6/21/2010

Dear Anthracite Users,

It is with a heavy heart that I must today announce what is hopefully only a temporary suspension in support for Metafy's flagship Anthracite web mining software and other software products.

The practical reality of the situation is that the new startup doing iPhone infrastructure in which I am involved, Push.IO, has simply completely consumed my professional attention, and it is unrealistic and unfair to continue to operate Metafy as an actively going concern given that.

Metafy is not going to be completely dissolved for several reasons.

Most importantly, Metafy doesn't want current customers to be completely shut off. If you are running Anthracite, you should at least be able to get in touch with someone if there is a critical problem. I know many Anthracite customers are still using it daily for mission-critical purposes in their businesses, in no way should you have to make any immediate changes to that.

For another, there are a number of consulting contracts that remain relevant for a company like Metafy with substantial MacOS X, iPhone and other industrial data processing experience.

Furthermore, believe it or not, there is, in fact, a new 2.0 version of Anthracite in the works. I just checked, and it's actually been in development since 2006. And it's a super high performance total rewrite, complete overhaul, amazing update based on actual customer feedback and needs, with expansive new functionality added including a comprehensive plug-in architecture for letting third-party developers meet any possible unique need that customers might have, substantial improvements to performance using Apple's fantastic desktop technologies like GCD/Blocks and OpenCL, distributed workload sharing among machines, and much, much more. Should it ever ship, the new version will help definitively establish Metafy as an enterprise-class leader in web mining software. But admittedly that's a big "if" right now.

Finally, Metafy will still be available for its new primary business, enterprise iPhone consulting, and you will likely still continue to see Metafy presenting at conferences and developer events about this and other topics.

I don't make this decision lightly, as not only has Metafy produced welcome recurring revenues for years, I've also been personally touched by the solutions that customers have developed using the software, from data-driven art to river flow monitoring, from wholesale monitoring of SEC filings to tracking the most minute details about websites. Metafy's customers are clearly among the most forward-thinking and innovative users of Mac OS X for business applications of the internet that exist anywhere. That's pretty darn cool, and not easy to have to effectively say "no" to.

There are, of course, many alternatives now, too. Since most people have no idea what a "desktop web mining toolkit" is, I usually tell people "Well, it's kinda like Yahoo Pipes, except it runs on your own machine, and it started shipping in 2003 before Pipes existed." So, if you're looking for a solution like this, you should probably start there: http://pipes.yahoo.com

The next most common thing that happens is that we get approached by a new prospective customer, but instead of wanting to buy the toolkit, they just want to buy a finished solution, and for that, it looks like folks like ScrapeGoat (http://www.scrapegoat.com/) may be perfect for you.

Again, we're not disappearing completely, and we may yet come out of "retirement" to play another season.

But in the meantime, we need to be honest with you that Metafy is not currently active, and if you really need us to do something for you, it's going to take a lot of emotional convincing and financial incentive. That's how good the new opportunities in iPhone are, as much as I personally still love this one.

We won't stop you from buying Anthracite, because it's still a fantastic solution to the problem of harvesting data from the web. However, you buy it at your own risk, and it's unlikely you'll be able to get much, if any, support for it. Both the "30 days" initial support and the ongoing customer email support are suspended at this time. You can call the phone number you find on the web, or email us at anything@metafy.com, but you cannot be guaranteed any answer whatsoever.

Stiil, feel free to download the fully-functional two week free trial. If you can make it work for you that way, then by all means, purchase a license and use it to your heart's content.

But, if you can't get it to work for your needs given the supplied samples and web documentation, then please don't purchase a license, as there's no way we can help you get it working at this time.

Anthracite Customers! Thank You! You've been the best since 2003.

Looking forward to someday being able to deliver Anthracite 2.0 to you,

and Thanking You for your continued support,

Joe Pezzillo, Founder
Metafy LLC
Boulder, Colorado USA


continue to original Metafy website with purchase and support links: http://www.metafy.com