

In response to our Jungle Disk 2.50 post, we’ve received a number of questions as to how this affects the Windows Home Server version of the software which is still officially in beta, and when an update might be expected. The good news is that the 2.50 release will lay the groundwork for our next major iteration of home server backup. The Windows Home Server version of Jungle Disk was originally a bit of an experiment, to help understand the demand and needs of the Home Server / Home NAS backup market. One of the most important things we’ve learned over the last year is that the Windows Home Server platform alone isn’t really large enough to justify a stand-alone product, but there is a large amount of interest in online backup from users with other brands of home NAS devices from Linksys, Netgear, Qnap, Drobo, and others.

Moving forward, we are focusing on a strategy that allows us to support a wide range of these devices in addition to Windows Home Server.  The separation of the backup service from the GUI in the 2.50 release will be one key step in allowing us to do this. Porting the software to these other devices will also take some time, but we expect it will be made easier by the fact that we already support Linux and non-Intel (PPC) platforms. In the end, we plan to provide a unified online backup solution for the entire home server and NAS market.

Do you have a home NAS device you’d like to backup directly with Jungle Disk? If so, leave a comment with the brand and model.