While it’s been a while since our last product announcement, we certainly haven’t been sitting idle. We’re very excited to finally be able to share a few of the great things we have been working on over the past several months.
During that time, our team took hard look at all of our products and features and also reviewed a ton of great customer feedback. After much debate, testing and evaluation, we believe we have identified a great new direction for our platform.
So, what’s next?
1. Consolidated Product Offering
Currently, there are 4 unique Jungle Disk products and over time, we have come to the realization that customers sometimes have trouble deciding on which product best meets their needs. It is also incredibly cumbersome to move from one product to another if a customer’s needs change.
For the next software release, we’re pulling the best features of all of our products into a single offering that’s flexible and simple to use. This strategy will enable customers to easily pick and choose the features they want for each and every computer with the ability to change them at any time.
2. New Web-based User Interface
In the spirit of flexibility and accessibility, the next release will have the configuration and setup totally managed via a web-based user interface vs. one that is incorporated into the computer’s operating system. In one simple interface, you will be able to manage every user and computer in a secure web experience that is familiar regardless if you are managing a Windows, Mac or Linux machine. This aspect of the update has been a huge undertaking for us because we want this to be a great user experience. Luckily, we have some pretty amazing talent that is helping us to build a truly awesome UI.
3. New Platform for Resellers
The next platform is really being developed from the ground up with our resellers in mind. The current reseller program just does not offer the customization and the flexibility our resellers truly need. Things like reporting, user access, and permissions will have a lot more flexibility. We also plan to support the ability to ‘skin’ the user experience so resellers can really make the product their own.
4. Stability and Performance Enhancements
Features like our network drive and sync are loved by many and to further improve them, we’re working on new engines to enhance the user experience and make them perform better for advanced configurations and implementations.
5. More Support for Mobile Devices
While this initiative will probably come after the previously mentioned items, we recognize that there is a lot of value in supporting our customers on the go. We intend on not only increasing the features and functionality of our exisiting iOS apps, but also plan on supporting other platforms like Android.
We are incredibly excited about the next phase of the product. Due to the complexity of this update and that fact that we may launch some functionality in phases, we’re not quite ready to provide specific launch dates at this time. We feel it’s vital to make sure this is a solid platform and we’re going to make sure we do it right.
Please feel free to ask any questions or voice any concerns you might have by contacting us at product@jungledisk.com.
58 Comments
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Garry said,
January 26, 2011 @ 5:42 pm
I like what I hear, and am looking forward to this new product. What will this mean for those who purchased a perpetual license, years ago? thanks.
Noah A said,
January 26, 2011 @ 6:00 pm
This announcement couldn’t have read any better. Thank you so much for going in this direction.
Charles said,
January 26, 2011 @ 6:06 pm
Good to hear some news thanks. Some comments:
1) Sounds good.
2) Sounds OK, but not entirely necessary. I sincerely hope the regular desktop interface will continue to exist, for those who have no interest in the web interface? I would probably move away from Jungle Disk if you scrap the the application interface completely.
4) Always appreciated and welcomed!
5) Sounds good
On a final note – any news on one key feature that has been requested by your loyal customer base for a very long time now – Amazon RRS?
Scott Gibson said,
January 26, 2011 @ 6:19 pm
@Garry We’re still evaluating on how to handle that case.
@charles On #2, we definitely plan to move away from an OS based UI for the vast majority of the product, but there will be a few items that will reside in the OS to perform key functions like stopping backups in progress, etc. As for RRS, this will likely be offered only to our customers using Personal Amazon S3 accounts.
Rick said,
January 26, 2011 @ 6:38 pm
Would another local function be selecting your directories? If so, I hope it’s more reliable than the current rendition, where I’ve found that if you don’t wait for the loooooong scanning of your selected folders so that it can display their total size, then there’s a good chance that whatever directory changes you make won’t be saved — often with the client hanging.
James said,
January 26, 2011 @ 7:40 pm
Please include support for standard S3 directory naming schemes (e.g. so that if other S3 tools are also used and name directories as folder/ they are visible in JD). I have clients moving away from JD to Gladinet due to this issue).
