Please don’t take this as a negative post but my favourite business application of all time Dabbledb has been down for a good few hours now. I’m sure the guys are working hard to bring the service back up but for me this just goes to show how important it is for Dabbledb to quickly find a home at a large internet company such as Google/Microsoft/Cisco. My personal preference would be to have Dabbledb rolled into Google Apps.
For those not accustomed to Dabbledb the software provides the most powerful online data manipulation tool that I’ve ever seen. Show me a business that uses spreadsheets to hold data or as part of work process flows (reporting, order forms etc etc) and I will guarantee Dabbledb will transform their business in immeasurably positive ways. It just kind of irks me that more people don’t know about and use the service.
In fact for anyone viewing out there who doesn’t believe me, send me over a spreadsheet and I’ll put it into Dabbledb and I’m willing to bet you’ll never look at Excel in the same loving way again.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for the kind words, and our deepest apologies about the outage. This is the first major outage we’ve seen in the year since we launched, due to a massive hardware failure. I assume you’re back up and running now, since we were able to restore service a few hours after the failure, but if you have any more problems please do drop me a private email and I’ll make sure we look into it.
By: Avi Bryant on July 3, 2007
at 4:52 am
I really, REALLY love Dabble, which is proven by the fact that I still pay them money despite their lackluster uptime. They are head and shoulders above any other solution out there, and they keep adding exciting new features all the time.
But their main problem still persists… they are slow, bug prone, and often go in and out of service. These past few days of outages (which, at posting, they are still going on) are an example of what hurdles they face before they can take it to the next level. They will never be truly adopted into the business world when they have such spotty uptime — and I am sure that they are interested in capturing this market eventually.
But alas, I will continue to use Dabble. The product, when available, is excellent, feature rich, and fun. If they just add some redundancy and speed to the mix, and everyone will be happier.
(Sorry for the rant, but both Dabble’s blog and message board are down under the “catastrophic failure” still being resolved)
By: Tom on July 3, 2007
at 8:20 pm
Avi, thanks for the response, you’ve created a world class application with a passionate user base.
I just wonder if you could share a bit more with the community what plans are ahead for Dabble – obviously within commercial constraints.
I go in front of customers everyday and I’d love to show them Dabble…I think you’ve got an app that could be used in every business.
and Tom you can rant anytime on this blog
By: rosler28 on July 3, 2007
at 8:47 pm
Tom, I’m surprised to hear you describe a “past few days of outages” – user databases and our main web site were out of service for a total of about 4-6 hours on Monday. Our blog was indeed out for a longer because we decided to take the opportunity to move it to Typepad, and the migration took some time.
This is the first system-wide downtime we’ve had. If you’ve been experiencing spotty uptime or poor performance, it is likely an issue with your individual database (which certainly happens), and hopefully one we can resolve. Please do email me with more information, like your database name, and exactly what sort of problems you’ve seen.
Both Tom and Simon – I truly appreciate how positive your tone is even when talking about the negative aspects of our service. It’s wonderful to have such supportive and enthusiastic customers. I hope we can continue to improve to match your expectations.
By: Avi Bryant on July 5, 2007
at 7:22 am