Andrei Canciu said,
January 26, 2011 @ 9:59 pm
@charles: I don’t think #2 is as much of an issue as long as the settings file used by JD ends up on my computer so that I feel I have some “local” control over what the app does. It certainly makes sense from JD’s perspective to have a single light backup engine configured from a unified web application – also agrees with their other direction of merging all 4 apps. Ultimately this doesn’t really change much: we are not using a standard desktop app anyway but a web service/application for which we pay a monthly fee. (However, to satisfy Charles – and maybe others – perhaps the same management interface could be served from a locally installed web server).
XTS said,
January 26, 2011 @ 10:37 pm
Glad to finally see an update on the roadmap! Alot of exciting features and improvements all around. BUT…
What will the pricing point be? This is very important, especially us resellers that have an established customer base with current offerings.
Thanks!
Scott said,
January 26, 2011 @ 11:12 pm
Scott Gibson said,
January 26, 2011 @ 6:19 pm
@Garry We’re still evaluating on how to handle that case.
Scott, I sure hope you aren’t planning to redefine the words perpetual/lifetime.
I’m not so sure I like the idea of the GUI being moved to a web based solution. Not so sure I want/like the idea of my directory structure showing up in a browser window. Please keep one of JDs original principle’s intact. SECURITY!
Phil George said,
January 27, 2011 @ 2:20 am
As an Australia user of JungleDisk, the current interface is unresponsive to the point of being unusable.
I love the product and wish I could sell to my clients but find myself unable to do so due to these speed issues.
Benjamin said,
January 27, 2011 @ 5:32 am
Any chance that you will support ARM based devices running linux? Right now I have a Sheevaplug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug) that runs linux just fine and has minimal power usage. I’d love to be able to use jungledisk on that device to backup the files on there, it’s the only thing holding me back from using it fulltime as a low-power home fileserver. A recompile of the command-line only ‘jungledisk’ executable would be more than enough I think, no need for a GUI. I’d gladly compile it myself if the sources are available
Jeremy said,
January 27, 2011 @ 11:17 am
All sounds great, but android support is something I have been dreaming of!
bradleyh10 said,
January 27, 2011 @ 12:54 pm
All sounds good but don’t increase the price!!!
Ian said,
January 27, 2011 @ 1:56 pm
Like others, I would like to know what it means for desktop users with a lifetime licence. It looks like the direction is towards business users rather than personal ones?
I know you don’t make any more money off me for the client, but I am paying Rackspace money every month for the storage!
I also use the USB version quite a bit, what happens to this feature?
Alejandro Lengua said,
January 27, 2011 @ 3:56 pm
I wonder if Jungledisk for servers will be available for resellers too
Michael said,
January 28, 2011 @ 1:30 am
In terms of consolidation of product, it seems to concentrate on the front-end management–but what about the consolidation of back-end storage features?
Right now, there’s this either/or situation, where you either put things in the Storage Vault and take advantage of de-duping (but can’t use sync functionality or drive map or public access) or you put it in the traditional Jungle Drive, but get less efficient storage because of the lack of de-duping.
I always thought that the drive map/sync stuff was kept out of Drive Vault in order to differentiate between Desktop and Simply Backup tiers. But if there won’t be such tiers anymore, will we eventually get our storage and features in one place?
Rob Reale said,
January 28, 2011 @ 2:26 am
This product has steadily gone into the gutter since Rackspace bought it – and I would have expected exactly the opposite.
What in the world – in THE WORLD – do you mean entirely managed by web interface? We all purchased this application because it was just that, an application…
This is just so unbelievable that you’ve so quickly destroyed this product and Dropbox is more than sufficient for my needs and the needs of every client I have, with SkyDrive covering others. Who the heck wants to upload massive files via a web browser?
That’s just the stupidest freaking thing and what are you people thinking???????????????? Things have been so crappy for so long and I haven’t been using my JungleDisk for like a year now – but the 18 times I went in to delete a massive amount of data, the operation never completed, so I’m getting billed every month for data I keep trying to delete.
I’ve been waiting all this time for you people to fix this steaming pile of crap and you think you have any value to anyone to move us all into a BROWSER WINDOW?
The whole point of the product was that it was an APP… jesus!
What are you people thinking??????? Split the company off if you can’t make any sense of yourselves as a Rackspace subsidiary!!!!
Gil said,
January 28, 2011 @ 5:13 am
Hi, I would realy like to see in the next version an improvement of file management of the network drive. There is no locking mechanism when two different computers access the same file thus making collaboration whithin the buisness virtually impossible (because no one wants to corrupt files). Please solve this issue for the next version (a simple readonly when file is used mechanism will do the trick) and the benefit is huge.
best regards
Shaun said,
January 28, 2011 @ 7:13 pm
I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the new changes. I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the new web interface–the desktop GUI is difficult and unintuitive.
Being a web designer/developer myself, I’ll be sure to let you guys know if I find any bugs and provide constructive criticism.
Andrei Canciu said,
January 29, 2011 @ 6:31 am
@Scott2: Good point about the security implications. I assume that the file names encryption feature will be scraped. This is not very good news for some. If they keep it though, I assume no one would really trust it too much since it’s now compulsory to enter your key (at least for decrypting the file names) in their web interface. I didn’t trust it too much anyway: unless they were really paranoid about this, those files names could have leaked in numerous places (backup reporting, how backup databases are handled etc.) Ultimately I don’t think this is a show stopper. Perhaps it is a bit excessive to be concerned about the privacy implications that some people might see just the names of your files.
@Scott: How is your latest direction affecting the USB (portable) version? I really hope it will not be scraped.
Greg said,
January 29, 2011 @ 9:46 am
I am trying to make a decision on a service, can you tell me what makes Jungledisk different than box.net & filesanywhere.com… I am not very tech savy, so if someone can explain in laymans terms it would be appreciated lol
cloudberry said,
January 29, 2011 @ 11:27 am
This sounds just what I was looking for! When !! When!!! When!!!!!
I want to start using the redesigned reseller stuff now!
Scott Gibson said,
January 30, 2011 @ 10:42 pm
@Rob – Apologize if there is any confusion on the web interface aspect. To be clear…only the configuration aspects of the product will be moved to a web experience. The network drive functionality with a mounted drive, backups, etc. will still occur via the OS. We’re attempting to facilitate functionality that better meets the needs of teams and small businesses where typically one individual is responsible for managing the setup and configuration of multiple machines. This is true even in a household where 1 person often manages the setup and backups of the product. With web access, you don’t have to be on each machine for setup and configuration. However, as we mentioned, data access and backups are still going to work as they always have. Hopefully that clears things up…we will update the blog to be a little more clear.
Michael said,
January 31, 2011 @ 11:34 am
Regarding product consolidation, will this also apply to the back-end storage features? My main issue is that there are two different storage areas that require feature compromise. You either have your data in the “Storage Vault” and get the de-duping feature storing things efficiently (but no access via mapped drives, no Sync functionality, and no public access), or you have it in the “Jungle Drive’, but don’t benefit from de-duping and use more storage. Since there will no longer be a “Backup Only” tier vs “Desktop” tier, will all the back-end storage features finally be in one place as well?
Charles said,
January 31, 2011 @ 1:10 pm
I hope the web base part is only an option for managing server backup and not the interface for everyone. I really don’t care for web based interfaces except in emergencies downloads.
CB said,
January 31, 2011 @ 4:35 pm
Version 3.12 of the Desktop application works perfectly for me.
Scott Gibson – When the web interface is released, will you continue to allow the 3.12 desktop application to function? Ideally with RRS support
One of the best things about the standalone interface is the excellent responsiveness. I like to see the real time progress of files being transferred and the option to cancel individual files being transferred if needed. I am skeptical that the local web interface will be as responsive.
With the new version. will there continue to be an icon in the notification tray to show status, force backups, cancel, and view current file status?
Hate to say it but the web interface seems like a monumental waste of time when developer time could be used for customer requested features and continued refinements.
Amazon RRS on personal S3 accounts sounds promising, any ETA? Maybe on the 1 year anniversary of RRS in May?
1 year is surely enough development time!
Anxious to see what will happen to your longest term customers with the lifetime licences.
Scott Gibson said,
January 31, 2011 @ 4:57 pm
@CB Thanks for the feedback! Let us comment on a few of your thoughts/questions.
“I am skeptical that the local web interface will be as responsive.” – You are correct that you are probably not going to see the level of responsiveness in a web experience compared to an OS, however, in our opinion, the power and flexibility gained outweighs that fact. As we mentioned, we’re trying to build a tool that is more powerful in an environment with multiple users/machines and being able to get visibility and manage all machines/users in one place without needing to access each machine locally is vital to doing that.
“Will there continue to be an icon in the notification tray to show status, force backups, cancel, and view current file status?” – Yes, we do plan to have some basic options that will remain in the system tray, etc. that will contain actions of that nature.
“Hate to say it but the web interface seems like a monumental waste of time when developer time could be used for customer requested features and continued refinements.” – Actually, going this path is going to greatly reduce development time and make managing the development of the product significantly easier. Currently, we’re developing 30 plus builds of the software to support all 3 OS’s along with 4 versions of the software, as well as custom reseller builds. With a web-based configuration, we can not only make the UI simple and uniform across all operating systems, but items like software updates, skinning for reseller products and a host of other reasons makes a web-based control panel a great direction for us. We think once our customers actually get a chance to use it…they will agree too.
“Amazon RRS on personal S3 accounts sounds promising, any ETA?” – No ETA, but we do expect that when we do support it, it will be part of the next platform and likely for personal S3 account users only.
Chris said,
February 2, 2011 @ 7:38 am
Hi.
Thanks for sharing the road map. Sounds like you have done your research well as all the developments are the type of things we need. The only downside to sharing this information is that I need to develop my patience!
Thanks
Chris
jose said,
February 2, 2011 @ 11:36 am
Please, do not forget about foreign resellers. We need to be able to translate clients applications to become really attractive for them (and they are millions
).
Rob Reale said,
February 3, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
This was updated since I went off on my tirade – the ability to manage other users sounds spectacular. I am also thrilled to have confirmed that the desktop app is not going away.
It seems to me that for my not being able to do much with reselling thus far, that I may be able to in the future.
Thanks for following up guys.
David said,
February 3, 2011 @ 6:21 pm
Hi
Great news!
We’re a reseller.
With the WEB interface, will I be able to centrally change the configurations for customers, without having to remote connect to their computer?
Are we going to have a clear backup report? (instead of the unreadable “backup report” I can see on the account page)
Are we going to have a silent installer mode, allowing to enter all parameters with a command line?
Thanks !!
David
Charles said,
February 16, 2011 @ 1:37 pm
Long-time perpetual user here. I look forward to updates on the plans for the new software. I also just joined the ranks of Android users, so I’m glad to see you’re keeping us in mind.
Rick said,
February 19, 2011 @ 1:14 am
Any word on when a beta will be available? We use Server currently but have long been interested in a “network drive” as well–without having to re-upload everything and run two different software components.
Retracting my JungleDisk Recommendation - Push cx said,
February 19, 2011 @ 3:12 pm
[...] Luckily, we have some pretty amazing talent that is helping us to build a truly awesome UI. The Road Ahead from the JungleDIsk [...]
Vladimir Tirado said,
March 1, 2011 @ 11:57 pm
I’m a reseller customer in Latinamerica.
My suggestions are related with:
- Desktop App. We need Spanish versions or the posibility to configure it, or using an XML language file to do our own.
- iPhone App. Actually the iPhone App doesn’t allow to access reseller accounts. My clients are requesting it
- Web access has a poor graphic interface. My clients are using web interfaces like Dropbox and requesting something similar
Our company can help on those improvements, specially on the Spanish translation and the Web interface.
Regards
Julian Villegas said,
March 3, 2011 @ 12:30 am
I’m too a reseller in Latinamerica. Really there are a lot of potential non English speaking people customers. We need Jungle can be localized, we can do it on our own if necesary.
Also, a real “SERVER” solution MUST need a seed solution. Currently we can send disks to Rackspace, but don’t you think that sending disks from countries different to US isn’t practical, not cheap an is time consuming?. We need some kind of temporary server who we can host and seed until data upload to Rackspace takes place
A company cannot afford to wait to become protected or to restore its 1TB database. It can be a local server solution that operates under company LAN and always makes a secundary backup to rackspace, so you guys don’t lost our bucks
Robert Burdett said,
March 23, 2011 @ 7:08 am
This isn’t really a software update request,
but the ability to be able to post in an initial seeded backup on a USB disk and also to be able to ask for all data to be restored to a HDD and sent back to me, would fill me with confidence and allow me to sell this to bigger companies.
Currently the initial backup process is too long. Also If I have a total server failure (with local backup destroyed) the prospect of a 4-5 day restore is unrealistic.
I wouldn’t expect these services for free! I imagine my customers would pay around £100 + cost of the disk for each data retrieval for this peace of mind.
Rob
Tim said,
March 26, 2011 @ 5:21 pm
A web interface for configuration is all nice and fine, but the interface for accessing the stored files from the web needs much improvement. As often mentioned, Dropbox is the kind of thing that people love. Simple and elegant. The ability to not only accessed synced files, but easily drop new files in from any computer is important and they can be synced back to the relevant computer(s). As a lifetime user, I finally went for the small extra per month for web access and was disappointed by the offering.
But all of that is no use unless the sync offering is proven reliable. I am not reading good things about it and have to cease using it. I use the vault backup, but this has no web access.
Web access is handy if you are away from your computer(s) or lose or get your laptop etc stolen and need quick access to files from any computer without having to get a new computer and install the desktop client to recover the vault.
Charlie said,
April 3, 2011 @ 5:54 pm
Back in January another user, Gerry, asked about your original customers who have perpetual licenses, and your response was that you are evaluating that case.
That didn’t sound too encouraging, and it’s now April with no clarification. As an early customer with a permanent license I would like to understand what your plans are.
Thanks.
wraith808 said,
April 13, 2011 @ 12:16 am
Another perpetual user here- very happy with the service, but I do echo the concerns of the other perpetual users that have piped up.
Colin Henderson said,
May 13, 2011 @ 7:00 pm
wrt mobile, the iphone app has saved me innumerable times. The ability to email things directly to people without having to wait till I get back to my laptop is a lifesaver.
Some future ideas there might be:
- ability to save shortcuts to files or folders
Keep up the good work.
(JD/S3 backup user for 4 + years on linux and windows)
Hill Rider said,
May 15, 2011 @ 12:49 pm
+1 for Android. You guys should know that it’s the #1 selling mobile platform, vs. the iPhone being #3!!!
Dave said,
May 23, 2011 @ 10:37 am
Lack of RRS support is going to lead me to move to a different provider as soon as I can find the time. When this feature is supported, limiting it to desktop users only is a mistake. You’re assuming that these customers:
a) don’t have their own backup (e.g. for bare metal restore capabilities or offline media)
b) wouldn’t prefer to have two regional RRS accounts than one replicated (avoid corruption/human error/additional geographic resilience)
c) can’t make an educated decision for themselves, and won’t look elsewhere
I can understand the commercial reasons for not enabling a service that undercuts the new parent company’s offering, however I originally bought a product which I thought would evolve with cloud storage offerings, given it was one of the first to do it. The focus on bells and whistles with the interface doesn’t compensate for the lack of compelling new features or cost reduction. To read that you’re consolidating the product is just frustrating, given that’s what you started with.
Is there a fixed date that RRS (or a Rackspace equivalent) is going to be available, or is the next swathe of interface and version changes going to create the compelling event to rip and replace?
Ben Tyger said,
June 30, 2011 @ 5:18 pm
I’m with Scott Gibson here. I’m not sure how much I like idea of my file system structures going over the web. But that doesn’t mean I’m against web based interfaces. If each installed instance has an internal webserver that could be accesses by https://localhost:8000/ or something like that, that would be wonderful. This removed the requirement for the client to be installed and it makes is more or less OS agnostic without relying all information going over the web.
Ben Tyger said,
June 30, 2011 @ 5:25 pm
Also +1 for android. I’d like to see an app for both backing up the phone data/SD card and possible to manager other JungleDisk product instances.
Stefan said,
July 6, 2011 @ 5:02 am
I would really appreciate more focus on security in jungledisk products by enforcing password changes each x days/weeks, or by receiving new password every day via SMS message from the admin dashboard. There are hardly any tools to enforce high level of data security in workgroup edition.
You should realize that we trust our complete administration, contracts etc. to jungledisk and we’d like to have more confirmation that our data remain secure.
regards
Stefan in work
Matt said,
July 21, 2011 @ 8:38 pm
Also another +1 For android application and back up options – A must have – ASAP please
Eric said,
July 22, 2011 @ 11:21 am
When you say “web interface”, i hear “we’re cheap as hell, and don’t want to pay people to write GUI code”. Maybe that’s because IT guys are from Mars, and Pointy Haired Bosses are from Venus.
Our company dropped StoreGrid because its web based interface (and SQL backend) sucked.
I don’t need a better UI, I need backup emails that don’t stop arriving inexplicably for a few weeks at a time while my customers are screaming at me.
Len said,
July 26, 2011 @ 3:21 pm
Wonder what the gestation period is going to be for Scott’s ‘exciting’ road ahead as per top of thread? As a longtime used I’m being tempted by current new backup offerings which are a bit more user friendly. Can’t wait for ever…
Aaron said,
August 13, 2011 @ 11:30 pm
To be fair, Scott Gibson said only that they would ‘…plan on supporting other platforms like Android..’ not actually do anything
It is a bit disappointing though, that the product I backed and recommended heavily, (1) for its wide and equal platform support, and (2) for it open repository format (with reference source code provided!), has now lost both. The vault repository is now entirely proprietary, and platform support has slipped so far behind that the platform that is the largest, 50% of the mobile market is not supported at all!
It is only the Linux workstation and server support that still excites me. But if Skype is any guide. JungleDisk will abandon Linux to meet the return-rate demands of investors or for an IPO
Cavan Kelly said,
September 9, 2011 @ 3:18 pm
Any update available on this? It’s been 7 months since this article was published so I don’t think it would be considered badgering to ask…
John Leibowitz said,
October 4, 2011 @ 3:16 pm
+1 to Cavan Kelly’s comment.
Is there +*!any!*+ update to this article?
Especially for the issues on the reseller side?
Kevin Hiebert said,
October 22, 2011 @ 10:02 pm
When will the Android client be ready? I see that SOS Online Backup announced their Android Access in October.
Phil Denton said,
October 24, 2011 @ 2:37 am
+1 to Cavan Kelly – any updates?
James Paul said,
November 8, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
I use the reseller server versions extensively but have been keeping an eye on the desktop and consumer versions also. I’m surprised that there’s been no visible moves forward by JungleDisk in the mobile space yet this year. Android is the number one mobile OS both in market share and new sales, and 10 months after this post we still have no JungleDisk Android client? And no blog posts at all since May? To me this implies stagnation at best, and hints that I may be looking to migrate elsewhere soon.
I expected to see an Android version of the server management app long before now.
Ben Bowtell said,
November 13, 2011 @ 5:39 pm
Has Jungledisk been abandoned by Rackspace now?
BSalita said,
November 30, 2011 @ 12:13 pm
Seeing that JungleDisk improvements are AWOL, we have to assume development resources have been allocated elsewhere. Too bad, after looking at several competing offerings (SOSBackup, CrashPlan+), I find JungleDisk, albeit less user friendly, still offers the best options and display information. JungleDisk is as fast as SOSBackup but more configurable. It’s 4x more expensive than CrashPlan+ but also 4x faster. So far I can’t find a better alternative than JungleDisk.
Syaman said,
January 20, 2012 @ 7:35 pm
It has been almost a year now since this post, but now much appears to have changed. Is this product still being developed?